The fighting person of the year: Courage in flesh and blood on the battlefield

Washington Times ^ | Thursday, January 1, 2004 | Suzanne Fields

[JohnHuang2]

War is hell, as William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, and postwar peace can be far from heaven, too. The noblest intentions go awry on the battlefield. The idealism that starts the fight does not always filter down to those who must do the fighting.

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, January 1, 2004

Quote of the Day by HaloStatue

[Leisler]

"...We look at their faces and realize how ignorant we are of what they've endured. ...

Only because the leftist, the leftist professions, their metrosexual "menfolk" haven't, never have and don't serve to protect this country and its ideals. And why should they, since they are against it all.

[trebb]

Actually, I liked the statement - clean, simple and profound. Unless you've been there, there's no way you can imagine what combat troops go through, or imagine the mental forces that mold their personalities.

The wussies (left-wing "liberals") are absolutely incapable of even admitting that the experience can build more character in the average high-school graduate than exists in a whole auditorium of left-wing PHDs.

[Search4Truth]

"It's hard to find precise heroic words to describe young men and women who are far away from home fighting to bring a better world to a population of people who aren't exactly sure what freedom means (or even whether they want it). "

Women are fighting in Iraq? I thought women did not go into combat and served only in non-combat support roles. Or does feminism and political correctness now require us to put the contributions of women in war on a par with those of men.

Wouldn't the truth be that it is our men who are fighting in Iraq, with the support of our women? Very much the same as it has always been.

[Last Dakotan]

My thoughts exactly!

[El Gato]

I thought women did not go into combat and served only in non-combat support roles.

You thought wrong. Women serve in many combat roles. Pilots and other aircrew for example and in the Army, SAM crews. Just about anything but front line ground combat slots. Besides, in this sort of situtation, the distinction between combat and non-combat is blurry at best. A truck driver or repair technition may suddenly find themself in combat.

[Search4Truth]

"You thought wrong. Women serve in many combat roles. Pilots and other aircrew for example and in the Army, SAM crews. Just about anything but front line ground combat slots. Besides, in this sort of situtation, the distinction between combat and non-combat is blurry at best. A truck driver or repair technition may suddenly find themself in combat."

I suppose one can define combat in any way their agenda suits them. But it is men who are doing the real fighting, since it is men who are doing the real dying. That simple fact does not seem blurry to me.