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You got it! I'm all for soldiers taking on the terrorists rather than the terrorists taking on unarmed civilians.

I'm having a current "debate" with Freeper Austin Willard Wright about the number of US and allied soldiers who died in post-war Germany. The Library of Congress is currently researching my request but knowing the bureauracracy, it will take months to get an answer.

After watching a recent History Channel show devoted to the topic of how Hitler supporters killed our soldiers post-war, I have made the analogy that it's a good thing people like Austin Willard Wright wasn't around at that time because we would have pulled out of Europe post haste. We then would not have the allies we have there now (such as they are) because Stalin would have moved in and forever changed the landscape there.

This thread reminds me of a poem I read once. It goes like this:>

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

I draw your attention to the fourth verse, of which most have never heard. That "war's desolation" can be awfully damned desolate, as any who've seen it can attest. Two years ago, a rat-pack of islamic murderers brought a small sample of that desolation to New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Most Americans didn't much care for the experience. Since then our military establishment and intelligence community have, properly, been tasked with tracking down and destroying the supporters and brethren-in-crime of that rat-pack. It is appropriate that "war's desolation" be brought back to those who visited it upon us. It is good that islamic murderers be forced to deal with American Soldiers in their own lands rather than being free to attack Americans in America. And it is the vocation of the soldier to "stand Between [his]lov'd home and the war's desolation". He is the first line of defense; the armed civilian is the last.

Some people just don't seem to get it...