A poem from a Vietnam vet. Posted at Pass The Ammo.
I think it captures the overall theme of my posting this week….
“Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”George Orwell
There’s a character trait that’s decided by fate
Comes sadly to many, far too faint, far too late.
They won’t face the aggressor, stand up to his ire
They have not the will to fight his fire with fire.
So they bend over backwards to see all sides as fair,
Till they’re faced with dragon breath fire in their hair.
Like our brethren in France, who’d know better than we,
Yet seem never to learn, seem doomed never to see.
Yes, it seems there are some who’re determined by fate,
To possess not the courage to step up to the plate,
Who shrink from all threat because nothing’s worth war.
But how can they know lest they’ve been there before?
Thank God some have courage, the will, yes, the grace,
To stand for the shirkers, stand strong in their place.
Thank God we have stalwarts who’ll stand for us all,
Who will rise to the challenge at their nation’s call.
The faint-hearted, who fear, whose reaction is flight,
Have no comprehension of those who will fight.
To hide their own trepidation they attempt to demean
The rough men, who defend them, as barbaric, obscene.
Yet these rough men stand ready, hard weapons to hand,
To put placaters behind them, draw a line in the sand,
To preserve for the peaceniks what they won’t defend,
So their own unearned freedom won’t perish, won’t end.
To appeasers, rough men are coarse government tools.
To rough men, appeasers are dumb delusional fools.
Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
(via Parrot Check)
Well I must give credit to that soldier on two counts, first on his verse, which is not half bad and secondly for his dedication to his duty. However, I am saddened that he has fallen victim to the perception that a challenge to the war in Iraq is equivalent to a repudiation of our soldiers. I am the daughter, sister and mother of soldiers-Army, Navy and Air Force. My love for each is fierce and my pride and gratitude immeasurable. They answered the call of duty despite their personal opinions because it is their jobs and in my family no one approaches a job half-assed but gives no less than a 100%.
If anything, my admiration is increased for those who fight a war on behalf of their country knowing that the reasoning behind the war is shakey at best. For me, the loss of life is even harder to accept, because I am not convinced that the war in Iraq was necessary and I am quite convinced that the policy wonks in DC have pretty much made a hash out of the situation. I will never understand why the military is not allowed to run their operations but must take their marching orders from a pencil jock. You would think that a little more respect would be accorded to the opinion of the professional soldier instead of a so called “expert” who spent zero years fighting or studying military strategy and whose expertise is derived from academic studies, i.e., no real experience.
Although I did not support the decision to go to war in Iraq, I recognized that we have a responsibility to stablize the country before we leave-at least back to point it was at before we invaded.
I take umbrage at any attempt to lump together under the heading of “liberal” those that did not support the decision to go to war. There were and are many different reasons for not supporting the war that have nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that all war is bad. The United States of America does not “own” the men and women who comprise our armed forces. We should not willy-nilly send them into harm’s way. They should not be dispatched into combat on a whim, for unsupported idealogy or as a knee jerk reaction. They deserve more than that. Part of according them respect, should be an accounting of the worth of their lives and require a comensurate sacrifice of those that remain at home. This did not, and will not happen with respect to the war in Iraq. In the minds of corporate America this is a little war with great opportunities for making money.
I am no less a patriot than my hawkish husband simply because I see shades of gray where he sees only black and white. If Saddam/Iraq was such a problem then why didn’t Bush come into office proposing war. Why wait until after 9/11 that had no connection to Saddam/Iraq what so ever? I know. America would not have supported a war in Iraq before 9/11. I for one see absolutely no reason to change that opinion in light of 9/11. We had no more justification for war with Iraq after 9/11 that before 9/11. Some folks were so driven by fear though that they made ties where none existed. The fact that I am not so cowed by the destruction of 9/11 does not make me less of a patriot. It just makes me less afraid, less quick to jump to conclusions, less paranoid, less fearful. It does not make me any less committed to combating terrorism, or revenging the deaths of those who perished on 9/11.
