Time To Move Past The Urination Incident
Making the rounds is a short video showing four Marines urinating on Afghan terrorist corpses in northern Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Evidently the Marines were letting off steam after a firefight and washing the bodies with urine instead of following the Muslim tradition of washing the bodies with water and burying them within 24 hours. Without doubt this was an aberration and such conduct should not and cannot be tolerated by our armed forces under any circumstances. It would be interesting to know the combat circumstances that led up to this incident.
At the same time, U.S. Army Spec. Ronald Wildrick Jr., was killed Dec. 11, 2011 by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan’s Kundar province, one of many Americans who have given their lives trying to bring liberty and freedom to this Muslim country. I don’t know how much the sacrifices of our young men and women’s lives are appreciated by the Afghans, but I don’t read much of Muslim extremists being criticized by them or American heroes being thanked or praised.
Secretary of State Clinton said that anyone engaging in this act of urination should be held accountable, and I whole heartedly agree. But what does that mean: life in prison, castration, beheading, a slap on the wrist, administrative punishment, or a dishonorable discharge. The knee jerk outcry from Secretaries Panetta and Clinton does not bode well for our four Marines or their officers. A Marine Corps spokesman says that, “The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps.”
On the other hand, although Afghan Prime Minister Karzai and Taliban officials strongly condemned the Marines’ actions and called for a quick and through investigation followed by swift punishment, they did not hesitate to put the Marines’ actions in their proper context. Karzai refused to allow the incident to be used to inflame anti-American feelings as he has been overly quick to do in the past. Surprisingly the Taliban leaders, perhaps following Karzai’s lead, have said that the incident should not be allowed to derail the peace negotiations that are just getting underway.
We are told that showing disrespect for the dead violates Islam. What this means is that if you’re an American you shouldn’t desecrate the bodies of dead Muslims. But if you’re a Muslim, desecrating the bodies of dead Americans after IED attacks and then doing an Islamic dirty-double-standard dance is just fine, and merits no apologies from Karzai, Clinton or Panetta
Evidently desecration only applies to Muslim corpses. It doesn’t apply to the non-Muslim dead like journalist Daniel Pear. Muslims see nothing wrong with beheading non-Muslim bodies, cutting them up into pieces and dragging the pieces through the streets. In the case of Saddam Hussein, they saw nothing wrong with desecrating a Muslim corpse.
A terrorist’s body getting urinated on rates a phone call from the Secretary of Defense and an apology from the Secretary of State. An American killed by an IED rates a grave at Arlington National Cemetery. What does this tell us about America’s current leadership?
Supposedly the recent incident involving the four Marines in Afghanistan and like earlier ones that took place at Abu Ghraib prison, have turned Arab public opinion in the Middle East against the United States. That’s absolute nonsense. Muslim public opinion is turned against America in the Middle East because we are not Muslims.
We can do all the nation building our money and lost American lives can afford and it still will not be enough to make up for the void of freedom and liberty and that is found lacking in Muslim society. You can militarily win their freedom for them and give it to them on a silver platter, but you can’t plant the Tree of Liberty in their hearts, minds and souls. No matter how much you nourish and care for the tree, it will neither grow nor flourish.
Urinating on dead bodies may be reprehensible but it is not a war crime, nor should it be portrayed or pursued as such. Karzai and the Taliban got it right. The corpse desecration issue is an aberration that needs to be put behind us as quickly as possible so we can focus our energies and efforts on the more important work at hand, the drafting of a workable peace treaty which Karzi, the Taliban, and U.S. forces can honor.
The more we examine this issue, the more clear it becomes that it should be filed away under the category of a misdemeanor – not a felony.
Iraq Status of Forces Agreement
Historically these immunity agreements require some wrangling. The foreign countries with whom we are negotiating usually claim that giving U.S. troops immunity violates the country’s national sovereignty. On the other hand, U.S. negotiators take the position that sovereignty is necessary to get the U.S. Congress to authorize a continuance of troop deployments to that particular country.
Routinely the negotiations drag on for a year or so, or until we put the right sweetener on the table. Then the country we are negotiating with, while lapping up the sweetener, start losing interest in sovereignty and immunity. It’s an old foreign policy game played by countries all over the world. Iraq is no exception.
All countries know that it is just a negotiation game both sides are playing. Neither side expects their first “NO” or “YES” to be taken as either definitive or final. So imagine how surprised Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq must have been when President Obama said that he was pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of this year, supposedly because Iraq refused to sign an agreement granting U.S. troops immunity.
To complicate things even more and to make them even less palatable, Obama insisted that the immunity provisions would have to be approved by the Iraqi Parliament, not just by the Prime Minister’s office, as is often the case. Once the Iraqi Parliament got involved in the negotiations, things would become extremely complicated and difficult, if not impossible.
