The War President!

[SuperScout]

This entire thread started out as a thinly veiled slam at the President, and his alleged lack of compassion and concern. If all political posts are going to be confined to the Political Forum, as they should be, I would encourage the people with their fingers on the buttons to so move it. Until it is moved, here's my two cents worth:

This war is not about the dying or even the injured. And lest ye rock chunkers start bending over to pick up your weapons of choice, kindly remember the cogent words of one each issue Gen. George Patton, Jr: "You don't win the war by dying for your country - you win the war by making the other dumb bastard die for his country." We honor the dead and wounded by how we live our lives; for all the reporters and NBC photographers who want to film the caskets, or interview the wounded, I would simply ask: how many times have you ever gone to visit a wounded warrior, or to console a grieving family, without your obnoxious cameras grinding in the background? Have you ever stopped your ultra busy lives to help build a wheelchair ramp for a legless warrior, now recuperating at home, one who is still anxious to know how his buddies are doing, and if given a chance, would rejoin them today?

How many of you chest-thumping reporters have ever gone to a national cemetary on Veterans' Day, to honor the dead, to plant a small flag, to place a wreath of remembrance, to console a survivor, without your obnoxious cameras grinding in the background? Or is your whining protest about the inability to film a flag-draped coffin nothing more than revolting self-promotion?

More importantly, we honor the dead and the wounded by supporting the living warriors, by sending them frequent care-packages, by visiting the families left behind to insure that they are OK, by serving as surrogate parents for the little ones, and by (GASP!!, can we say this in the age of stupid Political Correctness??), yes, by even praying for our warriors, for their successful mission accomplishment and for their safe return. How many of you poor deprived reporters and photographers have even lifted a single finger to do any of these?

What most malcontents don't realize is that George W. Bush is truly a man of enormous compassion and caring, and his visits to grieving families, and recuperating warriors is often (and usually) done in such as way so as not to be a media event. Doing it any other way would be just showboating, and beneath him. When he does make a public appearance at a military base, the swarms of appreciative warriors is in response to his connection with them, and their voluntary appearance with him is evidence that reciprocity is at work. With the previous CinC, men had to be ordered to show up and become background fodder for the cameras.

[catman]

Col...could not have said it better. Thanks for finding the true words to set this thread straight.

Trav

[Gimpy]

I agree with everything you've said!

Can you belive that?

However, your eloquent and expressive account left out the MOST important way we can "honor" and pay homage to those valliant troops that are no longer with us AND the returning wounded & disabled who are recovering as we speak! Was that by "design"........or just an "oversight" on your part??

MAKE SURE THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS is FULLY FUNDED to accomodate every single health care need required to insure these troops are NOT treated as some of US have been in the past (and still today). And, to fully fund the programs within the VA to fullfill that "promise" that G.W. Bush made in 2000 when he said "help is on the way".

Which BTW............he has failed MISERABLY to keep!

PS......Scamp,..............if that appears to be a "long-standing hate agenda".............then you might want to get a new "translator" to offer an explanation of the "difference" between "hate" and the "TRUTH" my friend.

[SEATJERKER]

..."HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN"...

I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
Now they say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start your preaching let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it everyday
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
Well after 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Now I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they're fightin' for

Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Some went down like heros in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
And all the loved ones that we lost and those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry about bin Laden
Have you forgotten?


Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?


...Well Have you,...

...The naysayers can sit in their righteous safe homes, and spew all they want about spendings/costs of waging this war on terror, but the answer is within "time",... with time, we may heal some of the scarring from the attack on OUR Nation, or we could have sat back, and waited until the NEXT time they attack us on OUR soil,...

...We all know how the "behind the scenes" work works, and I would say at this point in "time", all the "bigwigs" are pretty buzy on a daily basis, or to say the least, on a "minutely" basis,...

...I don't expect the President to go to any, or every soldier's return strictly because the media has turned everything into a circus, even one of the last honoring steps of a soldier,...

...I can personally name a lost loved one in the twin towers, can any of you,...

...The world has turned into not a very nice place due to a few uncertian few who have deceided to wreak their demise upon all,...

...wipe the slate clean with any, and all means nesc before it comes close to here again,...

...Or do you want your Grandchildren to fight it

...

[skeeter]

It seems some want to bring this post-subject into a political situation. I personally feel it has no political bounds.

Some may say, a leader leads a nation. We have in the past found some who didn't know the meaning of the word..
We can go back to the Korea war days, people in this country questioned our involvement in this war as they still had the short span of the horrible memories from the end of WW ll.

We had a mass call-up of the Army, Maries, Navy, Air Force reserves that had fought in WW ll, and the country was still suffering from it. We fought a 3 year "police action" as it was called. We had the enemy beat across the Yalu River by a General who knew how to fight a war, but a President who couldn't allow the General to get the credit and it became a political issue. And from that we came running (retreating) down the mountains sides of North Korea, fighting military men with their heads hanging low, knowing very well they were defeated. When they came back to America shores, the people of this great nation didn't know what to think of these fighting men. Therefore, the people lost faith in their military forces.. "Not the fighting men that lost the confidence", it was the leadership..

