August 12, 2004
A civilian like me can't ask this question...
But BLACKFIVE can:
So I just have one question for you Active Duty Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen: Would you ever leave your men in a combat zone because you earned the right to go home early, even though you were physically able to continue leading them?Posted by John Weidner at August 12, 2004 07:39 PM | TrackBackWould the rest of you? That's what I thought.
How many Soldiers and Marines have been wounded but have stayed with their units when physically able? Hundreds, I'll bet. I just read a report that one Marine battalion had 50 wounded return to duty recently.
I cannot feel anything but utter contempt for Kerry when I think about men like Sergeant Kenneth Conde and others that chose to stay with their troops rather than take an early trip home...
Yes you can. Yes you damned well can. Freedom means that you can ask any damned question you wish, of whomever you wish, using any damned grammar you choose (though it helps quite a bit if the grammar you choose is mutually intelligible between yourself and the person you are questioning). If American isn’t about the freedom to ask questions, what the hell do you propose that it is about?
Posted by: Andrew Cory at August 13, 2004 04:13 PMI didn't mean I wasn't free to ask the question, I meant that I would sound something like that pompous schoolmaster in the book All Quiet on the Western Front (great book, which I read at an impressionable age) who was always lecturing the boys on marching joyfully into battle and defending the Fatherland and such.
I've read lots of military history and I feel fairly confident that Kerry's early scoot-out was not quite the thing. But the criticism sounds better coming from a soldier or marine...
Posted by: John Weidner at August 13, 2004 07:38 PM
