We rarely hear anything good about our troops from the MSM. That's a shame. So, I wanted to post about a couple of good things in honor of the thousands of men and women who are serving with their lives to protect our freedom and prosperity.
My wife teaches nursing at a local college. One of her students is going through training to head to Iraq, and has e-mailed her several times of his progress through that training program. In one message, he describes his equipment and body armor, which appear to be top-notch, concluding with, "[a]s much as Soldiers like to complain about their issued items, I have to say that we are being well-taken care of in terms of equipment, and a lot of thought has gone into our health, safety, and protection." He also talks about the experience itself, including the heat, illness, and combat exercises, as well as the camraderie that occurs in the military. The close of his latest e-mail was the following:
"It has been written about and discussed a lot throughout history, but it never ceases to amaze me when I see the tight bonds formed by shared suffering and group accomplishment. Watching twelve people share a bag of M&Ms in the back of a truck, passing one bottle of Gatorade down the line for the whole squad to get a drink (probably where those respiratory infections are coming from) and knowing each other well enough to tell when someone needs to sit down and rest before the heat gets to them reminds me that the group is really coming together. This unit represents over two dozen states and as many parent units, so camaraderie and cohesiveness are vital at this point. Watching every member push themselves further, stopping to help each other along the way, and looking out for fellow Soldiers gives me the warm fuzzy. We have Soldiers ranging in age from 20 to 64, and they all bring something to the table, so we really take care of each other. Of course, we know each other well enough to know what buttons to push as well. There are also moments of levity along the way, like the time we were in the middle of a ground convoy and the someone started broadcasting Johnny Cash over the tactical radio."
If this doesn't put the lie to the MSM-driven vision of our troops as murderous thugs who rape and pillage for fun, I don't know what will. These are the finest Americans alive today, and anyone who slanders them as 'morally retarded' or anything of the sort should be ashamed of themselves and shunned by the rest of America.
Now, do they behave themselves when they're deployed? There are some isolated incidents that tend to get splashed all over the headlines, but on the whole, the U.S. military is the most well-behaved in history according to Ralph Peters in the New York Post. Here are just a few numbers to illustrate the point.
"[M]isbehavior by our troops resulted in a total of 59 scheduled court-martials in Iraq - 21 of them general court-martials, which are reserved for the most-serious crimes (murder, rape, robbery, assault, arson and so forth). The other 38 were special court-martials, invoked for lesser offenses, such as disciplinary infractions or petty theft."
That's out of a population of around 140,000, and most of that population are in the age demographic that most frequently exhibits criminal behavior. By contrast, Peters looks at "a city that Money magazine rated as 'one of the 10 best places to live' in the United States: Ann Arbor, Mich. Home to a great university, the town has a population of about 113,300 - about 20,000 lower than our pre-surge troop numbers in Iraq. In 2005 (the last year for which statistics are available), that ideal place to live recorded 1,476 crimes that, if committed by a soldier, would have required a general court-martial - plus a further 2,282 thefts and similar infractions that, depending on the details, would have been handled by either a general or a special court-martial. Twelve months in Ann Arbor, 3,758 court-martial-equivalent trials. If all the crimes had been taken to court, which one doubts. Nineteen months in Iraq, under the complex stresses of combat? Fifty-nine court-martials. Guess that bastion of ethical liberalism in Michigan needs to go through basic training."
It is very telling that the handful of bad apples are the ones splashed across our headlines and TV screens as being representative of the rest, and further evidence of the bias in the media (see here and here). The reality is that the military demands -- and achieves -- far more 'model' behavior during the stress of combat than just about any substantial civilian population living safely inside the U.S.
Finally, here is a blog post on NRO by W. Thomas Smith, Jr., who is an embedded reporter in Iraq. He writes of a small outpost in the middle of nowhere that is a critical radio-relay point defended by a single squad of Marines under the command of a 23-year-old corporal, Zebulon "Zeb" Webberley, from Milton Freewater, Oregon. As Smith writes, "[a] corporal leading a Marine rifle squad is one thing — I did that once myself — but a corporal commanding a wartime combat outpost is almost unheard of. And he's been here since May." The outpost is so critical to Marine communications in the Al Qaim region that it cannot be surrendered under any circumstances. There have been at least three probes of the outpost, but no outright attacks yet. The Marines are confident they can withstand even a much larger force attacking from multiple sides for the 15 minutes it would take to receive reinforcements. Smith maintains it would be mass suicide to try to take the outpost.
The thing that most strikes me, though, is the attitude and maturity from this 23-year old. Webberley told Smith, "Sir, I will die for this post. I have told all of my Marines that no matter what happens out here, we will hold this position at all costs."
Wow. Is it any wonder that our military is the finest in the world? Is it any wonder they simply don't lose (unless Washington gets in the way)? What incredible dedication and resolve, especially in someone just five years out of high school!
It is men and women like these who should be honored and respected, for they are the true heroes of America.
There's my two cents.
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