Certainly Maliki was stunned when Obama pulled his negotiators out of the negotiations without making a real effort to find an agreement. Both Obama and Maliki knew full well how the immunity, Status of Forces Agreement, game is supposed to be played. The first “NO” and “YES” are only negotiation openers, not a final offer.
Maliki must have suspected that something was amiss when by mid-summer of this year Obama’s State Department and Department of Defense hadn’t even begun preliminary talks with his negotiating team. These are not the actions of someone negotiating in good faith. Surely such a delay and show of indifference sent a clear signal to Maliki that Obama wasn’t serious about a continued commitment of U.S. Forces to help Iraq successfully transition to a democratic way of life and protection from a rogue Iran.
By then Maliki must have also known that this is Obama’s normal method of operation. He casually announces his policy intentions, which in this case were to withdraw U.S. Forces from Iraq before the end of December, and then leaves it to the Congress and the federal bureaucracy to worry about implementation while he plays golf or goes off on some overseas junket. With or without the Status of Forces Immunity Agreement, Obama never intended to extend the presence of U.S. Troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year.
In this case both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have publicly said that the withdrawal of U.S. Forces is precipitous and ill-advised. They also said that the numbers of troops scheduled by Obama to remain in Iraq past the end of the year aren’t enough to defend themselves, much less assist Iraq in the maintenance of law and order or in defending their country from predator nations like Iran.
Meanwhile Obama stands aloof maintaining plausible deniability. If the shortage of U.S. Troops leads to a disaster of some sort, he can claim that he wanted to leave more troops but Iraq said “NO” and refused to give our troops immunity. In the meantime Obama pretends to be innocent of the consequences of the withdrawal and is agreeable to his generals’ and admirals’ recommendations. In fact, he is deliberately dragging his feet hoping that events in Iraq will somehow overtake the ill-advised troop withdrawal. If things go well he can take credit for them. If they don’t go well, he can express concern.
So President Obama is simply using, for political purposes, Iraq’s saying “NO” to the extension of the Status of Forces Immunity Agreement as a convenient excuse to cover his withdrawal of U.S. Forces from Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki, who is left holding the bag, should learn to be careful what he asks for. He just may get it.
What's Left Out
Since the University of Maryland was offering college courses at night on the base where I was stationed, he suggested that I take a few courses and get a leg up on college. It seemed reasonable and years later I found myself still working full time for the army during the day and going to college at night.
Many times over the years I had been warned, or was it threatened, that all my college credits earned at different universities around the world would be subjected to a rigorous culling out should I ever amass enough credits to qualify for a degree. Courses the admission’s counselor decided to leave out sometimes counted the most. So over the years I had taken only core courses such as economics, mathematics and history instead of fun courses like “Basket Weaving 101.”
Eventually my family and I were posted to Fort Devens, Massachusetts. When I briefed the education counselor on what I had been doing for the past seven years, he said I had more than enough credits to qualify for a degree and now was the time to “close the sale.” He also said he didn’t know anyone who’d been successful doing what I was trying to do.
But he suggested that I visit the local universities situated along the banks of the Charles River starting with Harvard. I couldn’t imagine Harvard accepting my smorgasbord of credits so that didn’t seem to make much sense to me. But he said we needed to know how high the wall really was that I was trying to climb over and a visit to Harvard would lay it out clearly. He was right.
The admissions officer at Harvard summed up my situation this way. “You are a quality applicant and we would very much like to have you study with us. Of course we do have a certain position to maintain.” He smiled warmly. “You do see the problem we have here, don’t you? Our graduates are expected to have the University’s ‘stamp’ on them. That can’t be done in less than three years. You do understand?”
Yes, I did understand, but that didn’t solve my problem. Harvard had a tradition to uphold. I had a degree to complete. Farther down river Boston University felt that it could place its “stamp” on me in two years. Other universities I visited felt about the same.
One day the indefatigable education counselor phoned, “Jerry, much of the week I’ve been on the phone talking to other Army education counselors around the country.” He paused waiting for our thoughts to synchronize. “Several of them suggest that you apply to the University of Nebraska in Omaha.”
“Never heard of it,” I mumbled.
“Neither have I but I checked it out. It’s a small city university that has a good academic standing and is interested in talking to you.”
“Way out in Nebraska. That means I’d have to leave a pregnant wife alone with two small children,”l protested.
“When you’re a squirrel and you’re out of acorns, any nut will do,” he concluded.
Directly across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, Iowa lies Omaha, Nebraska. In 1959 it was an overly large, delightful cow town with a huge stock yard at its south end. Dodge Avenue ran through its center from east to west. It had a first rate art museum, the Joslyn, and it boasted of having the only symphony in America operating in the black.
