From Gerald Swick Hi, Major Bill, Thanks for forwarding the Afghan immigrant's message about his country. It is touching and an accurate assement of the situation. Yes, the weather forecast I sent was sent in a semi-humorus vein, a way of exorcising frustration. Even a friend of mine who describes herself as a "bleeding heart liberal" admitted part of her thought the sands of Palestine would make a lovely sheet of glowing glass as she watched Palestinians celebrate the murders of Sept. 11. Sadly, there is no quick and simple answer to how to respond to those murders. Ask Britain how easy it is to track down and eliminate terrorists. Yesterday I taught 4 seventh-grade English classes as a guest lecturer in a middle school. At the beginning of the day, they held a rally around the flagpole. At lunchtime, the P. A. system blared--and I DO MEAN blared--Lee Greenwood's simple-minded "Proud to be an American" not once, but twice. The kids were cheering and jumping up and down so much that a teacher had to tell them them to settle down before going upstairs or "we won't be able to have fun in the lunch room any more." Somehow I had a little trouble viewing that as "fun." The librarian standing next to me watched the jubliant kids filing past us, all full of Yankee-doodlety-dum, and soid, "The sad thing is, some of these boys will probably being going to fight in this war in a few years." My response to her was, "Fight against whom? Where? What's our military objective? Go ask the Brits about that kind of war." Von Clauswitz pretty much goes out the window in a war against guerrillas. No easy answers, no quick strikes or maneuvering to seize physical objectives. Maybe that's why I haven't been able to jump on the bandwagon of wearing a flag in my lapel or putting one in my window. What happened to our country was like when I pulled every ligament in my lower back last March. The injury went so deep that I felt no pain, just a sickening numbness. I've been feeling that ever since Sept. 11. And somehow, I just can't bring myself to slap on a red, white and blue band-aid. So, old friend, forgive me if the weather forecast joke I forwarded offended. I know it wouldn't be the proper response in the real world. But I can dream ... Best, Gerald Col. Dave Speaks Out American did not just lose her innocence; that happened long ago at places with strange names . . . Saratoga, Valley Forge, New Orleans, Antietam, Gettysburg, The Meuse-Argonne, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Heartbreak 11idge, The Chosen Resevoir, Da Nang, Quang Tri Province, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait City, and now in a land that time forgot ... Afghanistan. America stands for a special kind of freedom and justice for all peoples. To that end, many of us have served on active duty in the various branches of the our military, and many have paid the ultimate price for that freedom. Don't ever take it for granted ... someone purchased that freedom that you enjoy each and every day, just as surely as Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for us by the shedding of His blood on the cross. Learn to look past the mindless prattling of the press and certain political types who would have us question everything we do at this time, instead of following the leaders that we, the people, have elected, and trusting in their judgement, and that of our military leaders whose job it is to fight this war to a successful conclusion. We must never, never have another Viet Nam, where Americans are pitted against Americans, while American service men and women give their blood and their very lives for the values for which this country stands. Viet Nam was a political war, fought with a 'no-win' strategy. That is a terrible thing to ask a man to lay down his life for. The Gulf War showed Americans once again what we were capable of when we had the proper leadership, and our military was permitted to do it's job. God Bless America, Col. Dave Wagner Back to Dispatch December 2001 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com