In the preface of his book, War Stories, this is how Oliver North described our military:
"... And while there is no typical soldier or Marine, it is possible to describe the average young American who carries a weapon into battle.
"He a volunteer, 19.6 years old .... He isn't old enough to buy a beer, and if he were back home in the USA we'd call him a boy.
"... he was probably a team sports athlete in high school and graduated somewhere in the middle of the pack, making him better educated than any prior generation in our military.
"... He has a short haircut and tight muscles, and wears a 4-pound Kevlar helmet and an 18-pound flak jacket to work. He can march all day in 100 degree heat with a 60-pound pack on his back. This young man in uniform knows how to use every weapon in his unit and he can fieldstrip and reassembly his own weapon in less than a minute - in the dark. In Iraq he's gone weeks without bathing, but cleans his weapon every day.
"Under fire he obeys orders instantly. He's been taught chemistry, physics, and ballistics, and can navigate with a map and compass but prefers the GPS he bought at the base exchange.
"Before joining the military he couldn't be bludgeoned into picking up his room, doing his laundry, or washing the dishes, but now he's remarkably self-sufficient. He prepares his own meals, washes and mends his own clothes, digs his own foxhole and latrine, and keeps his feet dry and his canteens full.
"The kid who once wouldn't share a candy bar with his little brother will now offer his last drop of water to a wounded comrade, give his only ration to a hungry Iraqi child, and split his ammo with a mate in a firefight.
"He's been trained to use his body like a weapon and his weapon as if it were a part of his body - and uses either to take a life or save one, but that is his job. He will offer his own food and water to enemy prisoners of war, and go out of his way to make certain that captured enemy wounded get medical help.
"The youngster who used to stay in the sack until noon now exists on just 3 or 4 hours of sleep a day.
"By now he's already had more responsibility and seen more suffering and death than most of his civilian contemporaries will see in their entire lifetimes.
"He's learned a whole new vernacular of foreign-sounding words. It's not Iraqi Arabic, but military shorthand. He uses words like CONUS, h-hour, zulu time, incoming, snafu, and fubar that mean nothing to most civilians.
"He's been told that grown men don't cry, but he has wept unashamedly in public over a fallen friend ... And though he can now take profanity to the level of an art form, it's also likely that he has a Bible in his rucksack and isn't afraid to be seen reading it.
"He's proud to be serving his country, reveres his commander in chief, and knows that he is respected in return.
...
"These are the young Americans who beat the Butcher of Baghdad. Their skill and daring, discipline and endurance are without parallel in the world today.
Thank you so very much for that.
Our military, our heroes.
bump!
Thanks for posting those words of Oliver North. Interesting that he was in the White House when James Webb was Secretary of the Navy. I much prefer Ollie's words to Jim's published words.
One of them autographed a book for my husband. (Not to mention that my own soldier is a college educated, high IQ, remarkable man!)
Good post.