Dying For All The Wrong Reasons

As everyone who reads my blog knows, I am just an old soldier. I am, as the General once said “just fading away”, but I am one who, so long as I draw breath, will never stop caring about soldiers. Because of the state of our Army today I would like to address an issue that I believe has been largely overlooked or when it has been occasionally addressed I don’t believe it has been clearly articulated.

It is my humble thought that being a soldier is one of the noblest, if not the most noble, professions that any human being can pursue. Soldiers are men and women who have made a decision to be of service their nation. They have such a burning desire that their country exist in peace and harmony and security and they so love their country that they have made a very conscious decision to, if necessary; sacrifice their lives and limbs for it.

Please take a moment and think about this. I would like for each of you to think about these men and women who think so much of their country, and more importantly their countrymen, to give their very lives to defend them. Think for a moment, about these men and women who walk the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah and Kabul never knowing if their next step will be their last or lead to a life of disability, pain, and suffering. And, think about the fact that these are the noble descendants of the men and women who fought at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Verdun, Normandy, Inchon, and Dak To.

These are men and women who step up and say, “Send me, let me go to serve my country and defend my nation against tyranny.” And they do this selflessly. These are men and women who when performing their duties never question why.

It is because these men and women do this so selflessly and nobly that it is our duty to understand and demand that they be sent to do these things only when we, the citizens of this great nation, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they go, to sacrifice and perhaps die, for all the right and just reasons. I say this again, that we, the citizens of this great nation, must know that they go, to sacrifice and perhaps die, for all the right and just reasons. I say this twice because I believe that we all know that they are not in Iraq sacrificing and dying for all the right and just reasons. I say this twice because we all know that we did not have the knowledge we needed as a nation to ask these young people to sacrifice so much.

It is not about not honoring our soldiers. Let me repeat that; it is not about not honoring our soldiers. We all strive to honor our soldiers in word and deed. We all know that they are wherever we send them, serving and sacrificing, because we as a nation asked them to do so and they are honor bound by oath to serve and defend and they are fulfilling that oath.

No, it is not about not honoring our soldiers but it is about our government. It is about the government that is led by George W. Bush, President and Commander-in-Chief. It is about George W. Bush who is responsible (the buck stops there) for all of the activities of this government whether it is the Pentagon, CIA, DIA, NSA or any of the other alphabet soup institutions of our government. It is George W. Bush who directed our soldiers to sacrifice and die for false information and to invoke war against a nation that did not pose the threat that he told us that it posed. It is about the government of George W. Bush not providing the citizens of this nation with the truth. Let me repeat that. It is about the government of George W. Bush not providing the citizens of this nation with the truth. We have exposed our soldiers to unnecessary danger and continue to expose them to unnecessary danger because George W. Bush did not tell this nation the truth.

Soldiers have struggled to always serve their nation with honor. They have not always succeeded but they have always struggled. We can ask no more of them because they are just soldiers and not gods. But when we ask a soldier to serve, we as a nation are honor bound to do so with all honesty and integrity. To do less is to dishonor and do an injustice to the men and women who serve. We and our government failed in this task during Vietnam and we have failed once again in Iraq but there is a profound difference this time. This time our government and George W. Bush have done so with criminal malice of forethought. It is one thing to struggle with incompetence and quite another to flagrantly proceed with such disdain and arrogance. We have asked and our military has sacrificed. It has cost our nation dearly and it continues to do so. At this writing we have lost 2,309 soldiers killed and 16,653 wounded and maimed. The cost to the Iraqi people is untold thousands.

The American people have been given a glimpse of the truth. It is time that we demand the whole truth and it is time we did the right thing. We must adopt a withdrawal plan and begin to extricate ourselves from this misguided war while simultaneously bringing stability to the region through diplomacy and firm military strength. This is not only possible but necessary. It is time that we fulfilled our obligation to our nation’s military forces and asked them to do what is needed and to ask them through a sense of honor, integrity, and honesty and not ask them while using deceit and deception.

Those Are The Sergeant Majors Thoughts On That.