The men and women of the American military never cease to amaze me. Although positive stories of the war on global terrorism are generally silenced by the deafening roar of Bush haters on the right and left, by politicians clamoring for an advantage in the polls and by near unanimous negative mainstream press reporting, they are out there if you search.
That is why it is heartening to see a feature series appear on MSNBC’s front page about a remarkable man and his remarkable mission.
Deierlein didn’t have to be in that filthy Baghdad neighborhood. When the Army reached back into his life in October 2005, he was well past his eight-year service obligation to the military. A senior-level advertising executive, he lived in a trendy Manhattan apartment and had a share house in the Hamptons. He was engaged to marry a beautiful airline pilot. He owned a tuxedo and wore it often. He hadn’t worn an Army uniform in 12 years.
Call-up orders arrived in his mailbox anyway. When he balked, an Army official told him he could be jailed if he didn’t report for training.
Then, a few days before Deierlein was set to ship out, another Army official called to say that his military obligations had, in fact, already been met, that he owed the military nothing. He didn’t have to report for duty after all.
He went anyway.
As I read through the account of Captain Deierlein’s return to the service and work in Iraq, I was proud to be an American. This is the spirit of America and her people, being a light to the world, putting others before ourselves, overcoming tremendous obstacles with courage, ingenuity and hope.
This is not a fluff piece, leaving out the missteps and mishaps our our military and government. Those elements help to shape the mission that Captain Deierlein and his fellow servicemen took on. But it is a window into the people of Iraq that is seldom seen amid calls for complete obliteration of the country.
But amid the chaos, they had found a way to make a small difference — by doing what they could to help the city’s most impoverished residents.
Days earlier, Deierlein, 38, and his buddies had handed out Flintstones chewable vitamins to a crowd of smiling mothers only blocks away. Deierlein had told them: These will help your children grow stronger and taller.
“Shukran, shukran!” the women had replied in Arabic. “Thank you, thank you!”
Before long, Deierlein and his friends in his civil affairs company were distributing children’s clothes, shoes, vitamins, toys, soccer balls, school supplies and blankets in one poverty-stricken area after another.
“We really enjoyed those kind of opportunities because you drove through these neighborhoods day after day after day,” Deierlein said. “There’s a lot of innocent, decent people that just are there and are suffering. So even if you could alleviate that suffering a little bit, it really did make you feel good.”
Captain Deierlein was severely wounded by a sniper and required many surgeries and months of rehab before returning to his position as C.O.O. of Dynamic Logic. The work he started, helping the innocent civilians of a war-torn country, continues today. Well done, Captain Deierlein.
It is true that a single terrorist can frustrate our military and cause massive deaths. The question for the American people is really quite simple. Do we show the same character as the men and women representing us on the front lines of the global war on terror and stand for what is right?
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I received a photo tribute today, Photos of American Soldiers holding a child, of a soldier reading to several children, photos of love and gentleness and decency. Photos of American Soldiers!!
They are the awesome ones!
Wow, what a story.
Not enough men like that in the world today, is there?
“Not enough men like that in the world today, is there?”
I’d bet there are plenty, it’s just that they are not reported on enough. Being a good guy is boring and doesn’t sell papers and airtime. Being a dope smoking ball player is a lot more cool, and easier to sell to stupid kids these days.
Following some of the recent discussions around here about “character” and “what is right”, I don’t really know how to answer that question.
Well according to some of those “discussions”, we should kill them all instead of handing out toys and vitamins because they are muslims and islam is a death cult. Somehow religion based mass murder doesn’t seem like “doing what is right” to me, but ask Squawkbox…maybe he can explain to you why it would be ok.
I do agree with fasternu426 though…we need to be teaching our kids to see guys like this as heroes instead of some juiced up pretty boy who can hit a baseball a long way. I love reading Michael Yon’s pieces…he does a great job of making heroes out of nearly all of the guys he writes about…and the treatment is well deserved.
