Posted on 07/01/2005 3:45:48 PM PDT by Antonello
I was looking at the spattered dust outside my room today when it hit me. Someday our soldiers will leave this ugly, barren FOB. The high guard towers will lay empty, their glowering profile softened by unruly nests of squawking birds. The sandbags will rot away from dusty windows and the shimmering light of day will finally dance in cloistered rooms. Warehouses full of supplies will lay barren. Motorpools thick with the low, lethal silhouettes of armored vehicles will sit empty save for wretched and twisted weeds. Sections of the high perimeter wall will crumble and fall into chaotic piles of masonry. And the only sound will be the tortured screech of broken sheet metal roofs banging in the desert wind. The FOB will be dead – drained of the throbbing pulse of men and machinery that make her so powerful and fell.
When that inevitable day comes I will have long since rotated home. But I can’t help but wonder what Iraq will be like when the door closes on this chapter in our military history. Will the new democratic Iraq survive its tempestuous infancy and serve its people with justice and mercy? Will fathers and mothers be able to raise their children to be strong and proud? Will we have left the cradle of civilization a better and brighter place for having been here? Every fiber of my being wants this to be true, it would justify the price we have paid in blood and anguish.
But I have another selfish reason for hoping this all comes to pass. Someday I hope to raise a son… and I don’t want him to have to fight another war in this burning land. And if we cut and run before giving Iraq a chance to become a free society that is exactly what will happen. I have managed to read a couple articles from the mainstream press where impassioned editors have screeched about the incredible cost in lives and treasure this war has cost our country. They perform their dark calculus, tallying lives lost and money spent, and use to justify cutting and running. But they aren’t out here sweating and bleeding and dying. They don’t stay awake nights wondering if they did everything in their power to get their men back home safely. They don’t cry bitter tears over lost friends. And they don’t see the enemy for who they really are.
Have you ever stopped to think about who the insurgents really are? Or about what their final goal really is? Do you think for a moment that they are fighting for freedom? For their people? Have you ever wondered why foreign jihadists are trickling into Iraq to attack our forces? In case you have been living under a rock for the last several years I will spell it out for you in as clear a fashion as I am able. The insurgents are composed of two primary groups. The first is composed of former Baath Party member who long to once again crush their populace for their own personal gain. The second group is inhabited by jihadists whose malignant form of Islam calls for the destruction of anything counter to their backwards ideology. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not bashing the whole of Islam. I’m referring to a small but virulent subset of the religion that is bent on imposing their draconian will on others. That is the face of our enemy, and you would be a fool to think that leaving that plague unchecked would bring anything except disaster.
Our country has drawn a line in the sand, and committed her forces to allowing Iraq to choose her own destiny. If we turn our back on that solemn pledge we not only dishonor the memory of the troops that sealed this promise with their very lifeblood, we embolden the jihadists bent on destroying everything we stand for. Do I want to melt under the blistering sun day in and day out? No. Do I want to shuffle off this mortal coil in a foreign land? Again no. Did I want to leave my beautiful bride? A thousand times no. But in the end it comes down to this. I would rather see this through to the end and spend the rest of my days in peace - then leave this country before the mission is through and have these same jihadists attack the fertile soil of home.
Of course these type letters written by our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be shown on the boob tubes, and newspapers throughout America. Seldom do they see the light of day. At least many at sites like this see the Wars and follow up SASO and general WOT for what they really are. The POTUS had no options.
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