Sunday, December 18, 2005

Life was different then.

I have been doing a lot of thinking on the present state of the country and I constantly arrive at conclusions that I find upsetting. If I may digress a moment, when I was a young warrior, full of lightning and thunder it was a different country then. It was 1964; the pledge of allegiance was still a mandatory part of each school day morning.  I had recently enlisted in the U.S. Army and spent a considerable amount of time attending farewell parties to me and explaining to buddies why I enlisted. The country was a different place in time, not a Normal Rockwell painting, but different. Family values were everything, holidays were an intricate part of that life and life seemed to be a bit slower.

The events, which lead me to enlist, were still fresh in my mind.

On November 23rd, 1963, the day JFK was assassinated, I was a senior in high school and I remember well the teacher asking us all to bow our heads as she said a small prayer. My class was a mixed religious bowl of values, but not one person said a word. We all simply bowed our heads and prayed. We felt better too. Most of the class was crying, some holding others. School was let out early to allow us to be with our families. I recall walking home a bit confused and dazed wondering how this could happen in America. Once home the rest of the week found the entire family glued to the television watching a great man laid to rest.

Life prior to this had been a mixture of emotions, I was a teenager and life was strange. But through it all my values had remained. We were a close family and brought up that our country was foremost in our lives. We were a part of a wonderful concept and it was to be guarded, defended at all costs. After school I had seen the prospects of becoming employed were rather bleak and decided I would enlist in the U.S. Army. My Father was not happy at first and after a rather emotional discussion with my Mother we all agreed it would be better for me.

At that point in time I really had no concept that a war was secretly being fought. That had not lead to my decision. In truth, I did not find out till a rude, obnoxious; Sergeant screamed it in my face a few weeks later while I was standing in sweltering heat in the south. I had never had a man two inches from my face before calling me so many names at one time and telling me in such eloquent words how I would die in Vietnam. That was my indoctrination to a war.

That was a different time and place, a world filled with family values, love of country and love of the life we had. It is sad now to see that it is gone.

Today when something goes wrong, we blame everyone but ourselves. We blame society for our children not turning out well. We blame our Parents for us not turning out well. And worst of all, we take no blame for anything. We have people fighting to pull the pledge of allegiance from schools and others fighting to get rid of any word associated with Christmas. We have media watchdogs marking down every moment of our President’s life and tearing each comment apart. We put troop strengths; movements and information in newspapers while the terrorist are busy guarding their secrets. We publish, comment, critique each and every word from our elected officials and conduct daily polls inquiring if they should be impeached. We can’t pick up a newspaper; turn on a television or radio without hearing how bad the government is running this country. Terrorist attacks us and for one brief moment the country stands together. Four years later we are tearing it apart. Questioning everything that was done that day, month or year. It is their fault, others, someone else’s, anyone but our own.

I miss the 1960’s. I miss the life we had then.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Elections and a Heart Warming Story.

The people of Iraq are exercising their new constitutional rights to elect their representation. A new word is on their lips today – Freedom.

They no longer live under the constant threat of persecution, death, and torture. They are a new nation, conceived under freedom’s name in a new era of life. The people turning out at the polls honor our fallen in their quest for that one word – freedom.

Our nation’s thought and prayers should be with our military and those fallen to give these people the freedom they have long deserved. Our prayers are for the safe return of those serving.

Their right to vote is something we as American’s take lightly. We go to the polls, or sometimes we don’t. It depends on the mood, weather, who is running, what is on the ballot. We sit in our homes reading papers, watching the news and thinking we need to change things. At times the turnout is large and at times it is small. But one fact remains, we are free to vote or not. Free to decided, free to choose.

Simply put - They did not have that freedom. Now they do.

A Mother’s Quest.

There is a story to touch your heart on 365 and a Wakeup. While on a mission November 23, Danjel, a Commander of A Co, 1-184 IN, 3ID serving in Southern Baghdad and his unit came across an Iraqi mother holding a small child with birth defects seeking any assistance possible. I found it moving and it speaks volumes for the depth of character of the men and women serving. Stop by and read it.

I want to thank CJ, A Soldier’s Perspective, for the lead in on my last post. I want to thank all stopping by, the comments and the e-mail. The positive response I received was wonderful. I did not expect it. Thank you. I am a bit sorry for the length of that post though. To say that it was a rant is putting it mildly. Thank you for reading through it.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

They have gone too far...

They have gone too far….

