The Jump Blog

I wrote a response to a comment recently that I thought deserved a front page showing. Not for anything that I have said, but because of the unique issues the poster brought up, and my sincere belief in how I answered. Here it is:

Hank’s Kid Wrote:

While I, strongly, respect your right to your opinion, I think that there are others, including veterans and active duty military personnel who disagree and should not be ridiculed, called un-patriotic, or, otherwise, dismissed.

My father served in the Marines and Army. Seeing combat in Korea from 1950-1952. I have read over 150 letters he wrote to my family during this time period. I also listened to hours of conversations between my father, grandfather, great uncles and cousins, all veterans, two being ex-POWs and only one of them serving in a non-combat capacity.

Frequently, they expressed disagreement with the military leadership and politicians. Go up the hill, dozens killed and/or wounded, go down the hill, over and over. Shoot, don’t shoot. Promises made, but not kept, both during active duty and after. A feeling that the politicians did not fully appreciating the gravity of the situation for the troops or the implications of their actions or inaction. And, most of all, overwhelming agreement that war sucked and the government should NEVER send troops to fight without seriously exhausing every other option available and making damn sure they were prepared.

My dad died in 1989. But, knowing him as well as I did, I believe he would be saddened and very disappointed at what was, at best, a lack of due diligence, arrogance, and sloppiness, with regard to making the decision to send troops into combat and pre-war planning (such as it was).

That disappointment, however, would be usurped by anger regarding the lack of preparation and strategic planning that has, and continues to, result in more casualties than would have occurred otherwise.

Hank’s Kid:

Let me thank you for taking the time to comment, and for the service of your progenetors. If you would allow me some lattitude, allow me to tell you something that your veteran relatives would have told you:

It is the God given right of every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine to grouse, complain, bitch, whine, moan, and second guess. It is their (oft excercised) right because they are there, doing it. During the time I served I often bitched about this that or the other, as do most servicemen.

What you will find is that the grousing is only skin deep in most cases. I know a lot of Vietnam and R.O.K. vets who feel bitterly about the way their wars were prosecuted but feel just as strongly about the fact that they were right in being there.

Most Vietnam Vets I know have 3 pages worth of gripes, but were you to suggest that they should not have been there, doing what they were doing then you had best be prepared to feel the full force of the pride of the American serviceman.

This is what is hard for civillians to grasp.

When the President goes to Ft. Bragg, or Ft. Hood, or Iraq and you see pictures of enthusistic servicemen crowded around him, happy to shake his hand, proud of their leader, it isn’t staged. Even though those same men know that they might walk out of that room and die because of the policy of that man. They believe in what they are doing. They don’t stress over the things that civillians do because they have been trained to know that the primary identifying characteristic of war is confusion. Nothing ever goes right, and that’s the way it is.

Your Dad and uncles and cousins bitched because it was their right. I would lay money that, if given the chance, they would have gone right back. That’s the nature of the job.

One should also bear in mind that in the conflict in which your father served he fought over piece of ground a fraction the size of Iraq for four years only to give it back in much the same state it was four years prior at the cost of 52,000 + lives.

That is more than 12,000 men a year.

In three years in Iraq we have completely changed the face of the government; the destiny of the people; and the tone of the region at the cost of 1,800 American lives.

While those losses (and any losses) are tragic, they are fractional when compared with September 11th. They are absolutely miniscule when compared with our casualties in other wars.

We had more men killed for less in the French-Indian War, The Mexican-American War, and the Spanish-American War. In wars that rise to this level of importance (The Revolution, The War Between the States, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam) our casualties are positively dwarfed by not only the totals but by major battles.

600 men a year for a major conflict is an astoundingly low total casualty figure and serves as a testament to how well the leadership is running this conflict. We lost nearly double that number just on a single day not fifty years ago.

Where is the resolve? Where is the will?

I’ll tell you where it is. It is in the men and women out there fighting this fight whilst their detractors sit home awating the final season of “Will and Grace”. They are not downhearted, they are not dejected, they are not unsure in their mission. What they are is unsure of the population.

Given the attitude of the left, I can’t blame them.

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