..hmmm, they arrived at my old base after I left, hmmm neat patch
Posted on 05/31/2006 7:05:14 PM PDT by llevrok
RUSH: We have a call from Iraq from Tallil Air Force Base. Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick somehow got through. Lieutenant Colonel, this is an honor to have you on the phone with us while you're in Iraq -- at any time, actually. Thank you for calling.
CALLER: Good afternoon, I believe it is your time, Rush, and major dittos here from the sandbox.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I wanted to let you know that you and your cohort, Mr. Hannity, are the only two that I allow to get broadcast across our ready room. The rest of the liberals can go listen on their Walkmans if they so choose.
RUSH: Are you free to say all this? That's cool.
CALLER: Yes, I am. Well, what are they going to do, Rush, send me to Iraq?
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: I mean, honestly. I'm here. I do want to take the time, though, to thank you and everybody else who is back behind us for the support you have given us. This is, let me stress, an all volunteer military. So when you take that into account, all the across-the-aisle bickering as to whether or not we need to be here or not be here, whether we should go home or stay and more force, it really is irrelevant. Every one of us, when we signed the papers, we knew what was going to be asked of us in the worst-case scenario. We are here. We are the best trained standing military force in the world, and I only ask one of two things: either unlock our cage and let us do what we are trained to do better than anyone else in the world, or send us home.
RUSH: Do you feel you're being --
CALLER: I'm a single father, Rush. I lost my wife about 15 years ago. I have two children, and I volunteered to come back here because I live and breathe our country. It is not "land of the free and home of the brave." It is land of the free because of the brave.
RUSH: Profound. That is a profundity, Luke.
CALLER: And that is something that I think a majority of our listeners, whether or not you sit on the left side or the right side of the aisle, you could pass me in the supermarket, at the gas station paying $3 a gallon --
RUSH: (Laughing.)
CALLER: -- and not know whom I was, the sacrifices I've made, nor do I want accolades for that, nor do any of my brethren -- brothers and sisters. And this is the first major conflict where there are women in combat fighting roles. And you can talk all you want about Jessica Lynch, and... That was not a combat role. There are women in combat here today, in Baghdad, in Kut, in Mosul, in Basra, in Yusufia, that hold the same responsibilities and the heavy burden on our shoulders, and I -- it's hard to say, Rush, but it starts to feel like Vietnamization, when we can key into our mainstream media. I happen to be from northern Minnesota.
RUSH: Say, Lieutenant Colonel Fitzpatrick, can you hang on? I'm really late on the commercial break, and I have to take it.
CALLER: Absolutely, Rush. Take your time, please, sir.
RUSH: If you can hang on, I'll be right to you right after this. Don't lose your train of thought there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And we are back with Lieutenant Colonel Luke Fitzpatrick from Tallil Air Force Base in Iraq. You were talking about the Vietnamization when you key into the Drive-By Media here and watch their reports on what you're doing.
CALLER: Absolutely, sir. We're just... We're a little concerned as to the fallout, for lack of a better term, of the extended nature of the conflict here -- and we hate to call it a "conflict," because, Rush, somebody shoots at me every night. Every night on combat air patrol, regardless, we get shot at.
RUSH: Let me tell you something, lieutenant colonel. We know what happened when we left Mogadishu, when we left Somalia with victory in our hands, and Clinton decided to pull out --
CALLER: He castrated us, Rush.
RUSH: If we quit in Iraq, we cannot imagine the -- and so a lot of us are sensitive to your concerns with the Drive-By Media. We battle it every day here.
CALLER: In terms of the drive-by, Rush, I was here originally from Shield. I was the second division applied here from Shield, from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, the Fourth Fighter Wing. I was here from Shield through Storm through Enduring Freedom, now Operation OIF, Iraqi Freedom. The reason I came back is because I felt that the job was not finished, and it's not finished. Yes, we have a standing government, but I get shot at every night. I come home with holes in my airplane, Rush. Granted they're not critical.
RUSH: What do you fly?
CALLER: One day it may be, and you will read about me on CNN, and I will be that blurb, and I will show up in that 2600-some-odd casualty figure that the Drive-By Media is obsessed with of how many people have died over here, because we are an all-volunteer force -- and that is the main reason that we called in today. I'm calling in, I just happened to be the mouthpiece for the squadron here, the 336th Tactical Fighter Wing from Seymour Johnson, the Rocketeers. We're an F-15E Strike Eagle squadron. We fly-by-night. Our motto is, "Raining fire from above for the freedom that we love."