The summer of 1960 I graduated from the University of Nebraska, Omaha (UNO). Ten years later, through night school, I earned an MA from Boston University in International Relations. Several years later I added, again through night school, a Doctor of Ministry from Luther Rice Seminary and University.
In addition to carrying 19 credits that first semester at UNO, once a week I moonlighted as a DJ at a local radio station, KBON. The sports announcer there was also the local jazz buff who knew most of the local area musicians. Occasionally after the commercial establishments closed, the side-men gravitated over to Don’s house to jam.
Only one restaurant/night club in Omaha consistently booked big name entertainment, “Orlando’s.” This week the word was out that after the Saturday night gigs, there would be jamming at Don’s and the Oscar Peterson Trio would hold forth. Oscar was a co-founder of the Berkley School of jazz Music in Boston.
The place was crowded long before Oscar and company arrived. In those days every metropolitan area had its local version of what a jazz pianist should be. A classically trained pianist, Eddy was just waiting to be discovered, and he hoped Oscar would do the honors. To pay the rent, Eddy played jazz piano in a hotel basement cocktail lounge.
Propped with his back against a wall, his face full of wonder, he watched Oscar work the keyboard. Occasionally Oscar looked up and their eyes met. Finally Oscar motioned him over, slid his huge frame up off the bench and said, “It’s your turn, Man ... Show us what you can do.”
Eddy had been waiting for many years for just such a chance. He took a deep breath, exhaled and went for it. Nimble, quick and practiced, Eddy’s fingers flicked all over the keyboard. Every note on the piano was fair game. By any measurement, it was a virtuoso performance. With a flourish his fingers swept through a last, long, complicated run.
The spontaneous applause must have been gratifying. Like a child knowing he has pleased his parents, with great expectancy Eddy turned to Oscar for approval. Oscar eased his considerable weight back onto the bench and said, “Technically, you’re perfect … If you ever learn what to leave out, you’ll be a real musician. Don’t try to play it all, only what’s necessary. No one can teach you that, you’ve got to feel it … inside.”
Disappointment clouded Eddy’s face though Oscar had shared with him one of life’s great truths. We can’t live it all -- or do it all. Priorities have to be set. Success is often determined by what we leave out or choose not to do at all.
Since then, whether practicing the art of war, giving a political speech, painting a landscape, or singing an operatic aria, all of which I have done, I remember Oscar’s admonition and often times measure my success by what I leave out. Clutter, excess and overwork muddies a painting or a line of music as surely as it does a line or reasoning.
Let's Occupy Wallstreet
It reminds me of the college students who thought they were demonstrating against the Viet Nam War by expelling ROTC offices from Ivy League college campuses. If they didn’t know, certainly their professors knew that the military doesn’t set national policy. Any honest activist knows that the President and Capitol Hill lawmakers are the ones to put pressure on and demonstrate against, not the military, not campus ROTC staff. The demonstrations were a farce and charade, not unlike today’s Occupy movement which is supposed to be directed against Wall Street.
What and specifically who is funding and stoking the politically charged maelstrom of the Occupiers? Can we get a hint by observing the actions of their demonstrators? Who and what type groups support them, and who is financing and organizing their rallies and demonstrations?
SEIU, Soros, Labor Unions, the KKK and David Duke, radical Muslims, Communists, neo-Nazis, the National Socialist Party, and an armed militia group calling itself the US Border Guard seem to be among their supporters. These are clearly identified as class warfare types and hate mongering extremist groups from which the White House and the Democrat Party seek approval while, at the same time, feigning disapproval of their actions.
One wonders whether these organizations were what President Obama had in mind when he gave that speech in Colorado Springs on July 2, 2008 concerning the establishment of a Civilian National Security Force that was to be “larger and better funded” than the US Army? He said, “As president, I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots … and double the size of the Peace Corps … we’ll expand the USA Freedom Corps …”
The only way for Obama to achieve expansion of his private national security force to eclipse in size and budget our existing standing army would be to slash the Army’s numbers and gut its budget. Is that what he is about with the secret super committee budget review process? Perhaps he anticipates that the committee will not produce budget cuts that will meet their assigned targets, or that the targets themselves are too small and will not get the job done.
Not only does Obama seem to want the committee to fail, he seems determined to do all in his power to help it fail while washing his hands of the Department of Defense budget cuts which will automatically follow and usher in the destruction of the effectiveness of our armed forces. Plus, he will blame Congress and the Republican Party for any and all military failures. Then at some future time President Obama may drum up a requirement for a large military organization of some kind; but the force structure and budget will expand Obama’s private civilian national security force rather than fortify the Department of Defense.
My guess is the civilian security force will have different loyalties than our current armed forces. Historically America’s military officers have taken oaths of allegiance to the constitution “… I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …” But don’t be surprised if Obama’s civilian security force officers swear their oath of allegiance to him and not to America, much as Germany’s military forces swore allegiance to Hitler and not to the nation of Germany. I wonder, have Obama’s czars sworn allegiance to the Constitution?
