Posted on 02/18/2003 7:26:58 AM PST by BOBTHENAILER
Some see America’s patriotic mood waning.
Campujairi, Kuwait – The peace protesters might as well be marching right under the tank barrels.
U.S. troops amassed in the Kuwaiti desert couldn’t avoid news of anti-war protests that swept the globe over the weekend, and it is making some angry, defensive, fired-up and anxious.
They see scattered news reports of opposition to a possible war against Iraq, but the hardest-hitting bulletins come in phone calls home to worried wives and loved ones, said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Oravec, 41, of Fort Knox, Ky., of the U.S. Army’s 3-7 Cavalry.
“They’re saying, ‘Why are we over here when everyone’s over here saying we shouldn’t be?’” Oravec said.
“They hear it. They bring it up to me, and I squash it by keeping them busy, reminding them why they’re here,” Oravec said, just before leading his tank maintenance unit in an all-night training exercise across the Kuwaiti desert.
Many of the soldiers who might be called to fight against Iraq were too young to remember the emotional protests that marked the end of the Vietnam War. Many had not even been born.
Still, some say they take the anti-war protests personally – questioning the jobs they do and their boss, President Bush.
“They get down,” said Oravec, a veteran of the 1991 war against Iraq. “That’s when I come around, try to get them work to do. That’s the only thing I can think of to keep their minds off home and what their wives are telling them.”
Capt. John Turner, 26, of Colonial Heights, Va., whose father was a med-evac pilot for the Army in Vietnam, said soldiers are not decision-makers and can’t afford to get distracted from their training.
“I’m not in this line of work for political reasons. I didn’t come here to be a politician,” Turner said.
Still, he’s especially angry about opposition at the United Nations from France, a NATO ally.
“How would they feel if it was the Eiffel Tower that got hit into (on Sept. 11)?” he asked.
The troops see a possible war against Iraq as part of the ongoing war on terrorism, as the Bush administration targets alleged weapons of mass destruction that could fall into the hands of terrorists.
Protesters call that an unfounded or unproven claim being used to justify a war to control more of the Middle East’s vast oil reserves.
The “No blood for oil” slogan was used in opposition to the 1991 war, too. But back then, in the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invaders, the protests did not seem as widespread and the troops did not take them so personally, Gulf War veterans said.
“That’s their right to protest as long as they know that’s their opinion, not ours,” said 1st Sgt. Stephen Edgerton, 36, a Gulf War veteran from Blackshear, Ga.
“When you’re younger, you’re a little more eager to go out and pick a fight with somebody,” Edgerton said. “With age, you’re not as quick to jump into things without thinking them out first.”
But for soldiers, he said, the bottom line is simple: “I support my Commander in Chief. That’s my job.”
Pvt. Wesley Carr, 23, of Virginia Beach, Va., said soldiers are the last ones who want to rush into unnecessary wars.
“I can understand why they want to protest, because they don’t want any harm to come to us. But a lot of them don’t understand,” Carr said. “I hope, like everyone else, that it does end peacefully. But if it doesn’t and we have to go to war, we have to think of the safety of the United States and all these people here.”
Privately, some soldiers wonder if the patriotic mood and pro-military spirit in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks has evaporated.
With all its soldiers and high-tech war fighting machines, the U.S. military would not have had all its recent success if the soldiers didn’t get so much support from the public, Edgerton said.
“They don’t have to support what’s happening,” he said, “but at least support the soldiers”
Iraq Update
1st U-2 Mission: Iraq reported the first flight by an American U-2 surveillance plane Monday in support of the U.N. inspection mission, marking another concession by the Baghdad government in hopes of staving off a U.S. –led attack. The flight lasted four hours.
Turkey Delays:
Turkey’s prime minister on Monday ruled out a parliamentary vote to allow tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops on its territory until Turkish and U.S. officials agree on the conditions of the deployment.
I happened to catch a few minutes of Matt Drudge's radio show on the way home Sunday night in the snow, and he had Pat Buchanan on for a short conversation.
Buchanan, despite his long-standing opposition to war in Iraq for a number of reasons, wanted nothing to do with any of the "protesters" around the world.
"I took a look at some video clips from one of those things, Matt," he said, "And three of the first four signs I saw said: "FREE MUMIA". Who the hell are these people anyway?"
LOL!
Canadian immigration authorities at Calgary Airport somehow figured out that two of the Americans landing there a few days before the event began had been permanently banished from Canada after a similar demonstration in Toronto or Montreal a few years ago. The two guys were arrested, and to keep them from causing trouble in Calgary the police simply shackled them both to a radiator in one of the airport offices and kept them there for four days until the WPC was over. Then they just put them on a flight back to the U.S.
The story generated a lot of outrage, but Calgary was pretty quiet for those four days. In fact, things went so well that the host country for the next conference (Brazil) wanted to hire the Calgary organizers to run things down in Brazil in 2001.
Bush to lefties: Here's plenty of rope -- go hang yourself!
LOLOL! That has been his strategery in Texas and with Congress so far. Works great, they never see him coming.
LOL!!!!!! I think Calgary is the only conservative city in Canada.
Good thinking, hahahahaha.
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The Soldier
I want you to close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands.
He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and carnage of war.
He stands tough, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this...
I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it. I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains.
I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business.
I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.
It's the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press.
It's the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.
It's the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.
It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag.
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Let's keep these soldiers in our prayers, and do everything we can to encourage them.
They will eventually learn what you have known for a long time. :)
It was great to see those poets disinvited from the W.H.. Some of them actually thought that they had an unalienable right to speak there.
This article torqued me off so much that I called the Public Affairs Office at Ft. McPherson, which is near me. I talked to two people there about doing something to help get the word out that there still are sane people in America who support our troops, no matter what they've heard from home or seen on TV or the Internet. I emailed the editor of the post newspaper links to this article and the Infinite FReep rallies. If nothing else, two more soldiers know today that FReepers support them and our country!
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