#5 Bill, we are engaged in war. Reflect on WW2 when London was bombed, France was a mess and the warsaw poles lived in the sewers. Children are killed. Women are killed. If we choose to bomb to irradicate an evil enemy, more children will die. It’s war. The parents of those children will do what they can to protect them, just as they did in England etc. Radical Islam is a death cult. It is a destroying evil malignancy. To irradicate this malignancy, innocents may have to die. It’s not a discussion, it’s not a play date, it’s war.
American Woman, go read some of the “discussions” that were referred to before you attack me! I was the one arguing exactly what you just said…that RADICAL islam is our enemy and we should give it no quarter (I even referenced WWII just as you did). I also said that we need to make sure that we uphold the standards that make our great nation what it is and shouldn’t throw away 200+ years of constitutional history in the process. Squawkbox on the other hand argued that ALL muslims (not just radicals) are evil death cultists and that we can’t distinguish between them. His solution is to outlaw islam and deport all the muslims.
Accidentally killing civilians in the heat of battle and as a means of making war on the enemy is regrettable, but unfortunately necessary, especially with an enemy that chooses to hide among civilians. However, our troops in Iraq seem to have been able to do what people like Squawkbox are unable to do…recognize that the average Iraqi civilian (and muslim) is also a human being and deserves a chance to live in peace if we can help them throw off the oppressive influence of the radical terrorists living among them. So tell me, who is “showing character” and “standing up for what is right”? Somebody who believes in doing what our troops are doing now by trying to reach common ground with the civilians caught in the middle? Or somebody who thinks we should treat every muslim as a terrorist and kick them all out of our country?
This should make us more determnined than ever to bring our guys home. Do we want people like Captain Deierlein to lose their lives in this unneeded, poorly planned war? Do want any more of our brave men and women to die so George Bush can say this war was his legacy?
Right gadboy…lets bring them all home and grow flowers in the barrels of our tanks…that will convince the radicals not to attack us anymore. Nobody else will die if we just stop fighting and come home right?
Lets take our soldiers out of their body armor and put their guns away so that they can get attacked with a suicide bomb at the shopping mall in Peoria with their kids in tow instead of getting the chance to take on the terrorists when they are properly armored and equipped in another country.
Go ask our soldiers if they believe in what they are doing. Go ask the lowest guy on the ladder if he believes we ought to give up on the Iraqis so that he can come home. I bet you would be shocked at the answers you get from the people you think you are protecting by trying to bring them home.
Where do I start?
1)There never was any indication that if we didn’t fight Saddam in Iraq, we would fight him here. That is a naive, ignorant premise and has long ago been discredited.
2)Iraq was less of a threat to us before we invaded. By deposing Saddam, we created a vacumn that allowe terrorists from all over the Middle East to flow into Iraq.
3) We are trying to turn our military in Iraq into a combination police force, social service agency and utility provider. This is not the way you use a modern military.
Squawk and I don’t agree on a lot. We do, however, agree that if we are going to fight a war, use brutal and devasting force on the enemy, don’t worry vabout collateral damage, and bring the boys home.
whoa whoa I want to win over there. I am not a defeatist liberal. I want to win, if it means using force. The enemy is indistinquishable from the average muslim here, I say deport them too. They have infiltrated our country to we have no idea what levels. One of the leaders of the ” nice muslims” was quoted saying it would be nice if this country were muslim. They want europe, they want us. Some of them want to kill us, some of them want us under sharia law……. makes no difference……. NO !! NO to their law, and on to their threats of death. Deport em.
Yes this soldier is a very brave and honorable man, but I don’t think so untypical of most men who understand love of country. Is untypical a word? lol
Biil F- we have known for years that Syria is a big state supporter of terrorism. Why are we in Iraq and not in Syria?
Our soldiers are overwhelmingly in favor of staying in Iraq to get the job done—mainly becuase, unlike some political partisans here at home, they know what the consequences of leaving will be.
