There are two other things I'd like to share today. The first is this story, as related by Lt. General John Kelly. Please follow the link back for the full text. Hat tip Tea Party Patriots:
Our country today is in a life-and-death struggle against an evil enemy, but America as a whole is certainly not at war. Not as a country. Not as a people. Today, only a tiny fraction of American families – less than 1 percent – shoulder the burden of fear and sacrifice, and they shoulder it for the entire nation. Their sons and daughters who serve are men and women of character who continue to believe in this country enough to put life and limb on the line without qualification, and without thought of personal gain, so the sons and daughters of the other 99 percent don’t have to. No big deal, though. Marines have always been first to fight, paying in full the bill that comes with being free for everyone else.
The comforting news for every American is that our men and women in uniform are as good today as any in our history. As good as their heroic, underappreciated and largely abandoned fathers and uncles were in Vietnam, and their grandfathers were in Korea and World War II, they have the same steel in their backs and have made their own mark, etching forever places like Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad in Iraq, and Helmand and Sangin, Afghanistan, that are now part of U.S. military legend and stand just as proudly alongside Iwo Jima, Normandy, Inchon, Hue City, Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley, Vietnam.
While some might think we have produced yet another generation of materialistic and self-absorbed young people, those who serve today have broken the mold and stepped out as real men, and real women, who are already making their own way in life while protecting ours. They have learned, at the same time they have served and fought for us, that the real strength of a platoon, a battalion or a country is not based on worshipping at the altar of diversity or separateness...
As anyone who has ever experienced combat knows, when it starts, when the explosions and tracers are everywhere, and the calls for the corpsman or medic are screamed from the throats of men who know they are dying – when seconds seem like hours and it all becomes slow motion and fast forward at the same time, and the only rational act is to stop, get down, save yourself – they don’t. When no one would call them a coward for cowering behind a wall or in a hole, slave to the most basic of all human instincts – survival – none of them do. It doesn’t matter if it’s an IED, a suicide bomber, mortar attack, sniper, fighting in the upstairs room of a house, or all of it at once – they talk, swagger and, most importantly, fight today in the same way America’s Marines have since Tun Tavern. They also know whose shoulders they stand on, and they will never shame any veteran of any service, living or dead.
We can also take comfort in the fact that these young Americans are not born killers but are good and decent young men and women who, for going on 10 years, have performed remarkable acts of bravery and selflessness to a cause they have decided is bigger and more important than themselves. Only a few months ago, they were delivering your paper, stocking shelves in the local grocery store, serving Mass on Sunday, or playing hockey on local ice.
...
Just yesterday, two were lost, and a knock on the door late last night brought their families to their knees in a grief that will never go away. Thousands more have suffered terrible wounds since it all started, but like anyone who loses life or limb while serving others – including our firefighters and law-enforcement personnel, who on 9/11 were the first casualties of this war – they are not victims; they knew what they were about, and were doing what they wanted to do.
Indeed, they were in exactly the place they wanted to be: among the best men and women America produces. The chattering class and all those who doubt America’s intentions and resolve, endeavor to make them and their families out to be victims, but they are wrong. We who have served, and are serving, refuse their sympathy.
I have a story I wish to relate about the kind of people they are, about the steel in their backs, and the kind of dedication they bring to our country.
When I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, on April 22, 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8, were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion was in the closing days of its deployment, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.
Two Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, our allies in the fight against terrorists in Ramadi – known at the time as the most dangerous city on earth, and owned by al-Qaeda. ...
The mission orders they received from their sergeant squad leader, I’m sure, went something like this: “OK, take charge of this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?” I’m also sure Yale and Haerter rolled their eyes and said, in unison, something like, “Yes, sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point, without saying the words, “No kidding, sweetheart. We know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry-control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
A few minutes later, a large blue truck turned down the alleyway – perhaps 60 to 70 yards in length – and sped its way through the serpentine concrete Jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest 200 yards away, knocking down most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was caused by 2,000 pounds of explosive. Because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers in arms...
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police, all of whom told the same story. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.”
The Iraqi police related that some of them also fired, and then, to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured, some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated, and with tears welling up, said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”
What he didn’t know until then, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion, he said, “Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all.”
Follow the link for the whole story.
Five For Fighting - Freedom Never Cries
Lyrics:
I took a flag to a pawn shop
For a broken guitar
I took a flag to a pawn shop
How much is that guitar
I took a flag to a pawn shop
I Got me that guitar
What's a flag in a pawn shop to me?
I Saw a man on the TV
In a mask with a gun
A man on the TV
He had a ten-year old son
I Saw a man on the TV
His son had a gun
He says that he's coming for me
I never loved the soldier until there was a war
Or thought about tomorrow
'til my baby hit the floor
I only talk to God when somebody's about to die
I Never cherished Freedom
Freedom never cries.
I Wrote a song for a dead man
To settle my soul
A song for a dead man
Now I'll never grow old
I Wrote a song for a dead man
Now I'm out in the cold
What's a song to a dead man to me?
I never loved the soldier until there was a war
Or thought about tomorrow
'til my baby hit the floor
I Only talk to God when somebody's about to die
I Never cherished Freedom
Freedom never cries...
You can cry for her
Die for her
Lay down your life for her
Kiss and wave Goodbye to her
Anything at all
You can cry for her
Die for her
Make up your mind to her
Anything at all
There's a baby on the doorstep
Wailing away
There's a baby on the doorstep
Longing for the day
There's a baby on the doorstep
Who'd give his life to take
A flag to a pawn shop
A flag to a pawn shop
May he forget why he is crying some day
Never forget why we have Memorial Day.
