So here it goes, a book plug for a fellow Marine whom I served with who had such a fine grasp of the foreign policy vision of two generations of President Bush back before it was fully articulated by the second Bush. In my opinion, this articulation needs to be repeated over and over again [like I’ve attempted here, in post #75] lest we forget that vision and our purpose for being in Iraq, for the second time! The book is titled Tip of the Spear: U.S. Marine Light Armor in the Gulf War and it was written in 1998 by a Marine NCO. This is what he wrote back in 1998, eight years ago mind you, reflecting on what was happing from 1990 through 1991:
Despite the degree of commitment and motivation that energized us throughout the deployment, all the marines on my crew suffered from homesickness. It was very frustrating for us to be in the desert so long away from our families. My wife and I had just had our first son the previous spring; my gunner’s wife was due to have their first child the coming spring; one of my scouts wanted to be with his little girl. We just wanted to go home.Another frustration was the fact that no distinct time line had been set for our going home. We had heard rumors we might be home by Christmas, but hope faded quickly as the year progressed. When President Bush issued the January deadline to Sadaam Hussein, we finally had a dim light to look forward to. I remember writing my wife on 3 November that it would really be depressing if they told us we wouldn’t be going home until 31 March (which, ironically, turned out to be the very date I did leave for home). Of course the way we all wanted to go home was by having done the job we were sent to do – quickly.
In addition to the overall positive attitude we had about our mission and our reason for existence in the theater, we shared a strong dislike for Sadaam Hussein. We heard news of his exploits, including his having patients’ life-saving equipment unplugged at hospitals and babies taken out of incubators in order to preserve resources for his war machine – babies who were left to die on the cold hospital floors. Hussein was destroying lives and futures; and as far as we were concerned, he deserved to die painfully. I can still remember vividly the distaste we felt for what he and his army were doing. There was no love lost between the Iraqis and us, the crew of Blue 5.
Perhaps the most pivotal moment in Blue 5’s quest for understanding of our purpose happened during one of the battalion operations in November: the crew was privy to a sight that would live indelibly in our minds. There was nothing particularly dramatic about the sight, but the circumstance, and the meaning behind what we saw, strengthened the resolve had already started to develop. We were on the left wing of the company formation when we passed a Kuwaiti position in the middle of the Saudi desert. I looked over from my turret hatch and saw tiny Kuwaiti flags flying proudly from every antenna of every BMP (an armored amphibious infantry combat vehicle). Some of the flags were makeshift, constructed by the BMP crews in memory of the freedom they had lost.
I told the crew to look as we passed the position, we all stared in silence. There were no words required: each of reflected solemnly on the pain that the Kuwaiti soldiers must have been feeling. Yes, we all wanted to go home, but when we spoke these thoughts aloud, we realized they were selfish. These warriors before us did not have a home to go to! I think at that very moment I realized that no matter what the official position was, I could never believe that the war was about oil. Later, as a crew, we talked about that moment often. We all agreed. We all saw and felt the same things: the war was about freedom lost, a freedom that had to be regained. Our desire to go home was tempered by that brief passing in the sand.
We were getting American newspapers and magazines sporadically throughout the deployment. Each time we read the articles the presses were publishing, we got mad. We saw protesters in America who believed the war was about oil – they chanted slogans like No blood for oil! We read the letters to the editors in the news papers and found the protesters there, too. We talked about these articles and these people on the home front, and we were disgusted. These Americans simply did not know what it was like over here; they did not understand. We were able to remind ourselves, however, that America is a free society and that freedom of speech, and of personal opinion, is part of our national birthright. So with all of our disgust the only thing we could do was continue to believe in ourselves – and in our actions.
The one element of the publicity that we could not tolerate, however, was the letters from service personnel in the Stars and Stripes. We had to accept civilians who didn’t understand as we did and who chose to exercise their opinion, but we didn’t have to accept the same from service members. I read letter after letter written by those in-country who were complaining about the conditions of the deployment, about fighting for Kuwait, about being away from home, and about little things like showers and food. I was shocked. It was one thing to hear such things from a civilian, but hearing them from a military member, who has sworn to carry out the orders given, was appalling.
I began to wonder why these people joined the service at all if they were going to complain at the first hardship to hit them. And I could not believe that NCOs could not control their feelings but had instead decided to air grievances in a forum that all service personnel could read – including their subordinates, the ones they were setting the example for. Adding to the whole problem were the scores of service men and women back in the United States who elected to exercise their right to object to the whole war for one reason or another – and those were the ones who claimed conscientious-objector status.
I am very serious about my business as a marine, and I could not understand any of this. I wrote a letter to my wife on 10 November [the author, who always seemed to find appropriate locations to add explanatory commentary in this book, surprisingly omits the fact that this letter to his wife was written on the 224th Anniversary of the Marine Corp’s founding] in frustration and disgust – “I don’t understand the total, utter selfishness and lack of compassion…who has lost their rights? Let’s think about the thousands who’ve lost their country! It’s not about oil; it can’t be! I wont believe it! It’s about my comrade, and his tiny Kuwaiti flag flying high above his vehicle – that’s what it’s about!”
Take that Jack Murtha types. Oh yeah, and you, too, paleoconservative isolationists. The pings are coming!
Thanks for sharing this.
PING!
Ping!