THE THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR IS OVER

I was reading the featured articles in Sunday’s Washington Post titled “Three Years in Iraq”, and at first was pleased that the Post was featuring our servicemen’s thoughts on the war. My positive feeling did not last long and was replaced with anger and frustration when I saw one sentence printed in bold type, ten times larger than anything else in the article (other than the title). “I don’t have any skills besides blowing up people.” This is a quote by Army Staff Sgt. John Thomas. Trust the Post to pick the most negative statement to feature, and for all we know it was taken out of context, to boot.

Here are a few statements that caught my eye and could have been featured instead of all the negative ones:

The first was by Lance Cpl. Daniel Finn, a Marine infantryman. He talked about an Iraqi woman who had her tongue cut out by Saddam Hussein’s men, people with no fingers, and others who had been tortured. This brings back memories of WWII and the Nazi concentration camps. Who among us could deny that these people needed liberating from the tyrant Saddam Hussein as much as the innocent victims of WWII needed to be liberated from Hitler’s Third Reich?

Marine Major Don Broton says “The kids were extremely friendly, the parents were extremely friendly. They are a hell of a lot more friendly than some of my neighbors in California are.” Naval Airman Clint Davis indicated what he thought was the most important thing of all, “You should ask how we feel about people in the Middle East. We love those people. They deserve to have free speech and to vote and to live freely without oppression and without fear. They deserve to be citizens of the country they were born in”. My friends and son who are in Iraq have also told me that it is easy to see that most of the Iraqis are glad we are there.

The writers stated that although those interviewed had a lot to say about how bad fighting is in Iraq, it is, however, “not bad in the ways the veterans see covered in the media”. “It was dangerous and confused, yes, but most of the vets also recalled enemies routed, buildings built and children befriended, against long odds in a poor and demoralized country. ‘We feel like we're doing something, and then we look at the news and you feel like you're getting bashed.’ ‘It seems to me the media had a predetermined script.’ The vibe of the coverage is just ‘so, so, so negative.’" Boy, was that guy right on, and I would add that the Democratic Party leadership is driving the liberal media to this approach.

This article was slanted to appeal to liberals and left-wingers, and puts the focus on the horrors of war. Many extreme liberals and antiwar people don’t respect those who serve in the military, secret service, police, etc., so it is not surprising the Washington Post would choose to highlight one quote by one soldier that would appeal to this group. I can tell you from my experience the statement “I don’t have any skills besides blowing up people” is in no way characteristic of our service men and women. The ex-military personnel I hired in my 30-plus-year career were outstanding employees, and in general out-performed those without military experience. Staff Sergeant John Thomas probably has more to offer a civilian employer than he realizes.