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They Can Only Dream of Holidays at Home |
Current rating: 0 |
by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder
(No verified email address) |
26 Dec 2004
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"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way to support troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised adventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later. That should be our New Year's resolution. |
Most of us love to spend Christmas with our families, but many cannot. Some numbers of this year's can-dos and cannots:
• More than 62 million of us will travel 50 miles or more to be with family.
• Most of our 2.4 million military men and women will be unable to go home for the holidays.
• More than a half million troops serving overseas will have little holiday happiness, especially the 138,000 in Iraq.
My saddest Christmases came when I was ages 19, 20 and 21 serving in the Army in World War II. The 86th (Blackhawk) Infantry Division took me far from my South Dakota home, first to Texas and California for training, then to France, Germany and the Philippines.
Some of my Blackhawk buddies and I often were watery-eyed when we heard the holiday hit song of 1943 and 1944 — Bing Crosby singing, I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.
Despite unhappy holidays, nearly all of us who served in WWII were proud, determined and properly armed and equipped to help defeat would-be world conquerors Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Hirohito in Japan.
At age 80, I'd gladly volunteer for such highly moral duty again. But if I were eligible for service in Iraq, I would do all I could to avoid it. I would have done the same during the Vietnam War, as many of the politically connected did.
"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way to support troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised adventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later. That should be our New Year's resolution.
© Copyright 2004 USA Today
http://www.thenation.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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There's No Excuse for Failing Our Troops |
by Andrew M. Borene
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
26 Dec 2004
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When I invaded Iraq nearly two years ago, I understood that it was an invasion on short notice, and I was willing to accept the risk inherent in beginning combat operations without body armor inserts and in a Humvee with no doors that was left over from the Persian Gulf War.
It was, after all, a new war, and we went with what we had. But last month, our warriors in Iraq invaded Fallujah, at times driving trucks and Humvees without upgraded armor kits.
We have been in this war for 20 months. We are the greatest, wealthiest nation on Earth. How can we deliver billions of dollars in welfare to corporations, farmers and other groups and seek to make tax cuts for the wealthy permanent when our troops need equipment and services overseas?
What is American about putting the well-being of the wealthy over the well-being of the defenders of freedom? Have the people who once appeared to convince a majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction also convinced America that we can run a ''war on the cheap'' without seeing our troops suffer?
The violence and intensity of the combat is higher today than during the invasion, but the wounded survive in exponentially higher numbers, requiring services for lost limbs and eyesight. This ''low'' killed-in-action statistic is misleading Americans, but some politicians talk about the successes in Iraq and an improving situation.
Young heroes display physical courage on the front lines in the global war on terror, yet even as our troops accomplish mission after harrowing mission, our politicians fail them.
It's time to demand that our politicians stand up and show some moral courage, as did Army Spc. Thomas Wilson in Kuwait before Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Supporting the troops means more than placing a yellow sticker on a vehicle's bumper. It also means buying up-armored Humvees and small arms protective vest inserts in body armor, offering the best training in the world and reducing excessive deployments of the Reserves and National Guard. These things cost money.
It will take a new generation of great Americans to turn around the devastation that the continued failures and excuses of this administration have caused. It will take Americans who aren't afraid of the truth, Americans who understand that sometimes success requires sacrifice, Americans who put thoughtful decision-making before dogmatic political mantras.
We have a lot of work to do before our troops, veterans and their families get what they deserve, and it has nothing to do with party politics. It's about taking care of those who take care of us.
Young men and women are fighting for us as I write, but who is fighting for them? If every concerned American wrote the members of Congress who put tax cuts for the wealthy before troop welfare, demanding that our veterans and soldiers be given their due, perhaps we could make some headway honoring America's contract with its veterans.
May our political leaders show their thanks and take responsibility for their decisions by taking care of those who protect us all.
Andrew M. Borene is an advisor to Operation Truth (http://www.optruth.org), a veterans organization, and president of the University of Minnesota's National Security and Law Society. He was an intelligence officer with the 1st Marine Division.
© Copyright 2004 The Baltimore Sun
http://www.suntimes.com |
