Posted on 02/17/2005 4:53:37 AM PST by tsmith130
Edited on 02/17/2005 5:18:32 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Mod note: One for the troops! Bumped to BN for more exposure.
(AgapePress) - Rick from Winona, Mississippi, called my state-wide talk radio program this week. Sometimes, you get a phone call that ought to be read in the broader market.
On the program that day we were discussing the report that some Europeans were disgusted with the Super Bowl commercial of American soldiers getting applause in an airport. The critics thought it too extreme in its patriotism and a possible incitement to further war.
At any rate, Rick (he asked us not to use his full name) called to talk about his experience coming back recently from the fields of war. His words (and they are worth your time reading, only lightly edited):
"I heard you talking about the Super Bowl commercial. I'm a Marine, a re-con Marine. I just got back from overseas, the second week of December, actually. I was injured overseas, so that's why I'm home now.
"But the whole time I was [there, in recovery] we watched the news to see what's going on. And we saw the protests, and we saw what the media was saying about what's going on, and we were worried about what we were actually going to face when we came home. We didn't know what to expect, to be honest with you. From the news media we were seeing, the whole country was basically telling us we're a bunch of jerks.
"I thank God that the troops that are there don't see the news coverage. I thank God every day, because there'd be ten times the number getting killed, just because it would so un-motivate [sic] them.
"Back to the story: there were seven other soldiers that came home with me that day. We flew into JFK, and we were talking on the way back: What's going to happen? What will we be facing? Is it going to be like the Vietnam era, are there going to be people spitting at us?
"We didn't know. We had that much trepidation about it.
"We get into JFK, we step out of the breezeway into the main terminal, and directly in front of us was an elderly gentleman carrying a bag. And he immediately stopped, set his bag down, and the first thing we all thought was, 'Oh, Lord, here we go already.' He just stopped and looked at us for a second, and then tears came to his eyes and he saluted us.
"And -- I'm breaking up now [editor's note: with tears] -- every one of us just started crying like babies. Everybody in the terminal -- I kid you not, at least two to three hundred people -- just started clapping, spontaneously. To me, it was so much worth what we were doing, to realize that people over here actually get what we were doing. We weren't over there because it's fun. We're over there doing a job.
"When I saw the Super Bowl commercial, I just started bawling like a baby again because that was something totally unexpected. We had no idea that people actually appreciated what we're doing, from what we see on the news. We thought we were going to come back and get eggs thrown at us. It was so refreshing to know that what we were seeing on the news is just a bunch of garbage that's being concocted by the media, that 99.9 percent of the country doesn't believe that way.
"I have a couple of more months of recovery. I got hit with a concussion and have some internal damage, but I'm feeling up, doing well, and hopefully I can get back over there with my boys."
It caused some tears in this talk show host's eyes to know there were tears in his. Appreciation, smiles, handclaps -- they can go a long way when a nation is at war, regardless of what the media and some Europeans might think.
Matt Friedeman (mfriedeman@wbs.edu) is a professor at Wesley Biblical Seminary. Respond to this column at his blog at "In the Fight."
Thanks for your service, and welcome home.
Now that I think about it, nominating Kerry was the best thing the Libs could've done! It reminded everyone about Vietnam and made people begin to realize the truth about what happened. I was in my late teens during that era, but a lot of people alive today didn't know any more about it than what was in the school textbooks (which tend to be slanted left). After the Swifties and others started exposing Kerry and his anti-American activities, most people began to realize how important it is to support our troops.
You gotta love the Marines! Guys like this are why the U.S. military is the best in the world, and why this country is the greatest the world has ever seen (no matter how hard the leftists and MSM try to tell the world otherwise).
I have been treated exceptionally well these last couple years. When boarding commercial airplanes I constantly have people thank me for my service. Right after 9-11 a woman told me how much safer she felt because I was flying on her aircraft. Free drinks, free coffee, you name it. At a vineyard in California an employee gave me a $25 bottle of wine when he found out I was on active duty. Squaw Valley is giving free lift tickets this season to active military, with no limit on the number of visits. That lift ticket is 60 bucks.
You're so right. Those "news" reporters are totally clueless about the military.
couldn't have said it better, Semper Fi to those men.
Yea, I'd seen it before myself, but when I downloaded it again just now, it hit me about as powerfully when I first saw it.
Blowtorch: I know someone has a link and I did a quick search and couldn't find one. People on one the superbowl threads would be a good place to start.
I've got to get back to work so I don't have time right now to sort through over 3700 posts. ;-)
The first mentions of the then just-viewed commercial are in the 2200 range
ping
God Bless the Troops!
ping
If I ever heard some leftie moonbat from Takoma making rude comments to a military person on the Metro, I would definitely give them what for.
These are the same sort of nuts that slither around DU.
At one time the link to commercials was listed at the top of the thread.
Have Googled to several sites, they all have the same streaming versions.
There's also a very wonderful lady in Maine who does something very similar for the troops coming there.
What you describe isn't at all isolated, and I think the media who refuse to cover this good news should be extremely ashamed of themselves.
Worth repeating...
6 against 1 and from behind sounds like what anti-war PEACE protestors would do.
The left think it's "too patriotic" because they've pretended all they can, and they're done. It's for show.
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