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Thinking Muslim Style

2012-02-01T03:42:47Z

The great British poet Rudyard Kipling, understanding today’s situation in Afghanistan better than our State Department wrote, “I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside. And the lives ye led were mine.”

There are two points the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense may want to keep in mind as they evaluate future problems in the Middle East and how to successfully address them. Both are easiest illustrated by real life happenings.

Many years ago I attended the Infantry officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. Probably ten percent of the students attending that ten month course of instruction were from foreign countries. For about half of the course my tablemate was an Arab. We studied together, completed homework assignments together, got to know each other’s families and generally enjoyed each other’s company. Part of that time we students were immersed in reading about, researching and discussing wars and problems of the Middle East. By this time my Arab classmate and I had, I thought, become close friends. A question popped into my mind and without evaluating it I said, “I have a question to ask you, but you may find it a little impertinent … or, perhaps, offensive.”

“That’s quite alright,” he replied. “We know each other well enough to be honest with each other. So go ahead and ask your question.”

“Well,” I began. “Each time you Arabs start a war with Israel, they beat your socks off. Why don’t you learn your lesson and quit making war on them?”

The words hadn’t passed my lips before I knew that I shouldn’t have asked that particular question. But I was wrong. My Arab officer friend didn’t get angry. He didn’t even think before replying.

“My dear friend,” he said in his British accent, “You are absolutely right. Each time we attack the Israelis they whip our asses. But have you noticed that with each loss we get better. We get whipped not as badly as in the war before.”

Then he got a faraway look in his eyes, pounded on the table and said, “Sometime in the next thousand years … we will win!”

Up until then I had never thought in terms of a thousand years, and I don’t think I’m very good at it today. But for those formulating foreign and defense policy for the nation, it is worth making the effort. For it is difficult to think in terms of the immediate future while negotiating with a nation whose leaders are thinking in terms of hundreds or thousands of years.

Point two: during the first Gulf War U.S. and Arab forces fought side by side and some of the officers became close friends. When the war ended in victory there was a celebration in the officer’s club with everyone congratulating each other. A lot of handshaking and hugging was going on. It was a time of displaying real brotherly love.

Seeing this, one of the senior Arab generals felt the need to set the record straight. “Look,” he said to a small cluster of American generals. “We have fought together and some of us have died together. I know you feel that that makes us brothers. But that is not the way it is in my world.”

He looked around the circle making eye contact with all of them. “I don’t want to see you hurt so I need to share this with you. There will be no tomorrow for us jointly. No matter how much you have helped my country -- and you came and helped us when we desperately needed your help – and no matter how friendly you feel toward us, we are still Muslims and you are still Christians. That means that in our eyes, we can never be brothers. I’m sorry but, to us, you will always be – Infidels!”

And so we Infidels have liberated Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have not made their countries nor their people depositories of freedom and liberty. No matter how hard we work to rebuild their governments, infrastructure, educational and medical institutions, and no matter how desperately they need our help -- as the Arab general pointedly noted – we can never be brothers to each other.

Also, I learned what Kipling meant when he wrote, “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” He was pointing out to the western world that to Muslims, we Christians will always be infidels!

The Star From The East

2012-02-01T03:37:05Z

It was the end of the day. The bloated bodies of the dead Vietnamese soldiers baked under the cruel equatorial sun and littered the jungle highland’s hillside surrounding Captain Larry’s position like rotting clumps of jellyfish spit up on a hot sandy beach.

Larry’s battalion had left on a reconnaissance mission early that morning. But starting around noontime his battalion had been engaged in a series of firefights with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Sometimes under such circumstances the senior South Vietnamese (ARVN) officers suddenly became sick, got lost, mysteriously disappeared, or in some other way managed to separate themselves from the battle. In the process they ripped the officer’s insignia of rank off their fatigue shirt collars and threw them away because the NVA usually tortured and killed captured ARVN officers.

Now Captain Larry was three miles out in the jungle clinging to the top of Hill 867 along with a pitiful remnant of ARVN soldiers and a few, brave ARVN lieutenants and sergeants. Larry and his ARVN were grossly outnumbered, surrounded and the NVA were tightening the noose.
Miles away back at my Command Post (CP), the radio barked to life. Captain Larry’s muffled voice cut through the heavy static. “Can’t hold on much longer,” he said his voice urgent but controlled. “They’re killing us with 82mm mortars and B-40 rocket-propelled grenades!”
Reaching out I grabbed the radio telephone handset and mashed down hard on the push-to-talk switch. “Larry,” I said in what I hoped was my calmest, most professional, most reassuring voice. “Just hold on … we need a little more time to get you out of there.”
“We’ve lost them,” Colonel Vy the ARVN South Vietnamese Regimental commander sadly concluded. Suddenly it was dark.

Sick inside I stepped out of the rusty, corrugated tin CP into the open night air. Glancing up at the radio antennas silhouetted against the moonlit sky and leaned back against the rough bark of a Palmetto tree. I knew that deep in the jungle where Larry and his men were fighting for their lives, precious little moonlight was filtering through to their jungle graveyard.
Near the command post dug into the clay-like earth was a sleeping bunker I had borrowed from another U.S. advisor who was on R & R in Bangkok, Thailand. Ducking under the dusty burlap curtain that separated the office-sitting room from the sleeping area I knelt on the concrete bunker floor and prayed that somehow God would give me wisdom, show me a way to save Larry and his men. How long I knelt there I don’t know, but at last I felt that everything was going to work out land I thought I knew how.

Scattered across a several mile area were six U.S. and ARVN artillery battalions. In the CP I gathered the ARVN officers and U.S. artillery advisors around me and pointed to a red pin stuck in the map on the campaign table that was believed to be Larry’s position. “Let’s plot a horseshoe-shaped, one hundred meter thick wall of artillery fire around Captain Larry and his men and fire a time-on-target.”

A time-on-target meant that we would fire each artillery tube at a mathematically calculated moment, so that each round would explode on target at the same time. Just the concussion alone from the exploding artillery shells would shatter the eardrums of the dazed and confused enemy survivors. Those who were not killed outright would be left bleeding from their ears and noses. Hopefully in the noise and confusion, Larry and his men could fight their way out of the open end of the horseshoe.

