Of Irony And Grief Or Why Has He Turned His Back

Today the numbers are 4,158 and 30,324 and 591. I don't believe I need to tell you what those numbers represent because anyone who reads this blog knows what I write about and therefore they will intuitively know what those numbers represent. But I'm writing today to share with you what I believe those numbers and another number, 95,533 really represents.

I believe those numbers represent the back of a hero, a failure in victory, and a nation lost.

Some forty years ago I began a journey in the jungles of Vietnam that I now look back on with great pride. I look back with pride because I was lucky enough to experience a career with a military that was led by visionary officers who said "never again". Never again to politically motivated wars that were destined to end in disaster for our nation. Those officers and non-commissioned officers led in rebuilding and re-energizing a decimated force and in creating the finest military the world had ever seen as was demonstrated in Panama, Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq and in many other places over the decades since Vietnam.

Today, I regret to say, that force has once again been decimated and the officers who built and led it have been cast aside like so much unwanted distraction. It has once again been decimated not by the enemy without but by the enemy within; by the misguided and uncaring political forces of this country led by George W. Bush and the Republican Congress of which John McCain is one of the more prominent leaders.

As a soldier and veteran that has witnessed and experienced the rise and subsequent decline of our military I am most aggrieved by the actions of Senator John McCain. A man who experienced the fiasco that was the Vietnam war in the most cruel and inhumane manner appears to me to be turning a blind eye to history. It appears to me he is turning a blind eye to not only his own sacrifices but also to the sacrifices of others both past and present. As I observe Senator McCain's actions I must ask myself why? Why has John McCain conducted himself this way and I find this question leads to only one answer. It appears to me that John McCain is doing this for the basest of reasons. For self aggrandizement. I can come to no other conclusion based on what I myself have observed over the last eight years.

By his own words and actions it appears to me that John McCain has forgotten that his instruction at the Naval Academy focused "on integrity, honor, and mutual respect based on the moral values of respect for human dignity, respect for honesty and respect for the property of others."

Now our great nation faces an election of epic proportions and we must ask ourselves a very basic and serious question. Do we want a president who would turn his back on his own sacrifices as well as the sacrifices of others for the purpose of self promotion or do we want a president who looks to the past for knowledge and wisdom and to the future for possibilities and inspiration?

Political discourse and "media buzz" across our nation is filled with a sickening silence. Yes I said silence. I say silence because there is silence in the noise and lack of substance that is our nations political discourse and in the media that is called news. That silence is ripping our nation apart. It leaves the soldiers and civilians that have lost their lives and been maimed by this war in a vacuum of silence to be ignored by this nation as we grovel in our own self pity because we've ignored civic responsibility and we've spent ourselves into a hole as our infrastructure is crumbling around our ears.

Of course the numbers I mentioned at the beginning of this piece are the lives, both American and Iraqi, that have been sacrificed or permanently scarred by an unjust war perpetrated by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain and the rest of the Republican Congress. This is the tragedy that is John McCain, a warrior who seems to have forgotten he was one. A warrior who would let his and the sacrifices of so many others be spent in vain as he pursues glory in higher office and refuses to let history be his teacher or the future be his beacon.

Those Are The Sergeant Major's Thoughts On That.