We didn't learn from that war, we had to get into another one.. Vietnam !. And another leadership situation.. And again, "no victory",, just so many lives lost, and the fighting men came home under a cloud of protests, many with their heads hanging low, and to this day many of the American people cannot "honor" these men. All due to the leaders we had here in USA that did not know the meaning of war and how you show the people of America how to bestow the gratitude to our fighting men who returned alive or the returning dead. Lack of respect is the true word here.

Same could be said of the Gulf War.. not a real victory, no surrender from the leader of the opposing forces, but if it was carried out as the General wanted, we wouldn't have the war as we have today.

Again the leadership is in the same mold, those returning from Irag get the disregard treatment. Many fly into various military bases, only to have the local news to make reference of their return. Therefore the American people get the feeling we treat these men and women as if they shouldn't be fighting for freedom for a war we shouldn't be involved in.

Now I know the President cannot meet every returning aircraft, where it be returing of the dead, or the returning of our troops.
But he should make an effort to meet some, and he standing in front of the honor guard with his right hand up to his eyebrow in that honorable great American salute when the troops embark from the aircraft, and those under the flag draped coffins. Then he shows the American people how we respect these fighting forces, and just maybe, with that the American people will start to show more respect for the men and women and the presidency he has been voted on to serve.

[SuperScout]

There was indeed a paucity of leadership at the top on both the civilian side and the military during the Korean War and in Vietnam. Not only paucity of leadership, but grand ineptitude, resulting in grand loss of life, with little resolution. Can you spell Truman and Johnson? The lack of clear enunciation of the mission, of an overall strategy, or of an end-state, coupled with wet-finger in the air type of war-planning, and the seeds of disaster, or at the best, stalemate, were sown. We are still reaping the harvest of discontent for their amateurish performance.

Neither of these losing scenarios has been placed in the fast-forward review of Gulf War I nor the current and progressing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gone is the micro-management style of the LBJ White House, where practically every B-52 misison was planned. Gone is the number-crunching, body-counting idiocy of Robert McNamara, whose pathological addiction to inane technologies cost hundreds if not thousands of lives. Gone is the senior military brass like Generals Harold K. Johnson and Earle Wheeler who were too lazy to study how to conduct a successful counter-insurgency program, and too spineless to resign when they failed to lobby the LBJ White House for the power to fight the war properly.

There is no comparsion with the prior administrations and wars with this one. Grasping the obvious need to conduct violent counter-terrorist campaigns, ignoring the internationalists' call for more useless negotiations, and enunciating a clear-cut objective that was embraced as discerable and achievable, the senior command structure, this administrtion embarked upon a grand mission of fulfilling its constitution mandate of protecting America.

Contrary to the ways of the past, returning personnel and units are greeted with near-universal enthusiasm and joy, are showered with the sincere gratitude of genuinely proud parents, neighbors, friends, and simple, ordinary citizens, and are rightfully regarded as real American Heroes. When the President does greet a returning ship of war, to rightfully thank the crew for a job well done, the nattering negativists strike up their little band, clang their little cymbals of pessimism, grumble that not every conceivable need has been met, and pout like egocentric children because they are ignored.

[skeeter]

SS.

Why is it you want to seperate the Democrats vs Republicians and not their actions?

In my post above I did not exclude any President. All have one agendas, and that can be said in one word. "egotism"

Now you have made some good view points, and I agree with most of all, but you failed to show some on the Democrat side.

I don't intend to spending time here on a subject that another person in a higher office of this land can achieve with his own actions.

So I will back to my daily life , and you can go back to building Better Built Homes.

[SuperScout]

Correct me if I'm wrong, which is rare , but wasn't the original topic you started out here a knock on the President? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it also you that raised the issue of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and the tawdry examples of presidential leadership those eras demonstrated? I'm simply responded to your posts.

Have a superb day!
Brice

[skeeter]

To
39mto39g: I feel the President does care for the the troops, and the American people. However, he just has a unfamillar way of showing it.

SEATJERKER: I'm sure if anyone witness the fall of the Twin Towers, will never forget the savage act.. That was a terrorist act from a foreign country and not from any American.
We have tried to apprehend those that did this horrible act, and maybe some day we can achieve that feat.

SuperScout: I think my post didn't excude any president.. I made reference to Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, George H.W Bush and George W. Bush if that was your point Although I didn't mention any president by name, it was enlightenment of their actions.

My post wasn't to chastise the president on his political misfortunes, but to show the American people he can and should treat the troops in a more honorable setting.
His famous "fly-on" the carrier Abraham Lincoln wasn't his best way to show the Navy and the people the honor. It was all a photo-op for his re-election, and it back-fired.
If it was his idea to do it, or others in his cabinet, this news media jumped on it.
What he should have done is wait on the NAS North Island dock for the carrier to tie up and go aboard. Instead, he had the carrier to stay at sea another day to give him time to get to California and go through the Navy testing program so he could withstand the jet flight to the carrier. I know the procedures that involves any medical test.

I think the man can change all this negative image he carries, if he shows the people he can be a peoples president. The news media will make him that should he want to change..

[Gimpy]

He don't.........and....he WON'T!