This would only work if we knew precisely where Larry and his men were. Unfortunately we could only guess at Larry’s location so the artillery would be firing blind. Without thinking Colonel Vy said, “Yes, it is very risky.”

“Risky or not there’s no other option,” I countered. If we do nothing they’ll be overrun and killed.” Raising my voice for effect I loudly declared, “Let the record reflect that I advised Colonel Vy to fire the artillery. If any of our friendly forces are killed, I am to blame. It will be my fault, and mine alone.”

These were brave words, but more Hollywood than reality. The facts were that if the artillery killed Larry and our troops there would be an official inquiry and I would not be given the benefit of the doubt. It would be clear that I had knowingly over stepped my authority and my military career would be terminated under the klieg lights of the evening news.

Vy furrowed his brow, nodded absently, then in a formal voice said, “Thank you Colonel Curry. Your advice is noted for the record.” Turning to his officers he snapped, “Do whatever Colonel Curry tells you to do.” Then drawing himself up to his full military height he squared his shoulders and, without looking back, strode from the CP into the jungle night.

With the responsibility-and-blame question temporarily set aside, the ARVN artillery officers quickly plotted the horseshoe-shaped artillery fire. Over the radio I urged Larry to be patient. “We’ll get you out of there … I promise.”

“You gave me that crap a half hour ago, Colonel,” he threw back at me. “We can’t hold on any longer … it’s now or never!”

Somehow I had to tell Larry in which direction to lead his men once the firing started. If I gave him instructions over the radio in the clear, the NVA would hear them and when our guys tried to fight their way out of the horseshoe they would be butchered.
I couldn’t encode the information because Larry would be shot the second he snapped on his flashlight to copy down and decode it.

Again I picked up the radio handset. Larry’s voice was faint, the machinegun and mortar fire louder. Briefly I explained the plan then asked, “Do you remember the Bible story about the birth of Jesus?”

“Of course I do,” he snapped. “Men are out here dying and all you can do is tell us Bible stories.”

“Do you remember the star when Jesus was born?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Do you recall the direction the star came from,” I continued?

“Yeah … you bet,” he confirmed, the timbre of his voice lightening.

“That’s the side of the horseshoe that’s open,” I shouted over the sound of exploding mortar shells. “Fight your way out in that direction.”

“Give me five minutes,” he stated more than asked. After what seemed an interminable wait Larry’s voice broke through the static, “We’re all set!”

Turning to the ARVN artillery officers I commanded, “Fire!” Thunder boomed out across the jungle battlefield as a myriad of artillery tubes belched fire and death into the night. In the distance, the sky glowed pink, yellow and white as tons of explosives churned the earth. Cold sweat trickled down the inside of my camouflage fatigue collar.

As abruptly as the barrage started, it stopped. Impotently now the sound hung in the air. Then came the hard part, the waiting. In war there is much waiting, particularly when the outcome of a battle is in doubt. Larry and his ARVN soldiers still had to painstakingly pick their way through the jungle blackness to safety, all the way maintaining radio silence to avoid giving away their positions.

For seemingly a thousandth time I anxiously looked up at the eastern sky and asked myself, “Where is Larry? Is he dead, or captured, or laying wounded on some vermin-infested hillside?” Finally it was time. Stiffly I stood, brushed the dirt and bugs from my fatigues, belted on my .45 and Randal killing knife and walked through the calm of dawn to my waiting Jeep. Colonel Vy’s Jeep swung in behind mine and we lurched forward sucking along behind us as cloud of red dust. Finally, our Jeeps lurched to a halt near an old rope bridge that was strung across a sluggish, mud-colored river.

Larry’s jubilant voice burst from the radio, “We’re almost to the river!” For what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, Colonel Vy and I stood at the near side of the rope bridge watching and waiting.

Suddenly, with a shout Larry sprang from the wall of green forest at the far end of the bridge. An Irish grin distorted his perspiring, mud smeared face and he waved joyfully. Wearily plodding along close behind him came the exhausted, but happy, ARVN soldiers.

Thinking Taliban

2012-02-01T03:31:38Z

The White House is hoping to end its ten year old war with the Taliban in Afghanistan through a political settlement. Let us all pray that the negotiations will be successful. It is past time to get our soldiers out of there. But as with most things in the Middle East, there is a little “catch” that complicates things and makes pulling out our troops hard to do. It is hard because the war didn’t start with political maneuvering. It started with the blowing up of the twin World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan. The war came in with a loud bang; it is unlikely to go out with a whimper.

Our viable options are few and unfortunate. There appear to be two: we must either find a way to militarily bring this war to a successful conclusion, or we can rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and walk away. Those I talk to fear that any agreement with the Taliban will be reduced to a face saving maneuver. As soon as our forces are withdrawn the Taliban will politically outmaneuver Karzai’s government, trash the peace agreement with the United States and NATO, and reinstitute a totalitarian Muslim regime similar to the one that existed prior to the war.

Historically for the most part, Muslim countries have been ruled by pseudo-Islamic military gangs or by pseudo-military dictators. Control of these governments is, at best, shaky which further complicates efforts by the U.S. and its NATO Allies to negotiate any kind of a meaningful peace agreement with them. Additionally while Taliban leaders are supposedly cooperating with other Taliban leaders, in fact they are operating independently and each is fighting his own little war. That is, everyone’s involved to some degree, but no one is fully in charge of military operations.

Karzai, Prime Minister of Afghanistan, doesn’t trust the United States and we don’t trust him. Also, the Taliban leadership doesn’t trust Karzai and he in turn doesn’t trust them. He insists that in the negotiations he has authority to speak for the Taliban, which they dispute. So peace negotiations are scheduled to begin shortly in Qatar and we are not sure who we will be talking to.