Harry Truman, our 33rd President once said, “If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.” With rights goes power. If the federal government has the right to do something then the American people have given it the power to do it and with that power goes the authority to make private citizens obey.
When sworn in, President Obama’s primary goal was to consolidate his power over the American people. The easiest and fastest way to do that was to take control of the American people’s need for and right to medical care. By contrast, the American people’s primary goal was to find work to feed themselves and their families and pay their bills. The people’s need for jobs was in conflict with Obama’s determination to grow his personal political power.
For an entire year the president made every effort possible to use the Democrat Party and Democrat controlled Congress to thwart the best interests of the American people. Instead of using the Presidency to rejuvenate the economy and grow jobs, he spent its power in political haggling over ObamaCare. Growing jobs doesn’t automatically give the president and government control over the lives of the nation’s people; but controlling the people’s medical care and using it to seize control over large chunks of American lives does.
Our Founders insisted on equal justice under law, so much so that it led to fighting the Revolutionary War. They were opposed to secret, hidden agendas that favored a federal government, its bureaucrats, and elite, privileged classes of people. In direct opposition to the Founders concept Obama routinely sews discord, divisiveness, discontentment and racial conflict. For example, his Justice Department has a propensity to enforce the law when the case favors minorities, and to ignore enforcing the law if it is favorable to white males.
Sensible supporters of the Occupy Wall Street Movement have abandoned demonstrating and have gone back to the realities of life: namely family, work and country. More and more it seems that the remaining agitators have a sinister purpose. They appear to be radicalized, professional demonstrators with a criminal and anti-American bent and political agenda, who capitalize on violence and exploit America’s citizens and democracy.
Leadership Fraught With Compromise
Recently Admiral Mike Mullin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. One soldier asked him whether, because of the debt-ceiling-limit problem, the soldiers engaged in risking their lives fighting the war would get their pay checks on time? Adm. Mullen said that he didn’t know and that the House and Senate were trying to work out a compromise.
What he should have said was, “Yes, I’ve told the President and the Secretary of Defense that you’ll get your checks on time if I have to rent out half the Pentagon for office space, sell an aircraft carrier, or put a freeze on every dime of procurement money spent! And if that doesn’t work all the Chiefs of the Services, along with me, will have our resignations on the Secretary’s desk before sun down.”
That’s not compromise, that’s leadership.
Many years ago I was the Chief of Staff of V U.S. Corps stationed in Frankfurt, West Germany. In addition to my many military duties I was Lord Mayor of all the military communities in the corps, which included being superintendent of all the American Elementary, Intermediate, Junior and Senior High Schools.
A group of educators traveled from the United States to evaluate the quality of education of the various American schools scattered throughout Europe. One day I learned that from the dozens of schools evaluated the educators singled out Frankfurt Junior High School for an award of excellence. It was the only school in the system to qualify for the award. So I made an appointment to visit with the principal and congratulate him.
“General,” he began waving me to a seat in his cramped office. “It is good of you to stop by. To what do I owe this honor?”
“The honor is mine,” I said. “I came to congratulate you and your school for winning such a prestigious academic award. Be certain we will arrange for an appropriate ceremony to publicly acknowledge it.”
We talked of many things and, finally, I leaned forward and asked a question I had wanted to ask for a long time. “Tell me, what makes for an excellent school like yours?”
He leaned back in his chair and said more to the open window than to me, “You’ll not find a good school with a bad principal, nor a bad school with a good principal.”
Of course, he was right. It is leadership that makes the difference, and his comment applies to most organizations and institutions. Leadership is everything, from the White House to Congress to the state houses to the news media and to the battlefields of the Middle East. There are no good organizations with bad leaders, and no bad organizations with good leaders.
The U.S. Congress could use a good dose of leadership right now. Recently the Senate left town for a six week recess without passing a short term bill to keep the FAA funded and running. One party, as they headed for vacation, blamed the other party for this debacle saying they refused to compromise on cutting funding for rural airports.
Whatever, this leadership failure resulted in 4,000 FAA employees being immediately furloughed and over 70,000 construction workers losing their jobs, when many badly needed construction projects were stopped and put on hold. If there was a real leader in the Senate, he or she would have stood to their feet and declared that, “Congress will remain in session until this bill is passed!” If the Senate balked at that, the President of the United States could be induced to do some serious arm twisting.
At the same time that this pathetic abdication of Senate leadership was taking place, real leadership was being demonstrated by a handful of FAA employees who declared that for safety reasons they would continue to come to work and perform safety inspections, without pay, until the problem was sorted out and the necessary legislation passed.