We know that because every member on Active Duty in the Armed Services today has enlisted or reenlisted since this war in Iraq stared.
Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
If they thought they need to be home—they would come home when the opportunity avails itself.
But most of them do not.
Me?
I’m going to listen to the guys in the think of things–the ones at the “point of the spear” who know whats going on. The guys who passout the candy and the topys and know what good it does towards keeping evil baby killers from spreading thier vile beliefs and enslaving people who just want to get on with thier lives.
I’m going to listen to guys like General Rick Lynch, instead of guys like gadboy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/world/middleeast/16cnd-commander.html?hp
Guys who say to guys like gadboy:
Stop “supporting” me so much, I’d rather not have the kind of “support” you’re offering Start supporting the mission I think is important enough to risk my life volutarily to do. Please, if you’re going to respect me, respect my mission, and respect the fact that I believe I need to be here because I can see it and you cannot—and I volunteered knowing that this was the mission I would be doing.”
Guys like these guys:
http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/
Go ask THEM gadboy—-ASK THEM.
Don’t tell us what you think they think—-ASK THEM
The ones you SAY you respect so much.
They will tell you what this 10 year veteran is telling you now:
STOP USING YOUR FAKE CONCERN FOR US TO MOVE YOUR POLITICAL AGENDA FORWARD. IF YOU CARE ABOUT ME, RESPECT THE FACT THAT I THINK THIS MISSION NEEDS TO BE COMPLETED AND THAT I THOUGHT IT IMPORTANT ENOUGH THAT I VOLUNTEERED TO DO IT.
Give me a while Sarge. i’ll do the research and come of with that many quotes from military men who talk about how misguided this whole operation has been and how we should end it. That is an easy enough game to play. If you know anything about modern military strategy, you know this thing was ill-conceived and poorly planned from trhe start.
And I mean by the administration, not by the military.
Gadboy, I am right there with you on Syria…but I don’t think we should leave Iraq to do it. We can’t change what is already done, and leaving Iraq right now would be a Vietnam 1973-5 sized mistake.
And AW…wow…just wow. People who talk out of one side of their mouths about character and doing the right thing…and then say we should tear up the constitution as if it were a burger king napkin and start banning religions and deporting people who have done nothing to earn it. WOW! I think you have finally rendered me speechless.
I am finally beginning to see how the nazis were able to convince the rest of the German people that it was ok to burn the jews in ovens. All it takes is a little bit of fear and the threat of violence and people who once believed in words like “honor” and “character” decide to tear up the constitution and turn xenophobic, advocating deporting everybody who isn’t a God fearing christian just like they are.
Newsflash folks…your forefathers who colonized America were fleeing the same kind of religious persecution you are advocating. Did you learn nothing from history at all?
Because there are only 5 ways to get into Syria:
1. An amphibious landing on the coast. Amphbious landings are costly and with anti-ship missle technology of today very, very dangerous. It’s also very, very, very, hard to disguise your intentions in the times of satelite imagery and the fact that your very, very, very large Navy would have to steam through the entire Mediterraean to get there.
2. Through Jordan. Permission to invade Syria through Jordan is not likely to be given.
3. Through Turkey. Likewise, and you’d have to cross over mountainous terrain which limits aveneues of approach.
4. Through Lebanon by either landing on THIER coast, or through Isreal. An American invasion of Lebanon in order to get to Syria launched from Isreal is NOT going to be the best thing to do.
5. Through the deserts of Iraq. Hundreds and hundreds of miles of desert that the Syrians would need to protect. We control all of the road, rail, and sir infrastructure in that country, which means we have very deep supply lines that enables us to warehouse critical supplies far from the theater of combat, and we control the ports through which those supplies will be delivered.
So—
The very, very, very best route into Syria is the one we control, and we are freinds with the government which controls that border.
Now,
Ask the same question about Iran.
If you knew anything about military strategy, you’d know we now occupy the only two land routes into Iran, and the best route into Syria–
They happen to be the routes Lawrence used in WW1 to defeat the LAST Islamic Empire.