Worse, we are on record as saying that the Taliban are terrorists and that we refuse to negotiate with terrorists. Therefore the Taliban must sever all their relations with terrorists before we can engage in peace negotiations with them. And we are not the only ones who have preconditions. The Taliban have three: formation of a pure – this probably means radical -- Islamic government in Afghanistan; release of key Taliban prisoners; and a guarantee that once the treaty is signed U.S. and NATO troops will immediately pull out of Afghanistan.

The Obama Administration thinks, as a sign of good faith, that if they give in enough to the myriad Taliban field commanders, it will build Taliban confidence in the peace negotiations. To sweeten the pot, the U.S. is considering releasing some of the Taliban fighters from incarceration at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. What the U.S. State Department doesn’t fully understand is that no matter how many terrorist prisoners it lets go free, the Taliban will still never have confidence in anything the U.S. says or does. Taliban foreign policy is based on their warped view of Islam, not on what works or makes good sense. No matter what we do, we Americans will always be infidels to them – until the end of the world. As the Taliban leaders see it, the establishment of Islam is their most important priority. It is also the most important priority of the Kabul government, no matter how much they may pretend otherwise.

The Taliban and the Kabul government consider the implementation of government plans and programs of secondary importance to Islam and insist that all governmental actions be in accordance with Islamic interests, not just with national interests. Additionally the Taliban is on record as saying that they will not follow the Afghanistan government’s directions if they think those directions conflict in the slightest with their understanding of the tenants and teachings of Islam.

Showing a total disregard for civility and good faith, they are also on record as saying that they will continue to fight the U.S. and its NATO allies during the peace negotiations. That is, there will be no laying down of arms or cessation of hostilities while the peace talks are in process. Suicide bombers will still be doing their evil deeds throughout the Afghan provinces and Kabul, even while the Taliban leaders and Karzai’s government are talking of peace.
The Taliban resent that Afghanistan’s Prime Minister, Karzai, portrays them as subservient to his Afghan government in Kabul. They want to be seen as independent of Karzai, and if they can peacefully take control of his government, it will give the new Taliban government the appearance of worldwide legitimacy. So while they talk peace, the Taliban leadership is searching for a way to capture Kabul’s reins of power. Before the war they had forcefully seized power. This robbed them of the cloak of legitimacy, as flimsy as it would have been, and they don’t want to repeat that mistake.

They are also looking for a way to conclude a peace treaty with U.S. - led forces that will guarantee that all foreign armies will be withdrawn from Afghanistan not later than the end of 2014. Then somehow they hope to depose Karzai and his government. Even more complicating and troublesome for the Taliban is Afghanistan’s politically unstable, nuclear armed neighbor Pakistan, which could implode at any time -- without notice.

As they did when fighting against the Russians, the Taliban will take help from any quarter, even the devil himself. So they have enlisted Iran as a necessary but unreliable ally. Iran is willing to help equip the Taliban with military supplies provided there is a satisfactory payoff for them far down the road. The Taliban suspect that that payoff will be the requirement to subordinate Afghan foreign policy to Iran’s foreign policy, after the Taliban have taken the reins of political power in Kabul.

All this doesn’t mean that the U.S. should give up trying to bring the Afghan war to a satisfactory and peaceful conclusion. It just means that our efforts will continue to be complicated and difficult, and we will have to work much harder to achieve anything meaningful.

But what happens if we withdraw from world leadership and do nothing? Will the situation get better all by itself? Not hardly. Countries like Pakistan, Iran and China will openly work to foil our peace negotiation efforts, but that’s the nature of the beast. Still, nothing should be allowed to deter us from our efforts to bring peace and freedom to all of mankind.

Meeting The Challenge

2012-02-01T03:29:42Z

For the past fifty years the United States has led the world because that was its destiny. World leadership here at the beginning of the 21st Century is still its destiny. This nation was created to be, as President Reagan was wont to say, “A shining city on a hill” lighting the way for other nations to find the path that leads to freedom, knowledge and prosperity.

The question is are we, as a nation, still up to the task of being the world’s leader and can we, in 2012, produce a president who is willing and capable of bearing the heavy and thankless burden of world leadership?

If the U.S. doesn’t lead the world, what nation will? Europe is too old and tired; just dealing with its own affairs exhausts it. Can or will China lead? No, the world won’t follow China -- or Russia for that matter --because they are incapable of putting the world’s affairs ahead of their own, as the U.S. has so often done.

In the early 1990s Japan tried to assume the mantle of world leadership, but stumbled and fell. The Arab nations have yet to figure out how to govern themselves let alone lead other nations. The continents of Africa and South America have not yet been able to produce regional leaders, let alone world leaders. So across whose strong and broad shoulders does the mantle of world leadership inevitably fall?

For whatever reason Providence seems to have reserved that task, that burden, to the U.S. – alone. And of one thing we can be sure. With proper presidential leadership, the United States of America is still more than capable of continuing to lead the world.

What kind of problems does the first decade of the 21st Century hold for our great country, what challenges directly threaten the U.S. and the world? Behind the curtains, there are a smorgasbord of problems waiting to spring to the center of the world stage and clamor for attention.

Internal political instability and North Korean and Chinese military miscalculations could cause all sorts of problems for the peninsula, including blundering into a war with South Korea. An accidental military clash with China’s blossoming new navy or a Chinese miscalculation concerning Taiwan could also create a serious cause for concern.

Pakistan is ripe for a civil-military-nuclear-terrorist crisis and seems to be doing its best to stumble into or to create one. It could experience some kind of Arab Spring at any time. If so China, India, and Russia will be of little help. The only thing that is certain is that eventually there will be some kind of conflict in the Far East and, unless the U.S. is extremely careful or genuinely lucky, we will be drawn into it.

Saudi Arabia and the world oil market are cause for watchful concern. So far the Saudis and the Arab Emirates, with our help and cooperation, have managed the challenges presented quite well.

Islamic lawlessness in Europe can be expected to increase precipitating more civil-military instability and resulting in serious armed clashes.

Worldwide Islam can be expected to continue its nasty, dangerous, extremist ways. It’s the nature of the beast.