Those responsible for providing leadership from the White House to Capitol Hill, to the Department of Transportation and the FAA clearly abdicated their positions of leadership. Those in the FAA, not in leadership voluntarily assumed the mantle of leadership and responsibility and kept things going until their bosses came to their senses.
The junior high school principal back in Frankfurt got it right; there are no good Congresses with bad Congressmen, and no bad Congresses with good Congressmen. Honest compromise – which is a necessary part of democratic government -- is always important and desirable, but without proper leadership it is fraught with failure and disappointment.
When In Doubt Give Offense
Although a citizen of the United States, President Obama acts like a foreigner because he was reared a foreigner. He grew up in a Muslim country subject to the negative influence of a mother who had little regard for America and its institutions, having a Muslim step-father, and attending a Muslim school. All of these combined must have hindered his ability to assimilate into mainstream America. He never had the benefit of knowing what it is like to wake up in the morning, raise both arms in the air and shout, “Thank God I’m an American.”
Our Founders believed that a president had to be someone who, by nature, would be faithful to America’s Constitution and founding principles. One who could be trusted to think and act like an American, one who would guide our nation from an American mindset, one who had a deep rooted personal connection with the nation’s founding principles.
We now find ourselves in exactly the situation our Founders anticipated and tried to prevent when they wrote into the Constitution, “No Person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of President…and been fourteen years a Resident within the United States.” They believed that only people who learned to value the cultural and educational benefits of knowing what it is to be an American deep down in the marrow of their bones and in the fiber of their being, could be entrusted with the leadership of this great country.
They realized that being President of the United States requires far more than just meeting the technical requirements of a long form birth certificate. There is a spiritual aspect to loving and respecting this great nation and its people that can only be imparted by having been born here, by having lived here for a lengthy period, and by mixing and socializing during that time with true Americans. Rev. Wright and William Ayers hardly qualify.
The Founders carried within them the spirit of the Mayflower Compact which stated that the original settlers came to the shores of the United States of America for the, “Glory of God, and the Advancement of the Christian faith.” So it is no surprise that the basis of our laws and instruments of government is the Christian faith.
James Wilson would strongly agree with that statement of intent by the nation’s founders. His assessment of the Christian principles upon which our nation is founded is clear, “This law … made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the Law of God.” Wilson was a drafter of the Constitution and a signer of both it and The Declaration of Independence, and he became one of the original Supreme Court Justices.
Conversely, Omar Ahmad, founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith (or laws), but to become dominant…the only accepted religion (law) on earth.” In short, Muslims do not, in the slightest, believe in or practice any form of religious freedom and can never submit themselves to our Judeo-Christian based laws and Constitution. Muslims can technically work within the framework of our Constitutional law, but in their hearts and spirits only Sharia (Islamic) law is valid and binding.
From birth Muslims -- radicals and moderates alike -- are taught to disrespect other religions. Murder, beheadings and suicide bombings in the name of Islam are encouraged, justified and admired. That is why there has failed to be a general outcry and protest by Muslims or condemnation of the evil cruelties radical Muslim terrorists and governments are even now perpetrating upon the innocent.
The result is that Islam is invading and impacting every facet of our society and culture, from the neighborhood elementary school to Capitol Hill and the White House. The Islamic agenda is being overly protected and advanced by sincerely misguided Americans -- and Muslim sympathizers -- who are using their positions of power to cause political correctness to run amuck.
It is understandable that anyone with President Obama’s upbringing could be personally conflicted tying to resolve the clash of civilizations that tears at the fabric and soul of America. You would think that half of him would be sympathetic to the nation’s Christian foundation and principles, while the other half might be more favorable toward Islam.
Because of fear of offending those Muslims who are not offended by beheadings and terrorists flying jetliners into World Trade Center buildings, our President, politicians and bureaucrats refuse to truthfully define to the American people what the Omar Ahmads and the magnitude of the Islamic problem is really about. They forget that it isn’t possible to deal with a cancer until it is diagnosed as cancer.
Some reading these words may feel that I am Islamophobic, and Muslims reading them may well be offended. My whole life has been lived as that of a warrior, one who has served in the military and put his life on the line to protect this great nation, its people, its way of life, and its magnificent freedoms.
So, forgive me as I paraphrase and adopt what Patrick Henry said concerning the 13 Colonies resisting the tyranny of King George III -- “If this gives offense, let us make the most of it.”
Keeping Perspective
One hot Vietnam day I flew a borrowed UH-1 Bell Helicopter (Huey) from Qui Nhon south to Saigon. A refueling stop was scheduled at a helipad south of Tuy Hoa because somewhere west of there I hoped to find my brother, David, a paramedic with the 101st Airborne Division. It had been many months since we’d seen each other and I hoped to visit with him for a while before continuing on to Saigon.
