Posted by
Nee on Sunday, April 06, 2008 10:48:13 AM
This weekend I took a special trip. Drove down to Ft. Bragg to support the Vets for Freedom's National Heroes Tour. And I met some of the guys who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places who were speaking on the tour. There happened to be a female combat vet, too. Very cool.
The point of the tour is to get the message out to the rest of the world that WE need to WIN in Iraq. These fighters all know that it can be done. They have seen the progress, they KNOW!! But the rest of the world only swallows what the enemy from within wants them to. It preys on the apathetic ignorance of the American population. What? Ah, the enemy from within...I can be very specific or I can be general. Murtha, Clinton, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, Obama...and the rest of the Code Pinkies, Answer. You name them. They all suck and misrepresent what it means to live here in Republic where democracy serves all of us well.
Words spoken by warriors about freedom and sacrifice always choke me up. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I cannot hear the words and not be greatful that there are those who understand what I and many others do. Freedom is not free and the sacrifice of those that have come before me and the ones that have taken place since my life began should never be forgotten. NEVER.
You know, there's an old saying that I remember seeing graffitied on an overpass in Sanford, ME,1982, "Those who forget the past, are doomed to relive it." I felt it was so profound that I had to write it on a napkin as we drove past it and then on a folder I used for school. And every time I hear someone utter that the war was illegal, it was about oil, it was not Saddam we should have gone after, I cringe and think just that. People who are less than informed are those who believe such crap. And, now what those people don't get is that we need to finish what we started and we need to do it to WIN. We can't leave the Iraqi people until we have left them with their stability, economy and security in tact. And, if you were to have heard what I did, or even read it somewhere on the 'net, you'd know that surely progress is being made in leaps and bounds.
People have endured many hardships over there. Some come back and can continue on. Some have issues that need to be worked out. But how can you not listen when someone tells you that if we leave there we deny the sacrifices our men and women have made in the name of freedom? How do you stomp on the graves of 4000 soldiers and leave their mission incomplete? Well, the real answer is that it is absolutely not acceptable. Not to those who spoke, not to me, a veteran who has not seen combat, not to anyone who does not take Freedom for granted. We are that Shining City on a Hill, like it or not. And we have the ability to give Iraq the same things we enjoy with some adjustments. When women and children in Iraq are being educated, infrastructures are being fixed and created, and the religious factions are working side by side to keep themselves safe to continue building their nation, we cannot and should not walk away.
On the eves of tesimony by General Petraeus in Washington, D.C.,Tuesday, April 8th, these men and women will go to Congress to support Gen. Petraues' testimony of the successses we continue to make in Iraq and Afghanistan and to say that we should not leave our missions incomplete.
To Tom Parks, Steve Russell, Kate Norley, and Jeremiah Workman, Pete Hegseth, Jim Hanson(aka Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive.net) Thanks for doing what you do. And, Thank you for your service...Hooah! Keep up the good fight.
I am posting some cool links...
www.Blackfive.net (soon to be sporting t-shirts for sale and one of the best sites for supporting our Military, period)
http://www.rangerup.com/ A great place for cool t-shirts! (Hey Guns, they have a great Bezerkely T, perfect for a devil dog!)