Long ago during the American Civil War General W. T. Sherman said, “War is Hell.” No truer words have ever been spoken. War kills, men, women and children. War reduces not only the existing generation that is burdened with the fighting of the war but it also exterminates a percentage of the future generations to follow. War is destructive, not only in human life but also in natural and man made resources. War cost vast amounts of money. Money which could be far better put to use improving man’s lot than destroying his future. Yet man has been engaged in this hell on earth since his time began and there is no end in sight. With this in mind, I apologize to you now for the political leaders of our government for not learning the hard earned lessons of our history, or if indeed once learned, than for not remembering. Especially those terrible lessons of war in the first half of the last century.
On June 6, 1944 the American military and its Allies invaded Fortress Europe. They faced a most formidable enemy in the German Army, a force that many military historians believe was the best-trained, best-equipped army the world had ever seen. It was total war. An all out war, where people were going to die, property was going to be destroyed, and by today’s standards billions of dollars would be spent. But an evil force which threatened all of mankind would be destroyed. Although fighting on other fronts America and Her Allies went into this invasion with everything they had. They put as many ‘boots on the ground’ as fast as they could. There was but one single objective, by destroying the enemy, or his will to fight, and thus to end the war. In just over eleven months of hard brutal fighting, on May 8, 1945 the war in Europe was over. For America and Her Allies it was a total victory. The German Army had been literally destroyed. Like the Japanese Imperial Empire, which also was defeated a few months later, the Nazi Third Reich and its leaders were finished and they would not rise again. It is significant to note that since the end of WW II not one of the three Axis Powers, Germany, Japan and Italy, which were defeated by the Allies, has never invaded another country since that war ended.
Except for the war in Granada, WW II would be the last time an American soldier would die in a war that did not either end in a stalemate, stopped before the enemy was destroyed and the opposing powers were overthrown, or worse, the war was lost. At some time in our recent history America has fooled itself into believing that we can rage war while limiting its scope and destruction and still bring the war to a successful conclusion without completely destroying our enemies or their will to wage war against us or by displacing their leaders. Thus instead of wars with determined, clear objectives, of short but violent durations, we end up with extended fighting which leaves the evil still in power and our enemy still with the capability, and the will, to make war again. Resulting in three years of a Korean standoff, sixteen years of blood and dying in Vietnam, a simmering truce in Kosovo, and the lightening blitz of Desert Storm brought to an untimely end by politics in the first war with Iraq, along with a hundred attacks by terrorists all over the world in the last thirty years. Unlike the Axis powers who were defeated in WW II and have yet go to war, and Iraq with which we are now engaged in another war, every other nation with whom the United States has fought since WW II is still in a position to harm us and other nations.
What our leaders and we Americans have forgotten are the hard bloody lessons of WW II. That if you send our children into battle, it is an all or nothing proposition. That people are going to die, property is going to be destroyed and it will cost billions of dollars. But most importantly, that terrible lesson that we have forgotten, that has cost us the most in lives, property and wealth, is that hard lesson that there comes a time when evil men must be stopped now and forever at all costs.
If we as a people are not united in the cause, are not united behind the troops and their missions, are not willing to carry the heavy burden of the costs of our freedoms, are not determined to defeat our enemies until they are destroyed or their will to fight is crushed, and do not demand that our elected leaders give our military everything it needs to win, than we have no right to send our children to war. For without these commitments and without a determined willingness to insure that these objectives are realized, we are asking them to die for a cause that will not be completed. We as a democratic government, we as a free people, owe our fighting men and women far more than what we have given since 1945. For that, I offer my apologies to every man and woman who has served our country since the end of WW II.
The war in Iraq started on March 19, 2003. We have now been engaged in this war for over three years. Unlike June 6, 1944, America and Her Allies did not put enough boots on the ground, nor do we have enough boots on the ground now. Since 1951 when the Korean War became a stand-off on the 38th parallel, instead of conducting an all out war to destroy the enemy and his will to fight, to control the area, and thus to bring about a quick and absolute end to the war itself, our politicians have gone the other way and have invented a new kind of war, what they call a limited war. While this limited war seems anything but to the brave men and women who are fighting it, the politicians and civilians who are still safely in their homes are pleased that what is going on is nothing like WW II.