In those days, it was Army practice for siblings not to be assigned to the same war zone at the same time. The Army didn’t want to lose several children out of the same family at one time, as happened during WWII. However, it was possible to sign waivers and get around the regulation which is what David and I had done. So we both ended up fighting in the Vietnam War at the same time, but in different units.
Why his unit had selected this particular site to be a helipad was more than a mystery. For as each helicopter landed, the downwash from the main rotor blades stirred up so much powdered red dust and sand that the pilot could momentarily almost lose visual contact with the ground.
The only safe way to land was, toward the end of a deliberately slow approach, to gently flare the helicopter slowing it down even more and then just as the whirling dervish dust dance started quickly push the skids deep into the dust until they gripped the hard surface underneath. At least that was the theory. If the pilot did everything perfectly, the skids would grip the ground before he became disoriented by the blowing dust and crashed.
On short final approach, I noticed a soldier sitting on the stump of a palm tree close to where the helicopter was to touch down. He wore a bulletproof flak jacket, his M-16 rifle leaned against his left leg, and he was eating from a can of C Rations with a white plastic spoon.
A steel helmet was jammed on the back of his head. Judging from the thick layer of dust that coated his clothes, face and arms, he had been sitting on that stump for an awfully long time. Perspiration had carved muddy lines down his dirt-caked face and it would be a miracle if he was ever able to scrub it all off.
Breaking off the landing approach, I flew low over the area warning him to move out of the way. Then I climbed back up to traffic pattern altitude, herded the “Slick,” (which is what the troops called UH-1s) around in a lazy circle and re-initiated the approach. All this time, to my irritation, the soldier didn’t move. Irritated and tired of waiting I quit circling and committed to make a landing.
When I finally landed the Slick’s rotor blades whipped up so much dust that it momentarily blocked out all visibility. After engine shutdown, my crew and I waited until the rotor blades stopped turning, then we quickly jumped down into the dust and slammed the doors closed.
The soldier was still sitting on the stump his right hand clamped down over the mouth of the C Rations can, trying to keep the dust and dirt out. I trudged toward him through the red powder.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I asked him.
He squinted up at me and carefully forming the words in his mouth like he was chewing mud mumbled, “All day.”
“Why don’t you move when a helicopter lands?” I asked. “You enjoy getting dusted off?”
“No, Sir,” he replied smiling broadly. “Today is my last day in ‘Nam.’ My First Sergeant told me to come down here to the Pad and wait. He said that sometime today a helicopter would fly in here bound for Saigon. I’m not going to leave this Pad until I get on that bird. My First Sergeant told me that a ‘copter’ was coming for me and he never lies!” he added with conviction.
Then slowly struggling to his feet he awkwardly saluted and hesitantly asked, “Sir, are you that helicopter?”
“No,” I replied. “But in a couple of hours I’m flying on to Saigon. If you’re still here when I get back, I’d be glad to give you a lift.” He was -- and I did. By the way, the visit with David went great.
Since then when things get muddied and priorities get confused, I think back on the dedication and singular focus of that soldier covered with dust and grime sitting there on that tree stump eating a can of C Rations. It helps me keep my perspective.
Defining The Force And Mission
The fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is causing our civilian and military leaders to review and reassess the involvement of American military forces in insurgencies and guerrilla warfare and more clearly determine what should be the role of the United States -- the shining city on the hill -- in such wars. This causes the entire area of Defense spending and force structure to be subjected to a top-to-bottom roles, missions, budget and force structure review.
Talk around Washington centers on using this review to halve the $700 billion annual DOD budget. The rationale is that now that the twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are winding down, our military forces can use the lessons they have learned fighting these wars to better prepare to fight the next generation of wars better, using fewer resources – doing more with less, as we prepare for future wars that I pray do not come to pass.
There is nothing new or wrong in trying to do more with less, but in war it is wise to let the facts be the facts. They are not what senior officers in the Pentagon, Congress and White House wish them to be; they are what they are.
Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld tried to get General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army, to agree that the Iraq War would be followed by a cheap and easy peace. Shinseki maintained that it would take more soldiers on the ground in Iraq to keep the peace than it would to win the war. Rumsfeld was furious, brushed Shinseki’s comments aside, went on to win the war, lose the peace and get bogged down in nation building just as Shinseki predicted he would.
Success in combat depends on many things, including the development of new weapons and weapons delivery systems, and the money necessary to develop and purchase them. It also depends on a clear definition of the mission and strong, intelligent leadership at all levels.
The United States military knows how to fight insurgencies successfully and each new war in which our forces participate adds to their reservoir of knowledge and experience. But the civilian leaders who commit our military forces to these wars do not share the same history of knowledge and experience.
We presently have a President with zero military experience and a Secretary of Defense with little more. Do they possess the qualifications needed to review the restructuring of our armed forces and make the necessary decisions concerning the development of new weapon’s technologies and capabilities? Not hardly.