RUSH: Wow. Wow! (Laughing.)
CALLER: And, you know, a little short of the death-from-above syndrome, but we're here to do a job, and I'm tired of being handcuffed and the guys I command and constantly send into battle every day knowing that they could not come back and I'll have to write that you letter to their significant others, to their moms, to their dads.
RUSH: Lieutenant colonel, I hate to have to do this. I have to stop you because I'm out of time here, but let me just --
CALLER: That's fine, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you so much. You have made the program today. You have brought tears to people's eyes. I've been reading e-mail from them about it, and just know that everybody in this audience and the vast majority of the American people, love you and support what you're doing and wish you the best, and thank you.
END TRANSCRIPT
That fits with my hunch our forces are in another Vietnam. That is a war managed by politicans, lawyers and shiney pants diplomats.
..hmmm, they arrived at my old base after I left, hmmm neat patch
If Rush were very honest................... he's quit his soft job and tell the country that the government is corrupt!
..heres another
I was listening EST NYC, and I'm thinking this soldier has to maybe die like a soldier, but hesitate like a police officer while the perp decides fate for both of them. eF that.
I am sure he (Rush) got the "gist" from the editing of the comments. However I doubt that in his hearing impaired state, he understood all. No doubt there will be much comment tomorrow.
God Bless them both!
The Lt.C. Is correct, let them go! They are damned good at what they do, that's what thy want to do!
If there is any "VietNam-ization" going on here,
it's all Political!!
Can you say LBJ and Sec Def MacNamara?
FAILURE!
Giving creedence to Flip Flop and his 30 years of traitorous acts?
FAILURE!
Kill people and break things!
We have a WINNAH!
I am old enough to remember Vietnam. My waters tell me this is getting too micromanaged ala Vietnam by the politicians. The Lt Col's comments only added to those concerns.
I will also say that IF there is anything to the alleged Marine civilian killings, it may have come frustration of the guerilla warefare + leashed forces.
No offense but that doesn't sound like a very good business model.
Secondly, after he quits his job, how does his message reach the country?
By the way, government corruption is a constantly recurring theme on his show, so he pretty much has been telling the country all along.
Thanks for posting this wonderful call. You are so right that he felt he (they) are being held back from what the military could really do and that is a gosh darn shame. Darn it.
Ping
Let's get on track. Can we make contact directly to this soldier; let him and his command hear from us?
It was a great call, and he said he was speaking for his unit if I understood him correctly.
My temptation is to call you an idiot but instead I will let you prove it yourself. Everyone knows the government is corrupt, we don't need to be told. Even our corrupt mouthpieces, the MSM, know the government is corrupt and they point it out daily. Why do you blame Rush for anything?? He is as honst as Bush! Please help prove me wrong, that you are an idiot, and make sense of what you say.
I heard that too.
Do you blame the MSM in any part for our military "being on the leash" so to speak? I do. I think some of our politicians are so afraid of what the MSM might say about them that they do all they can to curry favor with them. They are as corrupt as if they robbed a bank, because they are accepting a salary they haven't earned, and they've harmed our nation and military men and women in the process!
PING
This is different than Vietnam, but with potentially the same predictable consequences.
In Vietnam we were undertaking an actual war (against N.Vietnam and Vietcong) with massive troop involvement, but constricted by the politicians in undertaking an all out decisive defeat of the enemy (i.e. invading and obliterating N. Vietnam's capability to wage war). This "non-victory" (rope-a-dope) strategy in waging this war, bought our enemies valuable time and hemmorraged our national will to continue the fight.
In Iraq, we 'won' the actual war through defeat of a standing army, but with limited troops in the country, and our lack of planning to establish immediate Iraqi control over social and policing infrastructure, it left a horrendous strategic void which allowed the enemy to re-organize and capture popular support to wage an insurgency - at the same time - sucking our military into a prolonged "policing" role.
The longer we maintain a "policing" (i.e 'restricted) role, the higher the price we will pay for this involvement, and the greater the odds are we will begin to lose the popular support necessary to see this involvement through to a successful conclusion.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"
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