Iran will probably continue developing its nuclear weapons industry and sometime in 2012 that development will have to be significantly disrupted or eliminated altogether.
The U.S. is forecast to walk away from Afghanistan and the Taliban in 2014. In the meantime, what happens there is anyone’s guess.

In Iraq we have built the largest U.S. embassy in the world, State Department east? To what purpose? What is going on in Tehran? Do we really need to locate, in this third world country, a gargantuan ambassadorial edifice that is larger than our embassies in China, Russia, Paris and London? What is its real purpose for construction?

The cauldron of Palestinian statehood continues to boil and sputter and we will be lucky indeed if it does not explosively bubble over some time in 2012. Meanwhile the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are each day becoming more restive and politically unstable.

Most sinister and troublesome in the Middle East is the adherence of extremist Muslims and the abdication of moderate Muslims, to the notion that Israel is not a legitimate state, has no right to exist, and that it is the holy duty of Muslims worldwide to join in destroying Israel and all Jews everywhere. Even Hitler and Nazi Germany weren’t this ambitious.

More troubling, is the United Nation’s refusal to ban extremist anti-Israel movements. Countries that refuse to recognize Israel’s legitimacy should be expelled from the United Nations.

Closer to home, Mexican drug cartels and border crossers may get more out of control and cause the collapse of the Mexican government, forcing the U.S. to militarily patrol and protect its southern border.

How all these things fit into President Obama’s policy of “We will keep our military forces small and only be prepared to fight one war at a time” is not clear. What if our adversaries don’t agree to cooperate with such a policy?

Is now really the right time to cut over a hundred thousand soldiers and Marines from our armed forces, especially considering our nation’s current unemployment problems? Is the federal government forecasting similar reductions in its civilian work force?

Why aren’t Obama’s handpicked generals, admirals, intelligence, and defense officials publicly speaking out in opposition to these risky and dangerously unjustified cuts in America’s armed forces? Is their oath of loyalty sworn to the White House, or is it to the Constitution of the United States?

So the presidential election of 2012 is not just of vital importance to this nation, it is also of vital importance to the world.

A Time To Take Responsibility

2012-02-01T03:23:29Z

Now that the length of our military forces’ stay in Iraq has been decided and we have committed to a troop pullout of no later than the end of the year, there are as many different opinions and suggestions as to when to pull out of Afghanistan as there are expert military and State Department opinions. Of course much depends on what we hope to accomplish, and by when we intend to accomplish it. Can we rely upon American history to illuminate a clear path for us to follow?

In the late summer of 1781 Lord Cornwallis and his army of British regulars retreated to the south eastern tip of the Virginia peninsula, to a place called Yorktown. Cornwallis ordered his soldiers to furiously shovel and throw up defensive earthworks. General Washington and his soldiers marched south hoping to entrap Cornwallis on the peninsula. Then on August 14, 1781 French Admiral de Grasse sailed with a massive fleet from St. Dominguez, bringing an additional 3,500 French troops to reinforce the army of Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, “… sending the British fleet scurrying back to New York and leaving the French in undisputed control of the Chesapeake Bay.”

The situation in the thirteen colonies could have been much as it is in the Middle East today. Iraq and Afghanistan remain viable and stable countries probably only so long as American led allied forces do much of the serious fighting for them and keep their countries from falling apart. Indications are that when U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, the two countries may cozy up to Syria and Iran becoming terrorist sympathizers. We’ll know shortly.

If France had followed the same strategy after the Revolutionary War as the U.S. is now using in the Middle East, it would have kept its troops in our country for another ten or so years. France would have built utilities, provided schools and teachers, trained our armed forces and civilian police and improved the colonial infrastructure. But that was not what happened.

As the French and the thirteen colonies saw it, America was our country and if we didn’t know what to do with it once the war was won, that was our problem. Perhaps our efforts at self- government would fail. Perhaps we would descend into chaos. Perhaps we couldn’t protect ourselves from the so-called “savage Indians” on the frontier. We wanted independence, we got it, and it was up to us to make it work. Whatever happened, the future was to be all ours.

Without the aid of the French army and navy, it would have been impossible for General Washington and the Continental Army to defeat the British armed forces. After the Battle of Yorktown was over and the Revolutionary War won, the French lingered in the area only long enough, “… to protect the Continental Army while it gathered up supplies,” and they, “… set sail up the bay, then headed for the long trip back.”

Similarly, without the aid of the U.S. and its NATO Allies, it would have been nearly impossible for Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and introduce their country to the form of democracy they now have. What the leaders and citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq have to understand, is that their countries are theirs not ours. If they don’t make them work, we can’t do it for them no matter how much we might want to, and no matter how much they might want us to.

After our armed forces and civilian advisors are withdrawn they will have to pick up the pieces, tighten up the slack and make their countries function successfully. If they aren’t able and willing to take responsibility and do what is necessary to run democratic countries, then they will simply become two more failed Muslim states. Their destiny rests in their hands.

In the early 1960s I was an advisor to Korea, and in spite of U.S. efforts, Korea never became the success it is today until the Korean government took responsibility for the nation’s reconstruction. Seoul, Korea’s capitol city, was a mélange of oxcarts, ancient Japanese streetcars, trucks of all kinds, motor scooters, pedestrians and busses pounded out of 55-gallon gasoline drums – all intermixed and struggling for contrary passage. The result was endemic chaos on the streets of Seoul mixed with massive doses of gridlock.

One day Korea’s Supreme Council for National Reconstruction announced that the confusion on Seoul’s streets would end one week from the coming Monday. On that day only streetcars would run on the tracks in the middle of the streets. Cars, busses and motor scooters would run in the lanes on either side of the streetcars. Oxcarts and bicycles were banished to the area between the cars, busses and curbs. Pedestrians were to walk on the dirt paths alongside the open ditch sewers.

Of course everyone assumed that there was a zero chance that the Council’s orders would be obeyed. So we all were surprised, when on the appointed day shortly before daylight, Korean military trucks roared through the streets of downtown Seoul and screeched to a halt at major intersections. Rolls of concertina barbed wire were dragged out of the back of the trucks and dumped in the intersections. Other trucks disgorged squads of Korean Military Police. Day broke as usual, but this was not to be a usual day in the Capitol city of Seoul.