Let me guess gadboy, you never made a mistake huh? You never screwed the pooch on something and needed to go back and redo it a different way? Nobody in their right mind thinks we have prosecuted the war the way we should have for the last 4 years. But by the same token, we can’t simply walk away right now. We have the right guy in charge (Petraeus) and the right type of people implementing his plan (honorable, experienced, and capable troops), and they deserve the chance to get it right! The fact that the active duty troops keep re-enlisting to go back and keep fighting tells me more than any talking head or any military genius of a leader inside or outside of the current leadership. We are at war…it is a war we need to win…and we have willing and capable troops and the right leader in charge of them. The proper thing for us to do is get out of the way and let them do their job while doing everything we can to let them know that we support them and the work they are doing for us.
Then listen to the military—
Listen to General Lynch and honor the promise made to General Petreaus to give his New Strategy a chance.
It seems to be working.
I think all this “Get them home now” crap rather than waiting for Septemeber is BECAUSE we’re4 seeing progress.
If Petraues plan works, you Surrender Monies are going to be exposed—and people will stop listening to you—and manybe your defeatist polticians will get voted out of office so that we can go about fighting this war with peope running it who think we can win the damting.
Golly–
Bill, folks are going to start thinking you’re me—
a few more current duty soldiers you need to talk to gaddy:
http://www.appealforcourage.org/
Nawww that ain’t gonna happen. His spelling is impeccable and he does not see the need to quote everything from the person that he is responding too.
#17 Bill, precedent has been set in WW2 when we interned Japanese. If you prefer, we can build camps here, but that will not prove to us who is our enemy. You say my my how can we possibly consider deporting a group of people who at the least want to convert us to their laws, and at best want to murder us. Where are the peaceful loving kind glad to be AMERICAN muslims that you care so much about? I don’t see them, or hear of them. They are silent aren’t they? Furthermore, these people are not citizens of this country. They are immigrants with green cards etc. I have been looking for this quote from a well respected Muslim professor here in the USA. I can’t remember if I read it on News Max or where , but he says for americans sake, they all need to be deported………. and unfortunately that would be he too……. he admits.
My guess is, we won’t hear much more from General Gadboy, the Ultimate Strategist, this evening.
Here it is on LST lol
Lone Star Times » Wisdom From Liberal Arab Journalists?
American Woman, there is a difference between securing our immigrations system and deporting every follower of the muslim religion. Also…newsflash for you…there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of muslims in this country who ARE american citizens…many of whom were born here, went to school here, and who live next door to us in our neighborhoods. Where are the peaceful muslims? Well there are several dozen who live in my neighborhood alone. They belong to a sect based in southern india and do not want to convert the US to their laws. They just want to worship in their mosque down the street, live their lives, and have their chance at the american dream.
We need a better system for tracking visas and greencards and we need to do everything we can to root out who the bad actors are…but deporting every muslim or even deporting every muslim with a green card is simply impossible, not to mention pointless. As I pointed out yesterday to Squawk, and he had no answer for…deporting muslims would be like trying to ban guns. Sure, the law abiding ones would dutifully show up to be shipped home. But the ones who want to hurt us would stay and blend into society just like criminals owning guns. How do you track them down then? When you have closed their mosques and let them know that they are the hunted? Isn’t it easier to figure out who wants to hurt us by putting informants in the mosques and infiltrating agents into their networks? Once the mosques are shut down and the networks go into hiding, how will we find them then? Do you have the answers to those questions that Squawk refused to try to answer yesterday?
I understand the frustration that motivates people to want to take such drastic steps to control a seemingly uncontrollable threat…but in the end, it is unconstitutional, it won’t work, and it will damage us irreparably in the global war on terror. The fact is that in 2941, we didn’t know anything about the japanese and which ones might want to hurt us. Right now, we know a great deal about who is in our country illegally and we have a good idea of quite a few of the ones that would like to hurt us. We have the technology, the knowledge, and the means within our constitution to go after these people…but sadly, we lack the polticial courage to do so. So we are left with people proposing to round them all up and deport them, because we are unwilling to demand that we do it the smart way.
BTW, just because a muslim professor says he would do something that way doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.
Read the comments under that post AW…we had a long discussion about this yesterday that was the basis for my original comment that you took exception to. One person in the comments was advocating “showing character” and “standing up for doing the right thing”, and several others were advocating throwing 200+ years of constitutional history and American tradition out the window. I will let you decide which is which.
Oh and sarge…I would be careful standing too close to me…I seem to be drawing alot of fire and you might take a little shrapnel along the way. It never ceases to amaze me how people can stand so far to the right of center that they mistake the person standing one step to their left for being a liberal code pink peace-love-dope radical.
Bill? What do we do about the young muslim male, age 18 -30 who feels disinfranchised here. They are being recruited in the USA and their loving parents are clueless.
Glad for the company.
From you answers and manner of speech, I think we may also be Brothers In Arms.
Is that correct?
I was an Active Duty REMF from 72 - 75, never overseas, and a Crypto Communications Army Reserve REMF for the next 7 years.
The same thing we do with gangs, drug dealers, etc. We infiltrate their networks, we look for the types of people who recruit them, we monitor contacts with known terrorist groups and their sympathizers. In other words, we do all the things that would fall under the term “profiling” that our PC political class can’t imagine us doing. We use the tools that the NYT seems to be insistent on revealing through publishing CIA secrets and we prosecute anybody who knowingly releases classified documents to the public. If a reporter comes into possession of documents or information known to be classified and puts it in a newspaper instead of reporting the leak to the authorities, then the reporter is no longer a journalist. They are an accessory to the crime of releasing classified information.
The methods we were using were very effective until they were pkastered on the front page of the nyt. Regardless of whatever else happens, I will guarantee you that if an 18 year old grows up in a society that he believes already treats him as a terrorist and doesn’t see him as an American citizen, it will be much easier to recruit him as a terrorist than if he grows up seeing himself as an American living among people that know the difference between his parents and terrorists.
Sarge,
I took the ASVAB in high school and scored really well, went to the air force and navy recruiters, and was ready to join the “nuclear navy program” when I got my national merit scholarship. I ended up going to college instead, but looking back on it, I actually wish that I had served first and then gone to college. I have a number of friends who served before and/or after college and I also have a relative who is very close to the pointy end on the intelligence side, so I am probably more aware than most of what goes on out beyond the fences. I admire people like you more than you can imagine and wish there was a way we could go back and do things differently for the guys who served when you did. You didn’t get a fair shake from the public of your time, and now that I am old enough to understand that, I will be damned if I am going to let the public treat our generation of heroes the way we treated those fighting in Vietnam.
Bill,What do we do about the friendly Mosque down the street where a young cleric, in the name of mentoring young boys after school, is spewing hate and filth and kill the infidel? Just deport them. We can get other nationalitiest to run cleaners and 7 elevens…….. I’m out for the night, enjoyed the debate
We’ve explained it to Gadboy time after time, but he still doesn’t get it and never will. Trying to use logic and common sense on the irrational mind is a total waste of time. Gadboy just cringes at the loss of 4,000 of our finest over 5 years - all volunteers who knew what they were getting into, but turns his head the other way at 3,000 babies murdered in the womb or partially out of every single day for the last 33 years. They had zero choice. Talk about rank hypocrisy.
AW, can we deport all the catholics to get rid of the young priests who in the name of mentoring young boys after school are instead molesting them? I mean we can find somebody else to do the jobs the catholics are doing right? Just deport them all since it is so hard to weed out which ones are the pedophiles…
Oh wait…thats right…its just a small fraction of the catholic priests that are pedophiles right? But everybody knows ALL the muslims are terrorists at heart right? Have a good night!
thanks for that—but not for me, for the yojng men and women serving now.
it is the one thing that keeps the gaddies and the rest of the Surrender Monkies from doing what they did back the—and it robs tehm of a very effective tool designed to demoralize both the public and the troops.
