-Caveat Lector- February 12, 2003 22:39
Protesters Should Support - Not Abuse - Military Families By Ed Offley The U.S. Army general exuded confidence, maturity and poise as he sat behind his big desk waiting for the interview to begin. His office walls were hung with group pictures of soldiers on distant battlefields and plaques commemorating key events; his desk and credenza were a clutter of mementoes, chrome-plated bayonets, unit coins and other artifacts of a distinguished military career. From his starched BDUs and burnished boots to his Kevlar helmet on a nearby shelf, the general radiated military professionalism. I shattered his veneer with a simple question. "What was it like to come home from Vietnam?" The smile slowly drained from his tanned face. Seconds passed as he stared at me. Then to my astonishment, I saw this heavily-decorated combat veteran blinking back tears. "It was horrible," he whispered. That chance encounter 15 years ago came back to me this week as I read and saw reports of the steadily escalating political tensions over Iraq. But it was not the grim deadlock in the U.N. Security Council that triggered that memory. Nor was it the equally tense standoff within the NATO Alliance, where for the first time in history three member nations - Germany, France and Belgium - blocked the formal request by a fourth member, Turkey, for military protection from Iraq should war commence. No - it was in a recent letter to the editor of The Chicago Tribune that a friend had emailed to me that triggered the memory of that officer's grief. Once again, those who profess peace are waging war on the wrong target - those who would have to fight and their families at home. Marion Colston, a resident of Fort Sheridan, Ill., and the wife of a young Marine who has received orders to the Persian Gulf, informed the newspaper that several other military wives in her community have been verbally abused in public by members of the growing American anti-war movement. "Several of my fellow Marine wives … have experienced verbal and physical abuse in the past few weeks … " Colston wrote. "One woman was told from another car at a stoplight that her husband was a baby killer, and that they hoped he would die." She added, "Another [Marine wife] and her young son were yelled at and manhandled by a group of protesters as they were passing through the area. Why did this happen? Because the wives either had a Marine Corps sticker on the car or a Marine Corps shirt on." Some historians of the 1960s have noted that the biggest mistake made by the anti-war movement was to alienate the vast majority of Americans by reckless acts of protest, including turning on young men whose "crime" was that they had served in the military. I find it deeply ironic that those who most often accuse the military brass of trying to fight the last war may be committing the same thoughtless and self-defeating mistake that their predecessors did during the Vietnam-era protests. What the general told me that day back in the late 1980s was an uncomplicated story - one that too many Vietnam veterans have recounted over the years: He had gone to Vietnam as a young major on a one-year combat tour, where he experienced the incredible savagery of close- quarter combat, grieved for comrades killed on the battlefield, endured the physical and psychological hardships and isolation common to all soldiers, and yearned for the day he could proudly come home. But when his "Freedom Bird" landed at Oakland International Airport, the general said, the chief stewardess got on the intercom and warned the returning soldiers to get out of their uniforms as quickly as possible. Bands of protesters were known to be hanging out in the terminal and had already spat upon and thrown containers of blood on other returnees. The general nodded at his chest, recalling how proud he had been before leaving Vietnam to affix a number of new ribbons on his Class A blouse, including the Purple Heart he had received after one battle. Instead of walking, head high, into the concourse, the major was one of dozens who sprinted off the plane, one hand covering his ribbons, to find the nearest men's room where he could change into civilian clothes. Like the general, Marion Colston and her fellow military wives have displayed their pride in the military and their husbands' service with external symbols - bumper stickers and decals on the family car, T-shirts and coffee mugs adorned with the Marine Corps emblem. "But now," Colston went on, "many of us are taking off the stickers and shirts and are putting away the mugs. And that's a horrible feeling - like we should be ashamed that our husbands serve our country." What the general and Marion Colston's husband and his Marine comrades have in common is one very simple thing. They swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic [and] that [to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same …. " Implicit in that oath is that the men and women in the U.S. military's officer corps will faithfully carry out the legal orders of their superior officers in the chain of command, including deployment orders to the Persian Gulf. Those who believe that the U.S. foreign policy to disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction is wrong, have a constitutional right to voice that belief. But to aim their anger at young Americans who have volunteered to serve their nation in uniform today, is just as politically self- defeating, intellectually corrupt and morally wrong as it was back in the 1960s. Colston ended her letter with a sincere request on behalf of military families everywhere: "We need the support of our fellow Americans." Not only do they need such support, but she and the rest of the military families deserve the full support of all Americans - even from people who disagree with the policies that may result in their loved ones' deaths. Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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