Of Soldier's Little Children and Uncaring Presidents

You know soldiers don’t have it easy and it’s a fact that every war throws a different set of miseries at them that scars, cripples and all too often kills. Bullets are one obvious and common misery to all but there is a whole other set that is not so obvious; like the cold muddy fields of Europe during World War II and Korea that left fingers and toes frost bit or missing and then the glue like mud and wait a minute vines of Vietnam that left you with trench foot, crotch rot and bloody scratches and now it’s the blistering heat and sand of the Middle East that infest you with biting insects, strange bloody rashes and grinding grit between your teeth. But did you know there is another group that has suffered along with these soldiers and have had their own debilitating and scaring and varied miseries. That unheralded and suffering group is the families and friends waiting back home.

The reality is that most people not only don’t know or understand combat and its miseries that soldiers must endure but they also don’t know or understand the stressed despair of loneliness that is suffered by those left behind. They don’t understand that hollow painful void in a mother’s heart as she thinks and waits for her son or daughter or the worried headache of a father thinking of a son or daughter in imminent danger. They don’t understand that aching throb that is the lump in the spouses chest every time they think of their husband or wife and the danger he or she face or that sinking feeling of despair when they contemplate the unthinkable life without them ever again and they don’t understand the emptiness in a young child’s stomach when they miss their mommy or daddy and can’t understand why they’re gone or why they don’t come home everyday like all the other kids mommies and daddies do.

No, many people don’t understand these things because today fewer and fewer have ever experienced it and or don’t care and you know what; it shows all over this country. It shows in our government and in our society. It shows in the way our government treats our soldiers and it shows in the void that should be an outcry from those who should understand and care but don’t or won’t. It shows when after our country has been attacked a President says go shop and doesn’t say we must all sacrifice and here’s what I’m asking you to sacrifice. It shows when in the midst of a great struggle against terrorist the only sign of support for the troops and their families that you see is a magnetic ribbon on a bumper.

It is my thought that there will be an awful price to be paid by our country for not understanding and or not caring what the leadership of this nation is doing and that price is beginning to be paid. We have a military that is not only not ready but one that continues to be decimated through gross mismanagement.

When George W. Bush became President he inherited a military that was not only combat ready but the absolute finest in the world bar none. This was graphically demonstrated during the invasion of Iraq. It was a military that was not only ready but one with moral among soldiers and family member that was the highest it had been in decades. In a few short years he has successfully broken it materially and morally. He has created a rush to exit of the finest soldiers’ ever enlisted and begun to replace them with those less qualified intellectually, physically, and morally.

Over the last few days you have seen a continuing line of America’s finest officers come before the Democrats of our Congress and give testimony to what I have said here. These are soldiers who care and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they speak the truth. It takes great courage to stand and be counted and these soldiers have done it on the battlefield and now they are doing it at home.

Somewhere today a soldier’s spouse is hurting, a soldier’s mother weeps, a soldiers baby cries, and a soldiers fathers eyes are blurry.

Last word for today – It’s time that those who don’t understand and or don’t care woke up and smelled the roses. Your nation is bleeding and it’s bleeding to death.

Those Are The Sergeant Majors Thoughts On That.