Grim, humorless, no-nonsense military police grabbed anyone who broke the new laws and herded them into hastily erected barbed wire enclosures. Once imprisoned, the offenders remained locked up in the enclosures for 24-hours, chilled at night, baked by a relentless sun during the day without food, water or toilets.

Within a week, order and discipline had been imposed on Seoul’s streets and traffic. Streetcars ran in the middle of the street, pedestrians walked on the dirt sidewalks and all other traffic moved in its appointed lanes. As quickly as they had appeared a week before, the concertina wire and military police departed.

It was their country and they had taken hold of it and given it a violent shake, which is precisely what the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan need to do. It is what our Founders did. They didn’t ask the French to stay and sort things out for them, or to insist that the British rebuild the nation’s infrastructure or somehow make reparations. No, they said, “It is our country and we accept responsibility for making it into a ‘Shining City on a Hill.’ It will be the envy of all the nations of the world and people will come from afar to admire what we have built here.” -- And so they did, and so they have.

Time To Move Past The Urination Incident

2012-01-22T01:50:00Z

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

2011-12-01T21:55:49Z

Most foreign countries that have U.S. troops stationed within their geographical borders have legislation or memorandums of understanding with that country stating that if a member of the U.S. armed forces is accused of breaking one of that country’s laws, that service member will be granted immunity by the foreign country and will be tried in a U.S. court, not in the foreign country’s court. This is called a Status of Forces Agreement and it is routinely used around the world to grant immunity to U.S. forces.

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

2011-11-18T19:07:19Z

I had enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private to fight in the Korean War. After the war was over I intended to get out of the Army and use the GI Bill to go to college and become a teacher. But one day an Army Education Counselor changed all that.
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

2011-11-18T19:04:11Z

The news media portrays the Wall Street Occupiers as peaceful, well-meaning demonstrators who, like the Tea Partiers, have become disgruntled and frustrated watching rich corporate Americans get richer while they -- and the average American worker -- get poorer. One day the media will awaken and discover that for the most part the Occupiers do not share the Tea Party’s peaceful protest motivations. Rather, they are radical political fanatics who want to seize control of our American democracy. If they can do it peacefully and legally, so much the better. But if they have to seize power violently, then so be it.

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

2011-08-10T19:47:41Z

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

2011-07-25T19:33:13Z

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

2011-07-08T13:35:13Z

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

2011-07-08T13:32:27Z

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

2011-06-26T17:26:36Z

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"

2011-06-10T13:20:07Z

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.

To Strike Or Not To Strike

2011-03-11T14:45:00Z

To him leadership came naturally, he simply stepped up and others followed, without drawn out discussion or question, as though it was destined from before time began that, for over thirty years, my father, Jesse Aaron Curry, would wear the mantle of Grievance Committeeman in the United Steel Worker’s Union of the Glassport, Pennsylvania, Plant of the Pittsburgh Steel Foundry.

While growing up in the town of Liberty in Western Pennsylvania, family discussions at the dinner table generally centered around three subjects: the Great Depression and how fortunate we were that, unlike many families, Dad had a good paying job as a steel worker that put food on the table and clothes on our backs; the goings on at Bethlehem Baptist Church where my mother was superintendent of the Sunday School; and how well my five brothers and sisters and I were doing in our school work and in performing the family chores.

Dad worked five days a week as a welder at the steel foundry, but in the evenings and on weekends he did truck farming. Each of us children had assigned chores and we carried them out faithfully or, as our father promised, “he would tear down a tree limb across our backs,” and Dad was always true to his word.

My assigned chores consisted of slopping the hogs twice a day, cleaning out the hen house, picking up eggs each morning, and killing and plucking chickens that Dad had sold to friends in town. It kept me busy and out of most normal childhood mischief.

Dad was a strong believer in labor unions and had been an officer, a grievance committee man, in the local steel workers union all my young life, and made its affairs our family’s affairs. Around the dinner table we discussed management labor problems, sometimes passing memos around the table for comment and suggested grammatical improvements, occasionally Dad holding forth on some pet subject of his, usually having to do with “The Local,” which is how the steel workers referred to the local branch of the steelworker’s union.

When my two brothers and I finished high school, before we left home to do other things, Dad felt we should spend a year working in The Foundry, not learning a skill so much as learning how to develop good adult work habits. Many years would pass before I fully appreciated the service he had done me that year, by insisting that I work along side him as a welder and scarffer.

One winter’s night after work Dad said to me, “Son, the rank and file don’t know it yet, but next week they are going to go out on strike. The order to call a strike has come down from “National.” [He was referring to the national headquarters of the United Steel Worker’s Union].

“Now here’s the way it works. The Local will call a labor meeting at the Union Hall for Friday afternoon when the shifts change. I want you to sit in the back of the Hall and observe. No matter how strongly you feel about what’s going on, don’t say a word, nothing."

“The President of the Local and some of us officers will sit up front. The President will read a letter from National presenting the union’s side of the issue, saying that Company and Management have treated us workers unfairly, tramped all over our rights, refused to listen to reason, and so there’s nothing left for us to do but to go on strike. At the end of the meeting we’ll take a strike vote, and the majority will vote to strike.

“My role is to stand up and argue vehemently that it makes no sense to strike and that I think Management is willing to talk to us and iron out our differences. Then some of the other local officers will jump to their feet and angrily condemn me, will strongly support the President and National, and will say that only cowards are afraid to strike for their rights."

“Most workers will go along with whatever the President says, but there will be about a half dozen trouble makers in the hall, men who will not easily go along with the decision to “Strike” and who, if allowed to be heard, could change some of the other men’s minds. These trouble makers will jump to their feet and try to present the ‘No Strike’ side of the argument. We think we know who most of them are and will be watching them closely."

