I agree with the good CPL in principle, but he may need to take a look at the documents that put him where he is. 
Posted on 07/24/2007 9:23:59 AM PDT by Caleb1411
In a few short months many of us would join the fight for embattled Fallujah, and our instructors at the Marine Corps School of Infantry - most of whom were sergeants freshly returned from Iraq or Afghanistan themselves - intended to harden us accordingly. Whenever I remember those grueling months, I think of Daniel, a reserved, tough 19-year-old Marine from North Carolina who was my constant companion.
Although we hadn't known each other long, we preferred each other's company - a simple enough bond, but nonetheless one that in difficult times and places is invaluable in itself. Lance Cpl. Daniel F. Swaim - to give him his full name and rank - was an expert shooter, a thoughtful friend, and a quiet bunkmate, though we spent little enough time sleeping in our beds. More often, we laid shivering in crude foxholes, nodding on and off in two-hour shifts under the frigid constellations of January. Everything we suffered, we suffered together.
Almost two years have passed since the explosion that killed him. During that time, other comrades of mine have fallen, but Daniel was the first. Over the course of these many months, hardly a day has passed that I haven't seen his face in my mind and recalled the miseries - minor, in retrospect - that we endured as we trained for our first tour in Iraq. I remember him once mentioning that sometimes he thought he was destined to die "over there." It was as though on the eve of his hunting, he could already hear the baying of the hounds; as if, his scent-trail preceding him into the future, his aggressors had already gained his final retreat. Perhaps his air of solemn resignation was a mere idiosyncrasy, or perhaps it was wisdom. For if we do have a destiny, the menaces we flee throughout life are but tricks of misdirection, the baleful howling upon our heels is but a mock pursuit, and it is we in truth who, wending our way ineluctably thither, close the gap with fate.
Daniel, moribund but stoic, will always remain imprinted upon my memory, for the loss of a fellow warrior is an everlasting grief. As we tread hard paths in dread places, the brotherhood between us holds forth against the darkness, guaranteeing each that should he fall, he would ever remain inside an unbreakable circle. That very bond, though, renders it difficult to accept that the departed have passed beyond where we, the living, may follow.
From the first day of boot camp, Marines learn that pain is endured together - always, unfailingly together. Thus, it feels wrong - unjust, perhaps - that the grim dispensations of suffering and death are visited upon a select few. The mission goes on, of course, and the demands of the day disperse the lees of sorrow, like a merciful wind keeping everything aflurry in its wake. But unbestirred by distraction, in the stillness and silence, those sorrows persist, sinking back through the ether to downwardly alight and settle upon familiar roosts.
Every day, more young men like Daniel perish in Iraq. In previous articles, I've steered clear of political commentary, if only to distance my voice from the braying demagoguery and tone-deaf hysteria of American politics. To keep mum in the midst of political controversy is a soldierly tradition, after all - to paraphrase Tennyson: Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.
But to watch one's brethren die is to be faced with questions that are inherently political. To wit, what is the value of human life? What is victory worth in the precious currency of American blood? To wage war, a nation must first examine this grim calculus, a calculus in which the worth of human life is implicitly quantified and wagered toward the purchase and enactment of the national will. No simple fixed-rate transaction, this - unfortunately, war is always a high-stakes gamble. Hobby players and thrill-seekers might therefore exercise caution, examining the depth of their convictions before sitting to cards with opponents who have made a deal with the devil.
America now finds herself going head-to-head against just such an opponent in Iraq, and, for better or for worse, she looks ready to fold her cards and take a seat at the bar. The daily, wholesale slaughter, the perceived lack of progress, and the general feeling of weariness with this long campaign - each day finds her will at a new low ebb. To argue whether America's ever-growing sacrifices represent mile markers on the long road to a rehabilitated Iraq, or, alternatively, whether they indicate that victory, if possible, has simply become too costly, is not my intent. That is for the American people to decide.