I owe a note to the majority of people out there; this is not intended for you. This is only to the ones taking down and hacking into the sites and blogs of our military and only those protestors attacking our troops verbally or physically with objects. The majority of humanity within this country know and understand that our troops our doing a job they were sent to do and not out of their own volition. They do not have the luxury of politely saying they wish to remain home, not participate, don’t want to play. They are Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen out of many services, branches; National Guard, Reserve, Coast Guard and the men and women are doing the job they agreed to do.

So if I offend anyone that I have not intended to do so with this article, to you I apologize. It was not for you. It is for those hiding under assumed names on the net attacking military blogs. It is for those protesting in the wrong way by attacking military with names and eggs. It is for some of, but not all of the media, only those hiding behind their liberal amendment rights that have the unmitigated audacity to lie on a moment by moment basis to America and the world; reporting what they want the story to be, not what the story is. It is to those dishonoring the names of our fallen, this is the worst offense to America and perhaps the most unforgiving. If you really want to know the story, read their blogs, learn the truth. Be informed.

As an American citizen you have the right to disagree with any policies or actions of the government, as a whole, or branches thereof, executive, legislative or judicial. You have the right to protest, telling anyone who is willing to listen your side of the argument. The founding fathers gave you this right to disagree and the ability to gather to protest in a peaceful manner without fear of persecution or reprisals. They did this with the knowledge that to protest is to be free. But, there is a basic key word in this concept, peaceful.  The inherent problem to today’s protest is the lack it that word. It is your right to protest against the war, but it is an insult to the men and women of the military when you assault them, verbally or physically.

There is nothing wrong in disagreeing with the war, or to gather and protest your argument with hopes of possibly changing the course of events. Many heroic men and woman exercising these rights have successfully accomplished it. Some have been awarded prizes in peace for it. I could fill a blog with names I have respected, followed and yes at times even joined with. This is the right you have as an American.

There is nothing wrong in truly believing within your heart that war is bad. Contrary to popular beliefs most men and women in the armed forces feel the same, but they have a job and they perform it to the best of their capabilities and training. Some individuals have stated that protesting is simply creating a paradox; hating war – but supporting troops. They point out that this is a philosophical contradiction. This is simply untrue; one can support a cause and reverse opinion to the catalyst of that cause. It is not a contradiction; it is a duality of feelings. The Yin and Yang of truth to all feelings.

What is wrong, immoral, and bordering on illegal is to state these same facts, supporting one and not the other while attacking the men and women in harm’s way protecting your right to do so. That is not duality of feelings; it is transference of hate from one conceptual line to that of a corresponding line. In other words, hate one - hate the cause.

This is what is being accomplished by this two-sided blitz presently being wrought upon our troops. Their blogs are being hacked, not out of meanness, but malice and forethought. They are being changed, the statements the troops are making in their blogs are being hacked and changed to lies with the singular desire to shut down the blog and get the soldier in trouble with their command. You’re not supporting you are getting even.

What is wrong is attacking nearby soldiers with eggs, tomatoes and verbal barrages of hate; baby killers, killers of women and children. These are the same individuals giving you the right to even be there. Wrong is cowardly attacks upon our troops which become media headlines. This is simply serving the needs of the terrorist. In truth, protesting serves the needs of the terrorist as well. It feeds them, gives them hope and in doing so they increase the attacks on the military, killing and wounding more soldiers. Of course, if the terrorist mental needs were not fed with hope they would still fight. It is a war, that point is moot. But filling them with media lies and hope motivates them to attack in the belief they are aiding the protestor’s cause and through their killing will lead to troops pulling out. Follow the attacks in Iraq after a headlining protest; count the number of attacks and deaths. The media hype and love fest with the Anti-War, Anti-Bush protests only lead to more killing of our troops.  This is not only wrong, but when occurs should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

These types of protestors have not altered their headline grabbing attention tactics of maneuvering the media into negative coverage of a war since Vietnam; they have however, radically transformed and refined them. In that war they hated the war and the military with an equal amount of passion. This afforded them the opportunity of not being caught within the conundrum they now paint to the media. The self-serving lie they support our military yet hate the war; repeating to any cameraman within range. They face their quandary of contradiction into the camera spouting their rehearsed logic.  This method of lie allows these individuals to sleep at night, because two-sided logic is an easy way out. The science of psychology dictates they must perceive this action as the truth, not only saying, believing. They must loudly paint their misrepresentations of logic or in sharing this knowledge with both hemispheres of the mind it would force them into depression, uncertainty, perhaps even insanity. The depression derives from exacerbation of the knowledge their false dichotomy knowingly created a chain of events that directly or indirectly made them responsible for intensified attacks and deaths of our military men and women in Iraq.

