"Teenaged Boys, Armed and In Uniform" (Donald Sensing)
All armies are not the same
On the contested bridge in Hindiya, the captured town south of Baghdad, an American company commander, Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville, Ga., dashed to a wounded Iraqi woman in a black chador lying exposed to fire in the center of the span. Captain Carter crouched with his M-16 rifle to cover her position until medics could evacuate her by stretcher, according to journalists traveling with the unit.(New York Times)
In November 1998, Stephen Ambrose wrote American Heritage's cover story, "I Learn a Lot from the Veterans." He quoted an unnamed World War II veteran:
"Imagine this. In the spring of 1945, around the world, the sight of a twelve-man squad of teenage boys, armed and in uniform, brought terror to people's hearts. Whether it was a Red Army squad in Berlin, Leipzig, or Warsaw, or a German squad in Holland, or a Japanese squad in Manila or Seoul of China, that squad meant rape, pillage, looting, wanton destruction, senseless killing. But there was an exception: a squad of GIs, a sight that brought the biggest smile you ever saw to people's lips, and joy to their hearts.
"Around the world this was true, even in Germany, even - after September 1945 - in Japan. This was because GIs meant candy, cigarettes, C-rations, and freedom. America had sent the best of her young men around the world, not to conquer but to liberate, not to terrorize but to help. This was a great moment in our history."
Captioned: "A U.S. Army soldier on a mission with an Army Civil Affairs team distributes candies to boys and girls in Malak Ameer Jan Kalay, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Kandahar, Afghanistan."
An American Army officer in Kosovo.
Let's not forget the Brits:
What you see in Umm Qasr now are groups of children coming to Royal Marine troops and wanting to muck around! They are trying to play children's games of cat and mouse, and keep jumping on the backs of the lorries that deliver food supplies.
After the initial stage when British soldiers - now out of their Kevlar helmets and flak jackets, and patrolling in berets - were trying to make friends with the children to win their hearts and minds, now the children are driving the soldiers mad with their constant demands for chocolates and sweets! (BBC)
The above report was created by Donald Sensing, who runs one of the very best warblogs online. I was going to link to it, but it was so good I felt it deserved extra special exposure. So I got Rev. Sensing's kind permission to reprint it instead. I dedicate this reprinting to the anti-war protestors who worry that America is a bloodthirsty and imperialist nation. --Dean
Nothing is more pleasing to my sensibilities than to realize, after all these long decades since the end of World War II, that the United States of America now has a leader and a government that -- once committed to war -- will not stop short of victory.
I was doing my daily four mile fastwalk on a treadmill in a Madison, Wisconsin fitness center. Bush was on the overhead TV sets. At Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in the presence of more than 12,000 cheering US Marines showing proper respect to their commander-in-chief. Semper fi, in the truest meaning of the old Latin phrase.
He let them know, he let all of us know, there would be no drip-shit negotiated settlement with the saddamites. The Marines, the US Army, the Brits would finish this particular job. No more reruns of Korea after three bloody years or Vietnam after seven of the same. No more Mogadishus. No more cut and run.
I believe this man. Like I never believed or trusted his trilateralist Connecticut country club father. He has cold steel in his soul. And that is exactly the kind of leadership needed as the United States pursues World War IV, quietly, carefully, steadily. We will win.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI