Untitled Document

15 May 2004

Armed Forces Day

It is Armed Forces Day today, and the anniversary of the introduction of the Nylon Stocking. The hose arrived in 1940, on the market just long enough to become an essential wardrobe item for a generation of women and for those vertical seams to get burned into the collective consciousness of a generation of men.

And then promptly be rationed by war production.

In remembrance of the generation that put down their private affairs to take care of the threat of fascism, it is time to take stock of where we are and start to deal with those that want to kill us.

The Administration is unfortunately blessed with a short attention span, and has forgotten the people that attacked us three years ago.

We have had so many adventures since then, unbelievable acts of courage and the demonstration of lethal force that is unprecedented in the annals of war. I read an account of a Marine 1st Lieutenant who was awarded the Navy Cross for a demonstration of valiance that strikes me dumb with awe.

The kid was leading his Marines on Highway 1 toward Ad Diwaniyah, the road to Baghdad. Tank traffic blocked the road ahead, and when the coordinated ambush began his platoon was caught in a kill zone.

He could have panicked or been stunned into inaction.

Instead, he attacked. He ordered his humvee to accelerate through a breach in the flank and race toward a .50 heavy machine gun position, firing as it went. He had the vehicle crash the fortified position, taking it out, and careened down into the trench. The young man exited the vehicle there and with pistol and M-16 advanced down the trench, killing the fighters as he went. He ran through the clip on the M-16 and the pistol and fought on with weapons he took from the enemy dead, and even got off a rocket-propelled grenade into a cluster of now-disorganized resistance. He killed twenty and wounded more. He saved his platoon.

His name is Brian Chontosh. You can google it. He is the real deal, the Sgt york oh his generation. And there are more like him than you would think.

I'm not cheerleading here. This is a desperate business. But I heard reports from people that were actually at Falluja that indicate that there are not many bad guys left there, the Marines having done their job efficiently. And the Army fighting in Najaf near the Shrine of Ali is only able to do it because the local Shias are fed up with renegade rockstar imam Muqtada al-Sadr and want him and his rag-tag group to get out of town so they can get on with their lives.

The Army has purged him from Sadr City, and they will purge him from Najaf and al Kut, as well.

Presidential candidate John Kerry defended al Sadr as "a legitimate voice" after Ambassador Bremer shut down his newspaper. That shows you the danger of trying to make any commentary on current affairs in Iraq. It is too fluid. Mr. Kerry made his political bones accusing his shipmates of war crimes, is now keeping a low profile.

But that is not going to stop me.

We may get our own West Virginia War Crimes behind us, too. It is useful for this horror to be paraded before us, and it is important to remember it on Armed Forces day, when our bravest kids are engaged with an implacable enemy, and our cowards and thugs in uniform are revealed and properly reviled. The trials are starting and the truth will not be denied, since the accused will rat each other out in search of lesser punishment.

That is starting already.

With the recollection of the heroism must also come the recognition that war should be the last option, not one of the first.

The Administration seemed to forget that, and I may not be able to forgive them in November. The threat is real, and though diminished, no less committed to our destruction.

We need to regain our focus in Iraq, find some likely moderates in the Kurdish north and the Shia South and recognize that the Sunnis are never going to settle down under the yoke of those they oppressed for all Saddam's reign. Then we need to lower our profile there and get back to the business that we must do.

The liberalization that is happening, slowly, in Iran, gives me some hope. Satellite dishes and access to the wide world will, over time, bring freedom of a sort. But it is not something we can take out of a box in the back of a humvee. It has to come from within. We have to buy enough time for that process to begin, and maybe kids like Brian Chontosh will help buy it for us.

The real deal is what is coming here. Government ran a major Continuity of Operations drill here in town this week. There were some positive press releases from the Department of Homeland Security. They are optimistic that when explosions rock the capital, we will be able to relocate and continue to generate policy and regulations.

That is supposed to fill us with hope. There are some indications that maybe we can get through this and onto the next phase of this mess.

That will be the good news. Maybe it is coming.