Again I recognized our responsibility to stay the course in Iraq until we restablize the country (like it or not the country was stabile before we started the war), but this is in no way the same as saying I think we should have started the war to begin with. Those who supported going to war with Iraq like to paint a picture that everyone who did not support the war is an appeaser who now wants to withdraw our troops and turn tail and run. Nope. As a reasonably intelligent person I realize that whether or not you support a decision once the decision has been made, you work to make the best of it. Anyone who has ever worked for a living has experienced this.
I am a better patriot, a truer American, than many who now claim that I am no patriot at all for my failure to support the decision to go to war with Iraq. I didn’t suddenly discover my patrotism on 9/11. I had it all along. As I pointed out to my husband the other day, one need only look at our house to guess my true measure. While not overt, our home is full of picutures and what nots that clearly indicate a love of America. Of course once I pointed this out to my husband he promptly declared he would be taking some of these objects with him. I had to tell him no. Those objects are pieces of me, they reflect me and my feelings. I didn’t become religious on 9/11. I had my faith all along. I didn’t become a neocon or a conservative on 9/11. I have a conservative streak when it comes to financial policies; I was a registered Repblican until fundamentalists made it the party of choice and I still believe Nixon was a great president. The point is I experienced no radical change as the result of 9/11 and I mistrust to a certain extent those who claim to have experienced an epiphany as a result of 9/11.
Should any soldiers read this, let me say I support you. I am grateful that you are willing to make sacrifices, not just of life or limb but separation from family, loss of income; hey, just your lives in general ’cause Lord knows your lives are not your own right now. I wish to God that you did not have to be in Iraq. Though I pray that you will all come home soon, in the event that this is not to be, may you all return home safe.
Carol, although I disagree with your thoughts about the reasons for the war, I respect you and the fact that you didn’t come here to wage a BLOG war, so to speak. Many of those who support this war feel singled out as well-being called blind patriotic fools ect. I value human life as much as you do and I don’t like war either. I didn’t so much believe there was a connection between what happened on 9-11 as to what could happen in the not so far off future. Iraq has been a mess of a country for 30 years; stable-?- yeah sort of when one considers some things. But the mass graves, the public humiliation of people who spoke out against Saddam; the gassing of the Kurds; the war Saddam started with Kuwait; the rape rooms and torture chambers-led me to believe Saddam and his sons were not trustworthy. I didn’t trust they would keep their hands out of another attack on the USA. I watched a documentary on Iraq back in the 1990’s-98? I think. I saw images of torture houses and saw raw footage of hands and feet being sawed off; women being hung from meat hooks and beaten; Saddam’s son beating people with bats and canes. THEY needed to GO. Since the people of Iraq had no choice in the matter, after 9-11, the idea of what is a threat changed. I for one am proud that we have overthrown the government of Saddam. Iraq will be a better place when all is said and done.
Raven – I must say… Beautifully said.
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A lot of talented actors still have to pay their bills.
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I had had a troubled past, but like most rappers they go out and talk about it to kind of help their career.
I have a lot of real life experience with hustling and doing stupid stuff.
I just realized that the whole point of doing interviews was to promote this movie, so see it three times.
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
But it just so happens that when you re in the public eye, everything gets reported.
I love my H.R.H. character. But I never got it. Why do we pay these people millions of pounds to be better than us?
I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped.
I like the idea of making big budget films with a heart. I like graphic novels more than comic books.
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But I think that the most important thing was to really stop drinking.
An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.
I only drink to make other people seem more interesting.
Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.
Patriotism is a arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never ceased to be amused.
Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.
A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
I have survived by representing these sufferings of mine in the form of the novel.
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I too am living as a writer with this polarisation imprinted on me like a deep scar.
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Do some selfless service for people who are in need. Consider the whole picture, not just our little selves.
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