Friday, December 7, 2012

7 December 2012 Just a bit of missed history



Cassi Creek:         Old soldiers and sailors never die; they just sail/fade away.  It is a nice sentiment that was voiced, in part, to make it more politically correct to ignore the veterans of prior wars while ramping up the current forces for the next trip down the pipeline. 
          But old soldiers and sailors do die.  The men and women who were fortunate to survive their particular bit part in the ongoing battlefield theater find that they are suddenly no longer the well-muscled, sharp-minded troops who once planned campaigns, or flew planes off carrier decks.  The strong ones who could shoulder their field gear and a few rations, then slog off across the colder parts of Europe during a blizzard now find it difficult to carry in groceries if the bags are too full.  They passed safely through the gates of armed combat.  Now they are facing another series of gates, ones that depend more upon genetics and diet than upon ability to shoot accurately and at necessity. 
          The Japanese attack upon Pear Harbor happened barely 6 years, plus or minus some months before my birth.  I grew up surrounded by veterans of WWII.  The Civil War, Spanish American War, and WW I were not distant dry history for me.  I knew men who fought in those wars.  They were able to convey to me a portion of their experience. 
          The Pearl Harbor attack angered the nation and that anger, carefully stoked and tended, was part of the reason we were able to fight what were essentially two separate wars in two theaters of operation.  The demand for ships to transport men, weapons, and the materials needed to fight a war up the island chains; while simultaneously protecting convoys and hunting submarines in the Atlantic forced the United States into becoming the world’s largest and most powerful navy.  We’ve maintained that capability through several periods of mostly-peace and through several wars.  Our carrier battle groups allow us to project force against nearly any nation we choose.  Our Air Force can fly missions that take the aircrews around the world and back. 
          As always, we prepare for the last war and are never allowed to repeat that last war.  The financial problems that the U.S. faces today indicate that we should be pulling out of ongoing wars and downsizing our combat forces.  Of course, the GOP/teavangelists are insisting that we ramp up the military to Cold War levels so that they can fund defense contractors and manufacturers, building weapons platforms and fielding units that the Pentagon does not want to build or deploy.  The days of two ocean wars and 600 combatant ship navies are behind us, or should be for the time. 
          We’ve learned and forgotten the reality of an unannounced attack upon our troops and upon our shores.  The attacks of 11 September 2001 were as deadly as Pearl Harbor.  Like Pearl Harbor, we had warning that the attacks were planned and underway in sufficient time to have taken appropriate action.  At least, we tell each other that we could have. 
          As with the Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants, we over-reacted in episodes of blind stupidity and are currently showing the world just how intolerant and poorly informed we could be.  There are real threats from Islamic terrorists to be tracked and dealt with at home and around the world.  But repeating our history of intolerance and declaring war on the wrong groups of people just wastes lives, money, and intelligence collected at great cost. 
          We’re going to find ourselves facing the necessity of stepping into the Syrian Civil War in order to prevent the use of chemical weapons and to secure the Syrian arsenal before those nerve agents can be sold or traded for the new home of the Syrian dictatorship.  Iran will take them in and try for the weapons.  Iran is already making their position all too clear by targeting U.S. UAVs.  They will, if allowed, attack at least one Carrier battle group.  And they will provide logistics support for any terrorist group that presents a working operational plan for a clandestine attack upon the U.S.
          Today, the ceremonies at Pearl Harbor are attended by fewer survivors.  The gates of age are closing behind them.  VietNam veterans are now in a position of equivalence to the WWI vets I knew.  We stage pseudo-patriotic circuses on September 11th while the Pentagon remembers the reality of the attacks.  I can’t say how long it will be until the WTC attack memorial becomes just another opportunity for legislators to make a speech about something that very few people at the event still show up.  I can say that the Military will honor its dead and wounded as it always has.  They’ll do their best to maintain the watch that will warn us of the next sneak attack.  If Congress can quit playing patronage and pork barrel games with our armed forces, they just might be able to stop the next group of attackers. 
          In the mean time, it’s the VietNam veterans who are now fading/sailing away. 
          

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