Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Eleventh Hour


On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, the terrible killing of the First World War came to a formal end. The day we now observe as Veterans Day is the official holiday, growing to honor all of America's veterans at the urging of a shoe store owner in Kansas, in the early Fifties. Over the century since a Serbian assassin's bullet ignited a global conflagration that blasted and burned fifteen million casualties, the West has learned it is very good at war, but still having trouble dealing with peace. One of the reasons is that we often forget to render proper honor and respect to our soldiers.
American soldiers are not just the guardians of peace… they are its builders. They build it with the unseen, too small to see bricks of bloodshed, that did not occur, because the murderers were wisely afraid of tangling with them. They add the countless acts of kindness and mercy, performed in war zones and disaster areas. The elites of the Third World learn about America by watching the news reports. Many of their people see their first American flag riding on the shoulder of a uniformed man or woman carrying relief supplies, or a medical kit. Some of those poor people have taken bullets from their countrymen, and have been dragged to safety by United States soldiers who don't hesitate to do the right thing, even when that American flag becomes a target. No wonder most of the people of this world generally like us more than their select few.

It is possible to achieve the peace that pacifists dream of, through disarmament and surrender. This is the peace of defeat, the peace of the grave. It secures the comfort of the select few, by allowing aggressors to make endless war on their citizens. It is a peace that burns hot and bad in the insides of a nation, leaving it unable to meet the stare of those it deserted to tyranny. Soldiers are the only reason you can have peace and freedom. It is by their blood and honor that we are a free nation.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of 2009, the wounded of Fort Hood will remember their fallen friends, and wonder how a man wrapped in enough red flags to turn him into a bloody mummy was allowed to gain access to their base. Those wounded and dead rely upon us to ask the questions their superiors in the chain of command cannot comfortably answer and most likely will not answer. Calling the injured and dead of Fort Hood "victims" bring about the blindness that forced those men and women to face the enemy unarmed. They are not victims, they are casualties of war, and, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who took the cowardly attacker down, is a veteran today. She has now been through the fire.

The terrorist enemy doesn't have a formal chain of command that can sign an armistice, they don't muster on clearly defined battlefields, and they're quite happy to benefit from the efforts of deranged people who will blow their self up for seventy two virgins in the name of Allah. If we don't stand behind our professional soldiers, and give them the tools to do their jobs now, we will all become soldiers before this enemy is defeated if we have any guns left in our homes. We will be fighting them on our streets every day just like Israel does today.

Somewhere in the world today, an American soldier will ring in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day with gunfire. Another will arrive home after an honorable tour of duty, perhaps passing brothers and sisters in arms saying farewell to their families. A mother's tears will fall on a letter from the far side of the world. Old veterans will spend a beautiful afternoon watching children play beneath the flag they raised at Anzio, Guadalcanal, Inchon, or Khe Sanh. Young veterans will put their lives on the line, to give the children of Iraq and Afghanistan a chance at a future free from murderous evil. A little girl will playfully salute a uniform she will one day grow up to wear. A pilot will land a machine that was impossible in his grandfather's day on the heaving deck of an aircraft carrier. The USS New York will be at anchor close to the site of the fallen buildings whose bones became her steel.

And because of "political correctness" we will be fighting these people on our streets every day in the very near future. We as Americans must wake up to the fact of who we are fighting. We now have a president that does not want these people to be called terrorist. What do you call them?

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