One day at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while I was attending the Special Forces Operations Officer School, the class was lectured by an elderly, silver-haired Polish military patriot of World War II fame. He was of medium height and stood ramrod erect in the center of the stage, instead of hiding behind the podium as most speakers did.
In WWII he fought against the Germans who had invaded his native Poland, but the Germans captured and imprisoned him. He escaped and eventually made his way from Switzerland to England. He volunteered to parachute back into Poland and help the Polish resistance organize and fight a guerilla war against the now occupying Russians. For a while he succeeded in interdicting Russian military and supply convoys, but eventually the Russians captured him and marked him for execution. Miraculously, he again escaped this time making his way out of Europe by way of the North Sea back to England.
His lecture that day was on how to successfully organize for, fight and win guerilla wars. During the question-and-answer session, one of my classmates – referring to President Kennedy’s recent intervention in Vietnam -- asked, “How do you save a nation that has no history of freedom or self-rule and where the inhabitants refuse to fight for their own freedom?”
“You don’t,” he replied. “You let them be enslaved. If a people are unwilling to fight to secure freedom and democracy for themselves, you have two options. You can occupy them and take over their government and armed forces, including promotion authority. This assumes that you run their communication systems, transportation and public schools.
“It’s not hit and run. If your nation is willing to make such an extreme sacrifice and investment for the next 20 or 30 years, perhaps you then can successfully educate, train, motivate and raise up a generation of young people who will embrace democratic values and be willing to fight and die to preserve them.
“But personally I think it’s a gamble. There is little chance of success if you adopt that course of action,” he shrugged and soothed down his silver hair. “The other alternative is to write them off as a free nation.”
Over the years, particularly during my two tours in Vietnam, where my first tour was commanding the 220th Reconnaissance Airplane Company (L-19) in I Corps and along the DMZ, and my second tour was as an advisor to a South Vietnamese infantry regiment operating in the jungles and highlands of II Corps, I often thought back on his remarkable, frightening observations.
At the time his comments seemed unduly harsh and cynical. But later, in musing about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, I came to have more of an appreciation for his thoughts. No matter how badly we want to see all the peoples of the world enjoy the liberty and freedom that our Founders fought for and bequeathed to us, we cannot do for other nations what they are not willing to do for themselves.
The roots of America’s tree of liberty are still watered by the blood of its patriots. Dying to protect the freedom of the United States may at times be necessary, and is always noble.
Dying for another nation’s unappreciated notion of freedom may very well be a whole different matter.
Mrs. Curry's Fourth of July
It was spring 1961. The sun was setting and I was standing in my back yard on a hillside overlooking Pusan, Korea. Far in the distance mist formed at the bottom of the faded blue-gray mountains where fingers of ridgelines overlapped in the broad Naktong River Valley. On the eastern side of the valley, dark beige earth freshly gouged out of a quarry caught and reflected back the fading light.
Now the sun dropped from sight. Deprived of its light, the distance lost its blueness and turned a flat slate gray that merged with the darkening sky. In the fading light the corrugated tin roofs of Pusan’s houses ran together forming a nondescript mass. The last shimmers of dying light obliquely glanced off the tops of the hot roofs tricking the eye and giving the illusion of undulation.
This was a transition area where rice paddies gave way to suburbs and concrete block warehouses and manufacturing buildings. Beyond that area farmer’s houses squatted hard against each other to make as much room as possible for rice paddy planting. Along the main streets of Pusan the inhabitants of the few building wired for electricity gratefully turned on their lights, most just lit candles and kerosene lanterns.
Perched grandly on a series of little hills, observing and presiding over the city was the U.S. Army’s Hialeah Compound, where my wife Lady Char and our children and I lived. The compound was constructed on the site of an old Japanese thoroughbred race track re-named Hialeah for the famous race track in Dade County, Florida. Our home was surrounded by barbed wired, floodlights, and armed military guards. Some guards manned stationary posts; others walked their appointed rounds with police dogs held on short leashes.
Inside the military compound the western style homes sported cream colored stucco walls, red tile roofs, hardwood floors, and small fireplaces which contrasted sharply with the oriental style Korean construction in the city below. One of our joys as Americans living in a foreign country was gathering around the dining room table in the evening in front of a large floor-to-ceiling window, eating, swapping stories, laughing and pretending we were still living in America.
This particular evening during dinner, when Lady Char was pregnant with our fourth child, Natasha, the black sky was suddenly lit up by brilliantly colored machine gun tracer bullets and the explosion of mortar rounds. A few days earlier General Park Chung-Hee had mounted a successful military coup and deposed the government of Prime Minister Chang. Of course it was not without bloodshed and even now forces loyal to Chang were conducting counter-coups in hopes of recapturing power and restoring the Chang government. Below us in Pusan the fighting was fierce and violent. Fortunately we were safely outside the weapons’ ranges.
