dex armstrong - 2008-06-12 7:57 PM

At lunch today, I got into a heated discussion with a guy who kept using the term...cut and run. I learned about the "cut and run" stuff from IKE in Hungary and Korea and Nixon collapsing the bag in Viet-Nam...But that is not the point. The fellow delivering my lecture came from a family where the mother was unable or unwilling to produce spinal columns that fit boot camp mattresses....From his father, both grandfathers an his five brothers and 2 sisters...not one found serving their country in uniform worth the disruption of their lives. Apparently their mom was unable to produce spinal columns that might have to fit a VA Hospital mattress. This guy didn't care that we are financing this war on a national maxed out credit card...using financially enticed middle class youngsters and overpaid mercenaries...trashing the Geneva Convention and putting America's reputation in the international dumper...Most folks involvement seems to be limited to SUPPORT THE TROOPS, GOD BLESS AMERICA and THESE COLORS DON'T RUN bumperstickers...trunk magnets of twisted ribbon loops and once every two weeks you may see a vehicle with one of those plastic U.S. car window flags that were everywhere when our troops began our preemptry war to locate all Saddam's bad stuff....What the hell happened to all those flags? Well, If you want to see how truly good people fight wars against evil, pick up the Warshot/Whitlock book THE DEPTHS OF COURAGE....turn to page 194...go to paragraph beginning "By the middle of 1943...." and read the text to the bottom of page 197. When you finish you will understand how a couraqgeous people, filled with national pride, fight and win wars....You will fully understand and appreciate what a nation with it's sleeves rolled up...makes the sacrifices necessary to not only SUPPORT THE TROOPS but to achieve total and absolute victory. You will understand fuel rationing...how the metal to stoke the foundaries of war production was collected...How lads stood in line at recruiting offices and sometimes had to take numbers for later appointments...They were not there for college tuition handouts, sign up bonuses or to be showered with geedunk badges, cute ribbons anhd medal bucket dips. They were there because WE WERE ATTACKED and they lived in a nation where a male to consider himself a man, was expected to enlist to carry the war to America's enemies. Read pages 194 to 197 in DEPTHS OF COURAGE...go to Blockbusters and rent VICTORY AT SEA...better yet buy a copy and sit down with your grandschildren and watch it from start to finish over a couple of evenings. If you do it...two things will happen...First, you will get a deep sense of appreciation for what Ron "Warswhot" Smith and his millions of mates did...what they amazingly accomplished and the debt we owe them that they years ago smiled and marked PAID....And you will fully understand the pride and unparalleled sense of satisfaction a nation has that fights wars on a "pay as you go" basis and goes at their enemies full force, no holds barred and delivers any kind of hell they have access to.......back then we had atomic bombs...we didn't have any nuclear deterent stuff...We had "Tojo, don't look up...here comes a big one", stuff ....and once oil went to Four Bucks a Gallon, Bull Halsey would be capturing Islamic tankers at sea and George Patton would be securing EVERY oil field and refinery in the Mid-East....and we'd have a section in the San Diego zoo for OPEC Oil Ministers.....Hey. If you're going to start a war, make it worthwhile. DEPTHS OF COURAGE pages 194 to 197...How tough sonuvabitches packed tiger hearts who were forged and casehardened in the Great Depression whipped evil and along with her great Allies brought liberation, the return of decency, sense of fairplay and national honor to millions, by killing a whole lot of nasty bastards. I still have my Sunday School war bonds stamp book....Thanks Warshot...I could never have learned to bow and use those goddam chopsticks...DEX