But at the risk of breaking with personal habit and soldierly tradition, I would admonish my countrymen upon a few points.
First, war should never be an enterprise undertaken by nations that require certainty. Uncertainty and setbacks are a part of war and a daily reality on the streets of Iraq. No professional soldier feels betrayed when, in the course of a mission, he encounters hiccups, dilemmas, or bad odds. Nor does he feel betrayed because his mission involves death, for that is the predictable plight of a soldier: to kill and to be killed, to "do and die" as chance or destiny dictates. But to watch one's brethren cut down as America alternately pounces, vacillates, backpedals and chases her tail - this is a betrayal beyond reckoning.
Second, as great patriots such as Daniel die for causes they presume their nation is committed to achieving, a great nation, in turn, accepts nothing less than the victory for which it has bade its sons and daughters bleed.
On either part - soldier and nation - there is the presumption of honor.
And so regardless of what determination America reaches concerning the fate of Iraq, I urge her, so long as she exists, never to enter another war unless she goes to win. Should she ask her sons and daughters to take up arms, may she honor their sacrifices with the unflagging conviction and strength of conscience that is necessary to achieve victory. And if she cannot stomach the stakes involved, if the sacrifices of young men such as Daniel do not bolster her resolve but merely plunge her deeper into moral confusion and hysteria, may she, for her own good and for the good of the world, cease pretending at war altogether.
Cpl. John Matthew Bishop is a Marine who is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. For operational security reasons, the exact location of his unit cannot be revealed.
BUMP!
I think we’re done winning wars. It’s the result of the global community.
Accurate beyond measure...I feel shame for my group, American civilians who will not bear the pain, yet watch each terrorist video as if it were the first car crash we had ever seen.
God bless him and all such.
Wow! Talk about articulate. Another shining example of why we will never lose this war militarily.
Bears repeating. Over and over and over again. This hits it on the head.
This is precisely the lesson we should have learned when my generation fought in Viet Nam, nothing by half steps, no ‘simon-says’ rules of engagement, nor politicians making operational decisions. We can debate the need for war, but when the balloon goes up, it is time to, “cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war”, nothing less can justify the sacrifice.
I think it will take another 9-11 type incident, on an even larger scale, before Americans will have the will to fight this battle the way it must be fought to win.
One of the big problems with shielding people from the shared sacrifice of a war (for example to try and keep the economy humming along), is that frequently they see the difficult side of war and don’t connect that with the necessity of winning it.
“Gentlemen may cry peace, peace. But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweat, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it! Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” As we Biafrans struggle for our own freedom, it is crucial that we learn from the lessons of history: Freedom does not come cheap, easy and on a silver platter. It requires blood, sweat and sacrifice. And borrowing from Shakespeare:
That he who has no stomach for this fight, let him depart, his passport shall be made... We will not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us...He that outlives this struggle, and comes safe Home, Will stand a tip-toe when this struggle is named...He that shall live this struggle, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,...Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars...But he will remember with advantages what feats he did in those days.
Americans need more of the spirit and attitude shown above.
Beautifully written. What a well-spoken and articulate man.
mark
“Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
I agree. I just moved to NY less than three months ago, and less than twenty miles from the WTC, I was discussing politics with neighbors who despise Bush. These were Jewish men, and they should know better about which party would really come to the support of Israel when the time comes.
I supported going to war in Iraq, but I did NOT support slap-and-tickle warfare. I wanted to see smoking holes in the ground where there are cities whose names we still hear in the news, when the latest IED casualties are happening. I did not sign up for spending precious American lives and treasure to bring democracy to a people that is at least a thousand years away from being able to appreciate it. I did not approve bringing many thousands of them here to compete with my children for jobs, just like my generation did with the Vietnamese who edged me out of jobs.
Oddly enough, perhaps we have done too good a job of allowing the American people to forget 9/11, and allowing the American President to use "compassionate conservatism" on our enemies, when we intended for him to use it with only our countrymen.