The contradiction, or two sided false and positive logic can be accomplished through a sub conscious degree of controlled thought, but times have changed, humanity has grown and along with it our intelligence, logic and motivation of self preservation. Who really wants to carry the burden of truth that your actions cause the death of another? Of course it can also be argued that this is not a logic cover up, but a lack of courage or being a coward.

Perhaps that is the real issue here and no one wants to say it. This is the dawn of being nice to others, new terms, new phrases and an abundance of political correctness large enough to sink Atlantis. The knowledge they do not have the courage or fortitude to face another human being overwhelmed with false knowledge spoon fed by their false prophets whose only desire is to kill you as our military in Iraq face on a daily basis. The depth of sadness to that statement is they face it to protect these same lack of courage sycophants hiding behind their own false self-righteous fears and screaming loudly when within range of any media recording device which affords them a platform which to sputter more self protecting lies.

Cowards that knowingly created a chain of events that directly or indirectly made them responsible for intensified attacks and deaths of our military men and women. That is the knowledge they face and thus they paint their quandary of false logic to the media.
How can American citizens sink this low? The depth to which the country is headed in their attacks is not only disheartening to a soldier, but to other American’s as well. Believe me, we don’t all feel that way. In fact the protestors are not even the vast numbers portrayed be the television stations on a daily basis. The media is just as, if not more responsible for the present state of events and disgust growing within this nation, but aiding in it, misstating it and misreporting it in their misguided reporting.

I will give you a recent misreported protest event. A few weeks ago President Bush was in a western city. I read in one of the national papers that protestors, large in number screaming loudly, surrounded him. The paper did not state the number of people there. I read in another paper the amount was over a few hundred. Then I google the city, find their local papers and discover the crowd was approximately 60 or less protestors. I checked and found the population of that city was in excess of 550,000 people. Either someone lost their calculator, failed math 101 or simply decided to lie. Wait a minute the media lie? It is business as usual with them. Their desire is to create as much embarrassment for President Bush, his administration, cabinet and this country as humanly possible. Embarrassment sells papers and that is what they do.

While America’s sons and daughters are dieing and wounded in Iraq for a war on terrorism precipitated by the hijacking and flying of our own aircraft filled with passengers into the World Trade Center killing thousands, these sycophants of the media cry into cameras mourning the military’s losses. They support our troops, repeating it constantly for all to hear, but not the war. Then manipulate the media, plant misleading, at times outright false news stories of how the war was initiated by a corrupt administration with lies gathered by false intelligence. With the rehearsed talent of an actor they paint their dichotomy of supporting troops, not war. Heads hung low, tears in eyes, saying they are trapped in a quandary of unknown logic that as citizens this conundrum of life, death and war is destroying them and the souls of America.

These poor, brave, sons and daughters of America, they say with tears in their eyes, are fighting and dieing for a cause only supported by the Bush administration, not the people of America.

They were sent into a war, that in their words, America did not, does not and will not support. They will go any distance, pay any media price and speak to anyone who will listen to remind the media this is their true intent. They cry into the cameras, parade coffins draped with America’s flag that these same men and women are dieing for, photos of maimed, killed corpses of civilians burning in the desert in front of any camera within 50 feet and when interviewed speak, cry, utter with fear how much they respect and support these men and women fighting for us. War is bad they utter to any media outlet within arms reach of them. While in the background, never and I repeat never reported by a media source they disrespect, verbally attack, insult, throw inanimate objects, eggs, tomatoes, anything messy and insulting and will do anything necessary that will demean our troops. Now they step into a new venue, they move their hatred for the military and the Bush administration to the malicious destruction of the soldier’s blogs, their personal lives.

It is offensive to me as a veteran, offensive to me as an American and offensive to me as a human being that these people relish in the knowledge that soldiers are called to answer for their childish, schoolyard antics. When in truth it is simply disgusting, and abusive!

To Grey Eagle, you are serving in a unit with a proud legacy of courage, honor and sacrifice. Your unit’s history has already been written, songs sang, movies made and there is still more coming. You are a brave woman doing a job for her country. God bless you, stay safe and come home soon. Increase the security of the site and keep up the wonderful statements and photos you post.

To the men and women in harm’s way. God bless, stay safe and come home soon. America does support you. Keep your words flowing and your photos posted. We do care.