In such limited wars, for political reasons, the area of combat is confined, eliminating the advancement of our troops movements and thus their ability to close and destroy the enemy where he refits, trains and regroups. But more importantly this confinement eliminates the destruction of the enemy’s power base, or leaders, which are the ones who are raging the war in the first place. For the same political reasons, our fighting forces are reduced to the minimum of what the politicians have told the Generals they will need to win. Thus stretching thin what should be our over-whelming military might and ultimately, as with Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo and now Iraq, prolonging the war itself. Contrary to what you have all read about our Secretary of Defense insisting that our Generals say they have enough troops in Iraq to do the job, there has never been a General in the history of warfare who felt he didn’t need, or for that matter simply wanted, more troops. While the ultimate objectives of the total war of WW II was to end the war itself, limited warfare is meant to keep the number of troop levels and their casualties at an acceptable number, to appease the American public and rival politicians at home, and to merely hold the enemy at bay, while the politicians debate, discuss, compromise and finally negotiate a false and temporary peace. Thus ending the war by destroying the enemy is no longer the objective. The objective is now a negotiated peace with all powers still intact, and our enemies still capable of raging war. Leaving only the dead, the destruction and the sure promise of future hostilities between the same warring parties.
Today our men and women of our Armed Forces are just as courageous, determined and capable as those who came before them, maybe even more so. But it is what they have been allowed to do in conducting our wars that is what confines them. Where once our armies seized the ground, held that ground, always advancing and in that process destroyed our enemies and the enemy’s leadership, we now tell them to patrol an area, leave that area without securing it and then go back again. Thus our troops can travel down the same road for nine days in a row and encounter no hostile actions but on that tenth trip they are ambushed or hit an IED. And they are forced to do this month after month until one set of troops is rotated home and another group takes their place to continue the routine.
In Iraq, while the Iraqi Army was defeated, the politicians did not foresee the infiltration of Iranians, Saudis, Palestinians, Syrians, and other terrorists from a dozen other nations crossing the Iraqi border to kill Americans and Iraqi civilians. Not only did our leaders not put enough boots on the ground to control Iraq and its borders, they announced prematurely and erroneously that the war was over. Their limited war has grown from fighting an Iraqi army and some Islamic terrorist to included the fighting of Islamic terrorists from a host of different nations. Now throw in the war in Afghanistan along with the dozen or so nations such as Australia, Germany, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Britain that are helping the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then include the terrorist bombings in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Spain, England, Germany, Qatar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and America’s 9-11 to name just a few, until finally you include the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and this limited war sure looks like World War III to me. Yet the American people are still not convinced of the terrible threat, which now faces us and thus have not united behind our Armed Forces. Nor have the leaders of our nation put aside their differences and for once placed the safety and well being of our country and its citizens first and foremost. They have yet to apply their collective powers to insure the destruction of our enemies and rid the world of this increasing terrorist threat.
We will never know the what if’s of David, Thomas and Kristian’s situation. If there had been an all out effort to but more boots one the ground when the war started, to completely annihilate any and all opposing forces, to secure Iraq's borders, maybe the war would have been over by the time these three Heroes were to be on station at their checkpoint. If we had more boots on the ground now, maybe there would have been more than just three soldiers at this checkpoint and who is to tell how many more guns were needed to stop the terrorists from such an attack? Because our nation, our leaders and a portion of the American public have yet to understand that we once again face a war of extermination, one just as real and dangerous as WW II, I apologize to those of you whom we have sent out once again to face this beast called war.
To the Warriors of WW II who paid for these forgotten lessons of war with their sweat, their blood, their very lives, I apologize.
For all of this, David, Thomas, Kristian, and to all of the Veterans of the past wars, I sincerely apologize.
May God Bless You All.
SF,
Mike
"Copyright 2006. Michael E. Tank All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."
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