I am not sure about that. In WWII for example, the sacrifice at home (apart from loved ones serving and being injured or dying, of course) was not terrible in the scheme of things. Sure, there was rationing and all, people couldn’t travel or spend the way they might have liked to, but when it comes down to it, the sacrifice at home in no way was going to contribute to an antiwar sentiment or increased support for the military mission. We had Pearl Harbor.
Likewise, we have 9/11. I don’t see how NOT keeping the economy humming along by doing something like raising taxes or whatever could in ANY way be beneficial. Just my opinion, but I don’t see it at all.
If we could not understand the concept of Islamofacism as the enemy, something that was adopted, approved, financed and encouraged by despotic regimes such as the Hussein regime, then we just cannot understand.
Personally, I view this as a three part problem, not related to individual sacrifice on the home front:
1.) Inaction on the part of the President to use the Bully Pulpit and take it directly to the American people on a constant basis. President Bush has shown unequiviocally that he can speak extemporaneously on this subject, and be eloquent and passionate. For some reason, he has chosen not to. He should have been taking this PAST the treasonous congress directly to the American public early and often. I see this as a failing.
2.) Partisan politics has taken over the debate. We were not having this debate in April 2003. The Administration HAS said OFTEN from day one that this was going to be hard, and it might take years or even generations to fight. I have never EVER heard anyone sugarcoat it. Now, it is all politics, liberals have reverted to who they REALLY are, and they are the ones driving the debate.
3.) The insidious, steady, unrelenting DRUMBEAT day after day after day, year after year of negative reporting by the MSM does have an effect, because many people do NOT realize what the real mission of the MSM is. Sure, most people at this point might say “Oh God, here he goes again with media bias and how they all want to get Bush out of office...”, but that is not my primary point. My primary point is that the media is, first and foremost, driven by bad news, negativism and keeping their viewers on an emotional edge with a drama just short of disaster if it can be done.
“If it Bleeds-it Leads” is not just shorthand, it is gospel. The media is not interested that our military killed 75 terrorists in a two hour long battle in a remote part of Afghanistan. They are interested when a car bomb goes off in a crowded marketplace, and there are wailing women and men carrying limp bodies of maimed children amidst the backdrop of black smoke, orange flames and wailing sirens. To illustrate how this is not only not new, but was pioneered by and participated in by the same people who pull the strings in the media today, go to:
http://www.viet-myths.net/AimImpact.wmv
It is a simply stunning analysis of the Tet Offensive in 1968, and how the power of the Media shaped the perception of the battlefield. And this is why we are where we are today. The media may not be deliberately aiming as a group for the downfall and humilition of the Bush Administration in particular and America in general, but in an industry that is, by its own admission more than 75% liberal, that would be a happy byproduct.
In summary, I think these three things I outlined have FAR FAR more impact on the war than the concept of shared sacrifice on the home front. I am not saying it doesn’t factor in, but it does not (in my opinion) approach the effect of these three things.
If you're looking for the reason so many, vocally on the right, silently within the military, have lost faith in President Bush over the war, this is it. We were fighting a casual, gentleman's war long before the Democrats got involved. Not getting killed and not accidentally killing civilians were always higher priority than victory. Those weaknesses have been used against us effectively, and now we face political rout over it.
To send troops to war, we need to be willing to say to them, "No matter how many of you die, or how many people you need to kill, winning is not negotiable. I pray that as few of you die as possible, and that our opponents are broken with a minimum of casualties, but there will be no peace until you achieve victory."
Otherwise, we're just haggling over the price of defeat, one IED at a time.
BTW...are you an ex-brownshoe?
I agree with the good CPL in principle, but he may need to take a look at the documents that put him where he is.
Even Joe Lieberman knows that we cannot afford to coddle the islammunist enemy. I wish American Jews would get the picture, but even Israeli Jews have not elected a leader who would defend them.
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