I’ve been back a year. And that’s given me some time to think.
Over the next month or two I’m going to start posting some random things that have been in my head. Some are Fact, some mostly fact with names changed to protect the innocent, others will be fiction.
No, I’m not going to say which they are.
Two years ago I was landing in a foreign country to start my tour.
Sixty-four years ago the allies began Operation Neptune with the Normandy landings. General Eisenhower had these words for the troops before.
“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”
Short story on the last known Great War veteran from the US.
Day is done, gone the sun
From the hills, from the lake, from the sky
All is well, safely rest;
God is nigh.
One year ago I was at the Warrior Leader Course having just gotten back to the states from Afghanistan. One year from now I will be either preparing for OCS or doing pre-deployment training for Iraq. Either way I’ll be in for an extended period in Uniform.
I was never apart of the “old” Guard so this type of thinking has always been a part of my experience. I don’t think I’ve ever had a year where I only did “One weekend a month, and two weeks during the summer”. This year is typical, three weeks for summer AT and an additional two weeks for job specific training.
And if things remain as they are, I can expect that I will be looking at a one year deployment with a two to three year break in between. At least I’m better off then the active guys who are one year on/one year off.
I know that this post from a Military Wife is making the rounds.
However, I know that not everybody will have seen it and am therefore linking as well.
Five Years ago I was sitting at my parent’s house. Waiting for my new job to start. Watching the media coverage unfold with new found insight as I had recently graduated from the “school house” where I learned my military trade.
I sat and watched as people who should have known better say things that indicated a lack of thought, like the the ones that thought the war had stalled-out on day four because they didn’t understand a 24-hour operational pause to let your supply train catch up. Or the ones that thought we’d be out of Iraq in less than the five years we mark today. Iraq was always going to be closer to a twenty year project than a five year one. Anybody that ever said differently either wasn’t smart enough to know better, or thought you weren’t.
It makes me sick that things were allowed to be run so badly for so long. It makes me sick that I know that should I die in my next deployment that the only concern that for that event by most politicians these days will be that they can use it for political ammo. Forget the fact that they spat upon the work I did while I was alive. Forget that they won’t ever pass out food and clean water to the barefoot children that used to flock to our vehicles whenever we would stop. Forget that there are Girls now in school who’s mothers never got a chance to receive an education.
I’m going to update this further today, posting this bit for now.
After three months off it’s off to drill this weekend. It’ll be interesting to see how everybody is doing. I’ve gotten used to having my weekends free and thats about to change.
Tuesday is when Gen. Petraeus goes before Congress. I hope that somebody posts it to YouTube so that I’ll get a chance to watch if for myself. The first thing a serious student of history admits is that everybody, no matter what they say, has an axe to grind. I just want to see the video myself so that I can get the best, unfiltered, viewpoint. I’m also very interested in the tone used by the panel when asking questions of the General and how well he fields them. Sadly, I think the next year in Iraq is going to come down to a 30 second sound bite that is going to be repeated for the next 6 months.
1. Anonymous responder on my last post. Please send me an email or post using a good one. Obviously we are coming at things from different perspectives. I think it’d be a fun dialog over coffee or email.
2. FISA; Look I understand that sometimes going though the paperwork first can be a pain. But if you can’t make it to the FISA court within a reasonable timeframe (say one week) then maybe there are serious issues. I really don’t like how the law is currently written. And I really don’t like how this is probably going to backlash on the Intel Community six months to a year down the road.
3. Immigration Reform; the US is a great country that accepts more legal immigrants than any other country in the world. I don’t think a blanket amnesty to the estimated 6 million or so “Illegals/Undocumented Workers” should even be on the table. And don’t get me started on the whole joke of the H1B visa problem. I’ve seen too many impossible job postings (5 years of Windows 2000 experience required in 2001) that were obvious “attempts” to find a US citizen before hiring a H1B visa holder.
4. Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a liar and a coward. He made up some stories and tried to pass them off as the world weary experience of soldier in the vein of Jarhead. Except, Jarhead was written ten years after the author came home from the war.
5. Work feels more like a vacation than a job. The fact that it’s only 8 hours a day, five days a week probably lends to that feeling.
6. The left and the media have been trying to make Iraq into Vietnam since the initial invasion in 2003. But, when the President compares the two he is attacked. Maybe if they were reading authors other than Noam Chomsky (or his disciples) they’d see what those of us who have consumed entire reading lists of material on the Vietnam conflict see. For starters go read Col. Summers’ “On Strategy” and Lewis Sorley’s “A Better War”.
7. The target of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is not the US Army or the Iraqi people. The target of AQ in Iraq is the American Media. Welcome to Fourth Generation Warfare. Now go read Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
The response from Congress on the Surge and Immigration “reform” has been sickening. Watching the Democrats debate has made me wonder what kind of world view the majority of Democrat primary voters hold. How can somebody rationalize pulling US troops out of Iraq because “it’s a civil war” but not be calling for the same in Korea, Bosnia and Kosovo. Not to mention the ongoing, and favorite call for intervention, Darfur. What kind of Gall does it take to for a person to say that we should withdraw from Iraq because its “in the middle of a civil war” and then in the next breath demand that we should intervene in Sudan to “stop the killing in Darfur”?
But maybe I should stop that whole thinking thing.
Regardless of what you think about us going to war with Iraq in the first place I don’t think anybody will deny that a rather bloody round of ethnic cleansing would follow if we were to withdraw our forces now. Not to mention the fact that the surrounding nations would probably move in to try and stabilize the areas that were on their immediate boarders. And what happens once those Iranian/Turkish/Syrian/Saudi forces start to bump up against each other?
Immigration, FISA and more to come in later posts.
Powered by WordPress