“Also we have appointed goons to sit close by each one of them, when they stand up our boys will grab them and haul them back down into their seats and out shout them. It won’t be very pretty and emotions will run high, but in the end they’ll be intimidated into sitting down and shutting up. Remember, no matter what happens, don’t you get involved and don’t try to protect me.”

Dad called it exactly right and it developed just as he predicted it would. The President condemned Management, My father put up a good fight as to why the workers should vote “No, to going out on strike.” Some misguided individuals tried to support him and to rationally present reasons as to why striking at this time didn’t make good sense, the goons sitting near them were ready, manhandled them back into their seats, and shouted them into silence. At the end of the meeting we all voted, little slips of paper were passed around, we marked the ballots “Yes” or “No,” and the “ayes” won.

While we had been inside the Hall practicing labor union democracy, some of the union guys had rolled out 55 gallon barrels, placed them at convenient locations, shoveled them partially full of coal, and set them on fire so we wouldn’t be getting cold walking the picket lines. Then the “Strike” signs for us to carry miraculously appeared from somewhere and we “Struck”.

There wasn’t much interest or excitement on either side, Management or Union. A few days later Management caved in to the Union’s demands, which weren’t much, just National letting management know that if the union didn’t get its way all the time, they weren’t afraid to shut down the entire Steel Foundry.

Soon official word came down from National that the Union had won and that the strike was over, so we put out the fires and went home -- and back to work.

Jews, Blacks, Planned Parenthood and Euthenasia

2011-03-08T21:51:00Z

Black women queuing up and climbing into the stirrups mounted on Planned Parenthood’s abortion tables, much like Jewish women lining up and meekly shuffling along to Hitler’s concentration camp’s gas ovens in the early 1940s, holding their children by the hand, disrobing with no sense of modesty, modesty long since starved and beaten out of them, the final result for both groups of women being the same, or at least nearly so -- the euthanasia of both races -- the difference being that the Jewish women had no choice, America’s black women sacrifice their innocent children voluntarily.

Abortion in America is a multibillion-dollar industry, primarily serviced by Planned Parenthood, primarily clinics located in and around black communities, where doctors gross up to $60,000 a week, where if abortions continue to be performed in the future at the same rate they have been in the past America’s black population may someday cease to exist.

Planned Parenthood was founded in 1916 by Margaret Sanger, who viewed Negroes as being racially tainted and inferior to white people. In her 1932 “Plan for Peace,” she wrote that she was in favor of, “A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population [Negroes] whose progeny is already tainted.”

Because Planned Parenthood started off targeting pregnant black women, most of its abortion clinics were and still are located near large black population centers, resulting in African American communities still being targeted, and where black babies are aborted by the tens of thousands.

In 2004 the United States was home to approximately 40 million African-Americans, if you add to this number the approximately 15 million black babies who were killed through abortion in the previous thirty years, the 2004 total number would have been around 55 million. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2004 over 450,000 African American babies were aborted, this compares to the 165,000 African-Americans who died from all other causes combined, including cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS.

It used to be that black Americans were the second largest ethnic group in America, but because 1,400 black babies are aborted every day, Black Americans as a percentage of ethnic groups will soon drop to third place. In 2004 alone there were 161 abortions per 1,000 white women; and 472 abortions per 1,000 black women, furthermore it is estimated that women who have had an abortion, experience a suicide rate six times higher than women who carry their babies to term, and they are sixty percent more likely to miscarry later in life. Hitler’s extermination of 6 million Jews pales in comparison.

Bizarrely, while we Americans are killing our unborn babies and shrinking the available labor pool, those wanting to be parents are traveling overseas to pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt foreign born babies, white and black, thus increasing the size of our labor pool, at the same time encouraging illegal workers to illegally cross our southern border, again increasing the size of the nation’s labor pool. Does this make sense? I think not.

Surely it must occur to some of these black women who so willingly mount Planned Parenthood’s abortion tables that what they leave behind of themselves on those tables is significant. In one of those innocuous-seeming plastic garbage bags casually thrown into the trash dumpsters conveniently located just outside the back door of the clinics, might be the remains of a future Martin Luther King Jr., or an Albert Einstein, or a Pavarotti, or a Condolezza Rice, or a Robert Frost, or an Arthur Ashe, or a Toni Morrisson, or a Morgan Freeman.

The 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling was to the twentieth century the equivalent of what Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s Dred Scott decision was to the nineteenth century. Taney ruled that slaves were merely property and their owners could dispose of them in any way they wished; Roe v. Wade ruled that unborn babies were merely property and their mothers could dispose of them in any way they wished.

It seems to me that if Germany’s Jewish mothers had been given the same choice in the early 1940s, as America’s black mothers are given today, they would have chosen differently.

The Things We Do To Win A War

2011-02-14T19:27:00Z

The 220th Reconnaissance Airplane Company was organized on April 15, 1965 at Fort Lewis, Washington. I was its first commander. By Herculean efforts we requisitioned all necessary equipment then packed and delivered it to the docks at Tacoma, Washington, for ocean transport to Vietnam.

On June 19, 1965, I led a party of seven officers and nine enlisted men to Vietnam to advance the 220th’s arrival. My very capable executive office, Captain Bill Schmale, a few months later brought over the rest of the company.

Upon arrival in Saigon, I learned that the 220th’s location had been changed from a safe area in the south to a front line location with the Third U.S. Marine Division in the far north up against the DMZ, a line separating North from South Vietnam.

Our airplanes were the dependable Cessna L-19s, small two-seaters with high wings, powered by a single six-cylinder air-cooled engine. Our route of flight from Saigon went northeast to the city of Phan Thiet where we turned north and over flew the cities of Phang Rang, Nha Trang and Tuy Hoa. Then we crossed over Qui Nhon and Quang Ngai in Binh Dinh Province, that cruel and bitter center of Viet Cong terrorism. Next we passed by the huge U.S. Marine complex at Danang and, tracking northwest, descended through the Hai Von Pass into the Hue basin.

At Hue-Phu-Bai we landed and as I stepped down from the Cessna’s cockpit was greeted by Lieutenant Colonel “Rough House” Taylor, commander of the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines. He was five-ten, sandy-haired, the oldest Marine battalion commander in Vietnam and the best. Taylor was a no nonsense officer whose waist was as broad and hard as his shoulders.

