Monthly Archives: July 2007

Definition: A traitor who turns against his or her own country to serve an invader. But what constitutes a traitor to a Soldier?

You hear from both sides they “support the troops”. Yet they both have overwhelmingly different methods of showing it. As a Soldier, I cannot stand hearing from people that supporting the troops means bringing them home before the mission is over. There is a group called Bring Them Home Now who sends out postcards that say “give the troops real support…bring them home now!” Presidential hopeful Barrack Obama even stooped so low as to say that “over three thousand lives of the bravest young Americans [were] wasted” in Iraq. Really? Wasted?

Tell that to “Kindi Girl”. This 13-year old little girl was being harassed and threatened with rape before American Soldiers stepped in to catch the men making the verbal assaults against her. One of those young troops died in a roadside bomb, but that little girl is now 15 years old. Was that Soldier’s life wasted? She wouldn’t think so. Who knows how many other countless “Kindi Girls” had been saved by that Soldier? Soldiers gladly lay down their lives in defense of the defenseless.

Many politicians on both sides of the aisle lately have begun to get worn out by the constant “bring them home now” drumbeat. Convinced that “we cannot win”, even our own government is admitting defeat. We are signaling to the terrorists that our resolve is weak and our will bending. Sen. John McCain recently asked Gen. Patraeus a very poignant question:

“Suppose that we send additional troops and we tell those troops, ‘we support you, but we are convinced you cannot accomplish your mission… we do not support the mission we are sending you on’? What effect does that have on morale of the troops?”

No one should be surprised that the General’s response was, ““It would not be a beneficial effect, sir.” Absolutely not.

The anti-war movement has it all wrong. They want to support us by “getting us out of harm’s way”. The job of a Soldier is inherently dangerous. The mere task of peacetime training is “harmful”, but so is riding my motorcycle on the highways of DC. Should we put an end to that as well? If we never put Soldiers in harm’s way, this country would not be here today. By putting Soldiers in harm’s way, we ended slavery and allowed minorities more opportunities than ever before. By putting Soldiers in harm’s way, we defeated communism and defeated the Japanese.

As much as I love my life, I knew what I got myself into when I signed that little pink form. We are an armed force. We train to kill for a living. We train to survive attempts at killing us. And we train for the unwanted event wherein one of us is killed. It’s expected that in combat SOMEONE is going to die. I accepted death three times in Iraq and survived. But, I didn’t ask to come home after each life-altering event. The progress being made in Iraq and the seeds being planted in the Middle East are well worth the more than 3000 service members that have paid that ultimate price. That is a difficult to statement to make, but I make it as a Soldier who has experienced combat, who has lost friends, and who almost lost his own life on more than one occasion. I would rather I didn’t lose ONE Soldier. But, I recognize that it is an unrealistic desire.

The purpose of combat is to kill the enemy. To the American people, the enemy is the terrorists. The enemy kills indiscriminately without regard for combatant/non-combatant, parent/child, innocent/guilty. Their purpose is to spread their brand of hatred and if it takes 50% of our national budget to defeat that enemy, we should accept it without reservation and do everything in our favor to support it.

We support our troops’ efforts of defeating these religious zealots by writing letters and cards of encouragement to our troops in combat; not by marching through the streets shouting down our President. We support our troops by honoring their sacrifice; not by creating mock funerals decked out with flag-draped coffins and little white crosses. We support our troops by sending care packages; not by sending legislation before Congress that defunds our efforts and establishes artificial withdrawal timelines. The timelines will be drawn then one side wins or one side loses. If we have “lost” this war in Iraq, who has won? I wish one of these big mouth, quisling-like politicians would tell us that. And if they are saying that the terrorists won, isn’t that the very definition of a Quisling?