The only reason the “care” so much for the troops today is that a couple huncdred thousand Nam Era vets started voting.
something Harry and Nancy need to pay attention to. If the lie this New Strategy into failure befor it;s even gotten off the ground, there’s ging to be a LOT more poltical activismfrom this generation of troops. given thier dedication to the mission.
As to y9ur college choice, I can say that from the cogence of your rhetoric and well assembled logic, both you and the country would have been served well by ROTC.
Having said that, not a problem. I respect your education and the contrivution it brings to this country in other ways—more productive, perhaps, than military service.
And you’re right about the attitude towards those “one step to the left.” Unfortuantely those that disagree with Conservatives in general have been using those that hold that attitude around here much too much lately and those “one step to the right” are unfortunatley more than happy to indulge them—not knowing the immense damage to the total cause that it engenders, or the valuable service it provides to those with whom we ALL disagree.
Big45
Leave it to Gadboy to trash our military on a thread that is entitled “Duty, Honor and Valor.” I hate it that this thread has been spoiled by the liberals always finding fault with our military. Sad that that is all they have.
He didn;t technically “trash” the military.
He just used his “concern” for them to make his political point.
If he could have made it without using them, he would have.
and
If he could have made it by trashing them—as so many of them did earlier in the war only to be met with a feces storm of condemnation—he would have done that, too
Thanks for the technically correct correction Sarge!
I will never, ever trash the military, Neocon, and you know it. I will , however, trash the idiot that you elected to try and be our president.
Thank GOD for Captain Deierlein and all the other honorable men and women protecting us today. GOD, Duty, Honor, Country.
Hey,
Please argue with Gadboy, however don’t put words in his mouth just argue his points
Making it personal WEAKENS your argument and weakens eventually people’s perception on the war so you do a disservice to the very cause you think you are defending
Liberal have even less regard for our military than they have for the murdered babies. They can feign care and concern all they want….it’ll never wash. JKarlUSMC on AOL was the Marine Corps liason to congress. He had a fried of his in the Capitol and overheard some Democrat staffers discussing ways to get the unions to go on strike to hold up shipments to Kuwait. This man told them that if they attemped any such action he’d personally kick their butts. When they complained to the guard, the guard just smiled and said he hadn’t heard a thing…then he turned to the hero and said Semper fi Mack. They were both wearing eagle, globe, and anchor pins on their lapels. Liberals hate the military and everything it stand for.
Bigiron- I am disappointed in you. You know that all liberals don’t hate the military. In fact, I challenge you to find one statement I have made stating or inferring that I hate the military. But I guess when your party is going down the tubes and you are still supporting a failed president, all you can do is made broad personal attacks.
I’m a conservative. I don’t care who the person is or what party they belong to as long as they act and promote conservative values. Zell Miller would get my vote over any of the leading contenders in the GOP now because he walks the walk of a conservative. And as I pointed out before, we never, NEVER had any liberals at our parties for putting together packages for the troops. The paqrents of all the Marines at these parties didn’t necessarily agree with the war (and I’d say these amounted to no more than 5% of the several hundred parents who would be there, but amazingly a liberal would never be in the crowd. Wonder why that was? Simple, because the children of liberals seldom go in the military. They weren’t brought up with the same values and traditions that our military reveres.
Did you invite any liberals? Most liberals aren’t going to read a fairy tale like this blog and find out about your parties. . I just happened to meet Matt and started reading the blog after that, but normally I wouldn’t get anywhere close to something like this.
I think it is time to forget the Revolutionary war and go back to the British spelling on a couple character related words; like: Saviour, Honour, Valour, endevour, etc. Color is fine. neighbor I can live with. Glamour has already reclaimed the ‘u’. The world is more and more American anyway, why not have some ‘umpf’ in words of Character.??