“Welcome to Phu-Bai,” he grunted. “The front lines are about a hundred yards in that direction. Dig your foxholes from that clump of trees around to the dry stream bed over there.” Squinting into the sun, he gestured with a big knuckled forefinger. “My rules of engagement are simple; anything that moves outside the barbed wire after dark gets shot. Any questions?”

“No, Sir.”

“Then I suggest you all stay put once the sun goes down. When you get settled, come see me. There’s a lot talk about.” I saluted; he returned my salute and stomped off.

The first operational surveillance mission was flown the next day. Aircraft averaged 120 hours of flight time a month for the first six months of flight operations. This was directly attributable to Chief Warrant Officer Don Behny our maintenance officer. But there is more to winning wars than equipment readiness.

Mr. Ngo, the Vietnamese civilian airfield manager, was a case in point. He looked more like a mystic than a Vietnamese bureaucrat. Something had gone wrong in the construction of his body. His bottom half was too long and his top half too short. He seemed to have been cut in half at the waist and mismatched in reassembly.

Chief Behny and I set up a visit with Mr. Ngo because our airplanes sorely needed more ramp parking space. They were jammed so close together that the explosion of a single mortar round would have damaged or destroyed several aircraft.

Mr. Ngo graciously brewed us tea. “I much prefer coffee,” he said, “but it is much too expensive.”

I made a mental note of his request and we sat and drank tea with him, talked about the monsoon season, the area’s 121 inch average rainfall, our children and how lovely Vietnam had been before the war.

When he could no longer postpone discussing the purpose of our visit, he fetched a blueprint out of a rickety wooden wall cabinet. On it were the location of the runway, utility lines, the limited airport parking ramp, and other buildings, roads plus technical information.

Smiling obliquely he said, “Major Curry, the area you request for your airplanes is quite difficult. As you can see here on the paper there is a house located right in the middle of the area. Notice the area is marked ‘Vietnamese government property’.”

I nodded, “Yes, but the house is dilapidated and a strong wind would blow it down.”

Ignoring my comments he continued, “Of Course I will forward your request to the Saigon Government. You understand that it will take one or two years to get an answer?

Years before, when I had been an advisor in Korea, they had taught me this game. I smiled and said softly in my most deadly manner, “Tomorrow morning at sunrise the U.S. Marine bulldozers will arrive to prepare the area for construction of an asphalt parting ramp. The house you see out there in the middle of that area will be leveled, along with anything or anyone in it.”

I followed this statement of fact by standing and bowing. Paling, Mr. Ngo stood and bowed in return. Chief Behny and I departed. I don’t know where the people and their belongings went, but at first light next morning they were gone. So Rough House Taylor’s bulldozers clanked into position and started construction of the badly needed aircraft parking ramp.

Three months later I received a request from Mr. Ngo asking me to again come and visit him. Our meeting started with the usual bowing and tea brewing ritual and once the pleasantries were over, Ngo took a new blueprint out of the old rickety cabinet and proudly unrolled it on top of a table. Major Curry, this came in today from Saigon.”

On the new blueprint of the airfield was an enclosed area with hatched lines and words saying that the aircraft parking area we had confiscated was now designated as U.S. Government property. Bowing I said, “Mr. Ngo, it is always a pleasure to do business with you. Rest assured that the U.S. Government deeply appreciates your efforts on its behalf.”

When I got back to the 220th, I called in my Mess Sergeant, Pablo Sandoval, and had him take two five-pound cans of coffee over to Mr. Ngo’s office.

Will Obama Betray The Egyptian People?

2011-02-09T14:48:00Z

The democratic revolution in Egypt started a few weeks ago when its people rose up in secular protest demanding change and reform of their government and way of life. But the confrontation quickly transitioned into chaos and a vicious and violent struggle for power as the Muslim Brotherhood and other professional Islamic agitators joined in, bringing a reaction from Egypt’s security forces. The confrontations we see today in Tahrir Square have little to do with the cause of the original protesters.

Without help from President Obama the people’s revolution has succeeded. The people have won the beginning of an extended fight to secure freedom and democracy for themselves and their children. They have been promised a change in government, national elections, and the resignation of their President, Hosni Mubarak. In short, the original democratic demonstrators couldn’t have been more successful. They have tasted freedom and democracy with a promise of more to come. Violence, chaos, and strife in Egypt should be decreasing with peace rising up in its place like a warm summer sun in April. But such is not the case.

On February 4, 2011, Presiding Anglican Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East said, “We in the church here [In Egypt] would like to see a very gracious transfer of authority … I think the Western administrations don’t understand well the situation on the ground here. They don’t know that if the president left suddenly there would be a vacuum (like what happened in Iraq), and this will give an opportunity for extreme groups to fight and divide and to play around. I’m sorry that these administrations asked the president to step down immediately. They don’t understand the situation.”

Long ago history should have taught us that for the most part negotiations held in public, with media access to them, fail. If the United States wants to successfully stabilize the situation in Egypt, then President Obama and his staffers need to be muzzled. They need to shut their mouths and quit making unhelpful, conflicting public statements lest the world’s leaders -- including Saudi Arabia and Jordan --find out what a weak and unreliable ally Obama is.

All of Obama’s talk about violence being unacceptable is for the most part directed against Mubarak’s government and not toward the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Islamic thugs, the original perpetrators of street violence. Obama’s publicly hinting at siding with radial Islamic agitators is neither helpful to Egypt, nor to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East nor other parts of the world.

The Muslim Brotherhood is founded upon the following principles, “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood is well organized and funded and, if it is successful in its coup-like attempts, will not be helpful to the Egyptian people or to the United States.

Currently the original demonstrators’, political parties, Muslim terrorists and extremists of various sorts and the Muslim Brotherhood are all boiling in the same cauldron. Obama praises the demonstrators for their “passion and dignity” in restraining themselves. He does not praise Mubarak’s government for even greater restraint when they could ruthlessly crush the protestors with little effort.

