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April 28, 2004
Iraq: The untold story of war
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." - John F. Kennedy The death of Pat Tillman, an NFL safety who gave up millions of dollars to join the Army and become a Special Forces Ranger optimizes the words of our fallen president. But it seems the only people we hear about in our war against the minions of terror are those who have been wounded, killed or kidnapped. So many stories are not told, I believe it is time for a short report from another side. On April 21 I received an e-mail from a friend who had forwarded the following e-mail titled, "A report from our Dr. friend from Iraq." This is a note from our cardio thoracic surgeon friend who was in practice with Win. He volunteered at the age of 56 to enlist in the service. The Army took him and has him stationed at a hospital in the middle of Baghdad. Apr 20, 2004, at 9:33 AM, Charles Edwards wrote: Everybody: thank you once again for keeping me in your sights. I thrive on the messages and appreciate each one. The pace has slowed dramatically and the number of American casualties has fallen. I spent the afternoon operating on a prisoner at the Iraqi prison who was mortared by his own terrorist friends separating him from his leg and a large chunk of his shoulder. Caring for these terrorists is the biggest challenge I have. We have been told that all of us will be extended until further notice. I was scheduled to leave Iraq on May 11 but that may not happen at this point. I know that the news is bad from here but it is exaggerated and the troops I see are in good spirits. The majority of the Iraqi people want what we have and unfortunately there is a group that has been displaced and they don't like it. The next two to three weeks will be decisive here and hopefully things will calm down. The judicial courts are all open, the electricity is flowing at greater than prewar levels, the children are going back to school and the Iraqi police and Army are getting stronger. It will not all be a happy progression and it really is up to the Iraqi people to confront the evils in their society. I worry that the core values needed to govern fairly and wisely have never existed here and to develop a sense of justice at this late hour is a tall order. I will close with one last thought. There is one lasting impression in every Arab nation, every Arab leader and citizen and it has nothing to do with negotiations, cease fires, weapons of mass destruction, etc. It is the indelible image of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq and that unbelievable firepower that did in 28 days what the Russians could not do in 12 years and what annihilated the Iraqis on their home soil in a month. This will endure and prove to spare American lives in the future at home and abroad. Keep the faith. Chuck Upon receiving this e-mail I wrote back to confirm it was for real and not another of the many e-mails I receive that prove to be less than factual. The answer was as follows: "Bob: The letter is for real. The doctor was in practice with my brother-in-law in Los Angeles several years ago and left L.A. for his former home in North Carolina. However, the families remained friends over the years. The doctor was a basketball player in college; has three grown children and is expecting a grandchild. Melinda (my sister in law) who received the letter has sent it to many of her friends and said that you may use it in your column." What Pat Tillman and Dr. Charles Edwards understood when they volunteered, and we should all remember every day, is that we were the ones who were attacked. Listen to John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Teddy Kennedy or Robert Byrd, and you will forget that fact. They believe President Bush is the enemy. They would have us grovel to the U.N. while investigations are showing it was the U.N. that kept Saddam in power for simple greed. They blast the president for not supplying enough troops to complete the mission, yet fail to acknowledge they reduced our armed forces by more than 700,000 active and nearly 300,000 reserve personnel during the 1990s. They continue to call for reductions in our military bases, troop strengths and weapons systems, yet call upon our troops to become the world's police force for the newly created international court. They deployed our troops to Kosovo without a single Serbian attack upon us anywhere and without U.N. approval beforehand. Yet they would have us withdraw from a battlefield far from our own borders where our enemy has chosen to engage us. They would have us forget our enemy is not a nation, but unthinking fanaticism. It is because this new type of enemy is so known I give them the benefit of the doubt and not call them traitor. Simply cowards who should renounce all association with John F. Kennedy, a democrat who, like Pat Tillman and Dr. Edwards, understood the sacrifices we must continually make if our freedoms are to endure. (Little writes from Pahrump. His column, "The Other Side," appears here on Wednesdays.) |