For Korea the years 1960 to 1963 were a time of playing “You bet your nation.” General Park and the coup leaders divided up the nation into geographical districts, each commanded by a Korean general or admiral with both civilian and military judicial authority. Trials were perfunctory, sometimes politically motivated, and the results were seldom in doubt.
Looking out over the city rooftops, the children were delighted with what to them seemed to be a grand display of fireworks. Our son, Jerry, jumped down from his chair, ran to the center of the large floor-to-ceiling dinning room window and excitedly shouted, “Mommy, Mommy, look – it’s the Fourth of July!”
“No,” Lady Char corrected. “It’s not fireworks. They’re just changing governments. Now sit back down at the table and eat your peas.”
The Spirit of the "Buffalo Soldier"
Writing in the 1800s Poet and Publisher Josiah Gilbert Holland said, “A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands … men who possess opinions and a will … men who will not lie.” Today we need strong, honest leadership at every level of government. We need a rekindling of the “Buffalo Soldier” spirit.
John Randall represents the type of heroism that was typical of Buffalo Soldier Congressional Medal of Honor winners. In September 1867 Private John Randall of Troop G, 10th United States Cavalry along with two civilians was attacked by 70 Cheyenne Indian warriors. The two civilians were killed instantly and Randall’s horse was shot out from under him. Private Randall single handedly held off the Cheyenne until help arrived from a nearby military camp. In the process he suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder and his body was pierced eleven times by Indian spears.
The Cheyenne returned to their camp and told stories of this new type of American soldier they had encountered, a soldier who “fought like a cornered buffalo, who like a buffalo suffered wound after wound yet did not die, and who like a buffalo had a thick and shaggy mane of hair.” And so the name “Buffalo Soldier” came into being. More important than the name was that Buffalo Soldiers carried within them the unconquerable, indomitable spirit of the buffalo.
During the Civil War nearly two million men served in the Union Army. Most of them were white, but nearly 200,000 were black soldiers who fought so well that when the war was over, the U.S. Congress authorized formation of four black, regular army regiments. They were the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments and the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments, and were called by the nick name “Buffalo Soldiers.”
From 1866 until the mid-1890s the Buffalo Soldiers fought Cheyenne Indians, Apaches, Sioux and other Indian tribes all along the western frontier. They were also called upon to build roads, string telegraph lines, open the Santa Fe Trail, escort U.S. mail carriers, and bring an end to the Johnson County, Wyoming wars. When the Grand Canyon caught on fire and burned out of control, they were called upon to help put it out.
In 1898 Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Spanish-American War in Cuba charging up San Juan Hill under the command of Teddy Roosevelt. They also fought in the Philippine-American War and in the 1916 Mexican Expedition, and were called upon to perform National Park Ranger duty. From 1897 to 1947 a hundred man Buffalo Soldier unit was detailed to West Point to teach the cadets how to ride plus teach them mounted drills and tactics.
Perhaps it was the stories of the spirit of the Buffalo Soldiers that contributed to President Reagan’s declaration that the United States is a “shining city on a hill,” one that other nations would do well to emulate. Many people of the world do recognize America’s exceptionalism and excellence.
This was made clear to me on one of my many tours of duty in Germany. I was stationed in Frankfurt and helped the Europeans establish an international organization. One of the first orders of business at their first convention was to elect officers, and someone from the Netherlands nominated me to be vice president of the new organization. An angry Frenchman stood to his feet and declared that if there was one thing they didn’t need, it was another American meddling in Europe’s affairs.
This caused a bit of a firestorm. A few Europeans agreed with the speaker, but most came to my defense. I let the battle roar along for a few minutes then told them that I had just received orders returning me to the Unite States and couldn’t accept the honor of being their vice president.
At that point a distinguished man, who I later learned was a bishop in the Catholic Church, stood to his feet and said, “Gentlemen, I don’t know why God has blessed the United States so much but he has. If you want a Billy Graham there is only one country that has a Billy Graham. If you want a John F. Kennedy you have to go to the United States. If you want a Martin Luther King, Jr. there is only one country that has one. So I wouldn’t be too quick to criticize the United States lest you be found opposing what God is doing.” Just then someone suggested that we adjourn for lunch.
Perhaps it was the spirit of the Buffalo Soldier that moved the German Bishop that day, perhaps not. In any event, he along with many other Europeans who attended that meeting openly acknowledged to me later that America is indeed a “Shining City on a Hill.”
This past Memorial Day it was indeed fitting to pay our respects to the memory of the Buffalo Soldiers and to all the other brave men and women who have so valiantly defended America’s freedoms on the field of battle, especially those who have been awarded the Medal of Honor.