Posted on 04/13/2003 7:30:22 AM PDT by RANGERAIRBORNE
A great day! But not all of the POW's are accounted for yet ... LET US NOT FORGET NAVY LT. SCOTT SPEICHER MIA since 1991!He's USN Capt Scott Speicher!!! :)- A Navy Veteran
Also you don't see many full Captains as a squadron's CO, normally they would be heading up other types of commands such as a Carrier's CO.
Very great news. Thanks for the ping.
Just as everyone else here, I am thrilled to tears that these seven Americans are alive, free, and out of danger. I had a deep discussion yesterday morning with someone who came into my office. We disagreed vehemently on two things: I believed that our prime focus should be to find our own people who have been captured, or who are unaccounted for. Everything else – no matter the urgency – should be secondary. Time is more of the essence in finding our missing/captured people than it is in any other endeavor, because the longer they are unaccounted for, the greater the chance of extended torture and death. (He did not agree.) I also believed that these seven had most likely already been tortured and were no longer alive. (Again, he did not agree.) It appears that he was right on at least one of the two counts. And I have rarely been more grateful to have been wrong. :)
At the risk of being branded a cynic …. and unfeeling …. there is one thing that troubles me about two of the former POWs, Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson. I have heard comparisons made of the two, and, it seems to me, that such comparisons are premature.
From what little that is being made public of Jessica’s treatment while she was in captivity, and the extent (and permanence) of her wounds, it would appear that this young woman is made of mighty special stuff. She sustained multiple fractures of her legs, arm, ankle and foot – some of them ‘open fractures’ (the bone protruding through the skin), severe spinal and head injuries, and was apparently the victim of gunshot wounds. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that all of these physical traumas occurred before her capture. So, to my mind, considering the extent and severity of her injuries, and the known barbaric nature of her captors, the fact that she endured severe torture is obvious. And the psychological, and non-observable, internal injuries she endured may even have been more traumatic than those that are ‘visible.’ Jessica must have suffered terribly for the duration of her captivity.
A young Muslim hero saw to it that our troops not only knew of her whereabouts, but put his own (and his family’s) life in jeopardy in order to provide those troops with the logistics information they needed in order to affect her rescue. He testified that he could not have lived with himself had he not done what he did, because ‘peering through an internal window, [he] says he saw a black-uniformed officer whom others addressed as the Colonel slap the woman across the face. ‘The Colonel wanted a certain reaction out of Jessica, and he didn't get what he wanted.’
From all accounts, this appears to be a young woman who not only suffered terribly at the hands of the enemy, but who also (either literally or figuratively) clung fast to the ‘name/rank/serial number’ code of conduct, inviting the heightened anger of those who held her life in their hands. And, providentially, it was that courage, and the resulting brutal reaction of the enemy officer, that deeply touched the man who went for help, and that served as the catalyst for the events which led to her rescue.
From all that I know so far, I have deep respect for this courageous young woman, and I believe that she may well deserve to be called a hero, and may even have earned the Purple Heart.
As for Shoshana Johnson, we know little about her captivity so far. She, too, may have exhibited courage, and, as more information is released, we may also have reason to admire her, and to compare her to Jessica. But I believe it is too early to be making such comparisons.
I am no doubt risking being flamed (at the very least), but I cringed when I heard this morning that Ms. Johnson is a single mother. What is a single mother (of a young child? an infant?) doing in a combat (or even near combat) situation? Ideally, a child needs two parents. Her child has but one, and that one chose to place herself in such a situation, potentially condemning her child to orphan-hood? I cannot fathom the reason for such a choice. Economics doesn’t hold sufficient water here. Others who have no children (Jessica, for one), or whose children at least have another parent to care for them, could have filled Ms. Johnson’s shoes. My opinion only, but it is a strongly held one: Ms. Johnson does not belong on a battlefield. She belongs back in America, where her child can enjoy the security of knowing the presence of her only parent.
With that said, I am thrilled that she, and the others, are safe. And if further information supports the fact that she endured her captivity in a way similar to the way Jessica apparently endured hers, I will be cheering her with a voice just as loud. Courage is a rare and awesome commodity that must never be underestimated, or over-characterized.
stlsaxman (227 posts) Apr-13-03, 12:13 PM (ET) 36. NPR said the found the POW's walking down a road- Who put them there? Did WE (Rove Propoganda Force) drop them off? "Just wait here and the Press will be by shortly and you'll all be heroes!" Seeing these faces on BBC in the first week of the devistation of Iraq, and no other POW's counted, then these SAME POWS are "freed" after Bagdad is "liberated".... and just "walking down the road" no less? This stinks. And it stinks of Rove. In other words: I don't buy it.
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