Thursday will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the Iranian Hostages. 444 days in captivity and we are still at loggerheads with Iran.
I read this article and found this quote by the youngest hostage, former Marine Sgt. Kevin Hermening, to be quite true:
“Since the United States did not respond with military action, our nation was seen (by Iran, and most other nations, especially in the Middle East) as a paper tiger,” he wrote to one girl from Kutztown, Pa., recently.
“Negotiation is very important, but it requires two honest brokers; Iran has never been one, even now. And so it makes our government look ridiculous, whether it was negotiating for the release of the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran from 1979-1981, or attempting to get Iran to end its current pursuit of nuclear weapons. Peace is best achieved from a position of strength and, with regard to Iran, we most frequently find ourselves in a position of weakness.”
Oh, and if you read that article, don’t read the comments. We are in Wisconsin and rewriting history and doing weird leftist non-sequitors has been raised to an artform. It will only make you mad.
If you are in the West Point area, maybe you could sneak in and shake the hands of some of those former hostages. I wish I could do so. I met one, years ago, in Virginia. COL Leland Holland was the base commander of Vint Hill Farms Station in the mid-80s. In my weird teenage-y way, I idolized him. He and his wife were always gracious and friendly. Every year, in the late fall, they’d host a hayride/party at their big southern style mansion that was his quarters on base. When the book 444 Days came out, the author did a signing on base and the COL was nice enough to autograph books also, even though we could all tell he was very uncomfortable with the hoopla.
He passed away a few years later and I was so sad to hear the news. Somewhere in one of my boxes, I have his COL rank that he gave to me for some reason or another.
I am just at the age where the hostage crisis made a huge impact on my view of world at that time. I hope we never forget the actions that Iran committed all those years ago. They continue to take American lives through materiel and financial support of terrorist organizations throughout the middle east. It would behoove Americans to remember.