Like the Egyptian people the U.S. -- with no action on its part -- has won the goals and objectives it has so long championed in Egypt. To claim victory it need only accept the change and reform that Mubarak so graciously offers. Next comes helping him and the Egyptian people to enter into an honest dialogue and to successfully navigate their way through the treacherous transition waters that -- with great effort -- could lead to peace, prosperity and stability. In the process they just might establish a new and democratic government, one based on the rule of law, justice, freedom and democracy.

The professional, “Johnny come lately” Islamic agitators, who are the main perpetrators of today’s violence in Tahrir Square, are trying to launch a coup and prevent the forming of a legitimate Egyptian government. Their goal is to capture and subvert the original secular democratic revolution through deceit, deception, chaos and brutality. Their ranks are composed of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, professional radical Muslim agitators and terrorists -- and some are foreigners to Egypt.

They have little interest in helping the people of Egypt usher in a free and democratic state, but they intend through their ruthless and determined thuggery, to co-opt Egypt’s democratic revolution, topple Mubarak’s government, and implement a radical government of their own.

The most important question that must be answered is, “Who fills the vacuum?” This is always the tricky part in a revolution, choosing the right leaders to fill the vacuum caused by the overthrow of the current government, until a new government can be put in place through fair and peaceful elections -- or through terror and deceit.

If a coup should actually take place, who wins? Who ends up in control of the government of Egypt? Columnist Charles Krauthammer identifies the coup members as being, “Disciplined, ruthless and ideologically committed – radical Islamists.” Unfortunately the national and international news media seem to have allowed themselves to be duped into advancing the cause of the radical, Islamic extremists.

During the U.S. presidential campaign of 2008, over and over again the media demonstrated its determined ability to faithfully clasp to its breast the words “reform” and “change” without ever asking Obama, “Change and reform from what to what?” The media seem to be following along that same blind road in covering the current Egyptian revolution.

Throughout most of the last half of the last century the salvation of the people of Egypt was in the hands and actions of its military forces. President Anwar Sadat was a product of the Egyptian military. He was the first Arab leader to visit Israel and managed to conclude a peace treaty with Israel before he was assassinated. Every Egyptian leader since 1952 has come from the military.

Over the years political stability in the Middle East has mostly been purchased by military officers who were willing and able to tread political tight ropes strung between camps of ruthless Islamic extremists, unscrupulous politicians and dictators, and various types of inept provisional governments. No perfect democracies have emerged, but in some cases a shaky democratic stability has been achieved.

Egypt’s potential options as a result of the current protests are probably these: With the support of the military and Egypt’s rich business class, Mubarak will shepherd a messy transitional government until elections take place. He then steps down and probably leaves the country; Or, Mubarak immediately steps down and his vice president leads the transitional process; Another variation is that El Baradai becomes a figurehead for a brutal radical Islamist transition government culminating in an extremist, Islamist seizure of power; Finally, there could be a transition government made up of those protestors who started the original uprising and who may try to rule with limited military support.

All of these variations will be shaky with dozens of other variations possible. The worst case is that there will be a bloody, senseless civil war with an unknowable outcome and everyone a loser.

Which of these options will float to the surface and be implemented at this time? I cannot hazard a guess. But I pray the criminal elements of radical Islamic extremism will not be successful in grabbing the Egyptian people’s democratic revolution by the neck and wringing it. During the period of transition, Egypt will be best served if the military supervises the transition process.

President Obama should openly and forcefully stand beside the Egyptian people in this their most dangerous hour, and not end up playing “the fool” to the tune of radical Muslim extremists.

It's Not The Economy Stupid, It's President Obama

2011-01-31T23:15:00Z

By the time President Obama finished giving his State of the Union message, he had failed leadership 101 and convinced the nation that he is incapable of successfully leading it, especially in a time of crisis.

The State of the Union was a wonderful opportunity for him to rally his defeated fellow countrymen and lead them up the hill to storm the enemy’s fortifications. But he couldn’t even inspire his troops enough to get them to climb out of their foxholes, let alone charge and overrun the enemy positions. Clearly crisis leadership is not in his repertoire.

Anyone can lead when things are going right and there is not a dark cloud on the horizon. But it takes a leader like Washington, Lincoln or Churchill to take command in the middle of a national crisis, squarely face the enemy, rally America’s citizens, crush the enemy and lead the nation to victory.

Can you imagine Obama drilling Washington’s army in the dead of winter at Valley Forge, or leading a charge up Little Round Top at Gettysburg, or breaking through the Nazi lines as Patton did at Bastogne? Today, if you were fighting the Russians would you be comfortable with Obama having your back?

If you want to know how a real leader thinks and talks, re-read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address. As I sat and watched Obama give his State of the Union message on TV, I desperately listened for the words of encouragement that a President Lincoln might have given.

He would have said something like, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty economic scourge may speedily pass away … Yet if God wills that it continue … the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

I was listening in hopes of hearing Obama give a closing that summed up the ravages our soldiers and their families suffer daily because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Something like, “Let us strive on to finish these wars we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounded, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The words of Lincoln’s are the words of a true leader and of a great President. They were sadly lacking in Obama’s State of the Union. Let us all fervently pray that he will either quickly grow into the job, or decide not to run again for the office of president. Our nation deserves better than we are getting from him.

Notice that in his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln didn’t even mention political parties or his political opponents. This was because he realized that the real struggle the nation was involved in was not just between those who would destroy the nation and those who would save it. But it was between the idea of enslaving fellow men or granting them the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that all Americans had the right to enjoy.

So, today, the struggle is not between Democrats and Republicans. It is between those who would pile debt upon debt until the nation is crushed beneath its obscene weight, and those who would see the government live within its means until it can devise a way to pay off its debts, restrict the size and expenditures of government, and balance the budget and keep it balanced.

Unfortunately President Obama seems unable to, or is incapable of understanding that now is the time for him to demonstrate real presidential economic leadership, that it is time for him to quit wandering around in the “inside the beltway” political jungle and get to work.