Christmas in Kuwait
December 30th, 2006/January 2nd, 2007
(For more information on the photo - please click here or here.)
Hat Tip: Mudville Gazette: “Mike Yon, in Kuwait”
Milblogger Michael Yon writes “From a Starbucks, on a U.S. Military Base, in Kuwait.”
Great post for everyone on the verge of being brainwashed by the U.S. main stream media:
Read the entire post: Christmas in Kuwait (And Qatar, and Hanoi, and Singapore, and Jakarta)
A couple of excerpts:
[…]
“… A couple weeks ago in Singapore, an opportunity arose to speak with a clutch of field-grade officers, most of whom were foreign veterans of the worldwide war. These officers were from countries such as Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. A common theme among our foreign allies is a concern that we Americans seem to think we are standing alone against a world teeming with enemies. Our military leaders of course know that we are not alone and that enemies do not lurk in every cave or under every rock. They know, too, that we have more allies than enemies, and even more who fit into neither category.”
[…]
[re-paragraphed by me]
This war is strange. I never hear soldiers worried about their own morale sagging. Contrary, the war-fighters here are more concerned to bolster the morale of the people at home.
Here in Kuwait [my added link], where the dining facilities are bedecked in Christmas decorations, soldiers stream in from Iraq on convoys and stream back north along those bomb-laden roads. The service members here are not all rear-echelon people who never see fighting or blood.
Yet their overall morale obviously is high.
Few of them know I am a writer, and so they speak freely at the tables around me. In Qatar, from which I’d just departed, I spoke with troops taking four-day R&R passes, some having just returned from the most dangerous parts of Iraq, and others heading straight back, and their overall morale was also very high.
The morale at war is higher than I have ever seen it at home; makes me wonder what they know that most Americans seem to be missing. [my added emphasis]
Again – Read the entire post: Christmas in Kuwait (And Qatar, and Hanoi, and Singapore, and Jakarta)
Also please read my December 20th, 2006 Tentacle column, “An Uneasy Truce,” in which I also touch upon some of these issues: “Christmas is within a week and my thoughts and prayers go out to the men and women in uniform who are deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
[…]
Whether you support the Bush administration's conduct of the war or not, hopefully, that is irrelevant when it comes to supporting our nation's military personnel in harm's way.
I have had the honor personally to know two individuals who have been deployed. One served a tour of duty a little over a year ago. The other is currently deployed in a support mission based in Kuwait, which involves actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
[…]
In spite of Sen. John Kerry's infamous "botched joke," uttered last October, which many interpreted as disparaging commentary on the level of education, intelligence and sense of endeavor of our fighting men and women, one is a college student majoring in management at a major university and the other has his master's degree.
[…]
In particular, the veteran who served in the Kurdish Province had several opportunities to view CNN reports on actions in which he participated and was dismayed by the slant and spin; to the point where he hardly recognized the events as reported.
It will be interesting to see just how our greater society will be affected in future years by the military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The experience of the politics over the war has caused many of them to lose faith in much of our country's national leaders because they play parlor-politics with the deadly opera of life and death in a combat zone.
And their experience with the news media has caused many veterans to not only distrust, but to disdain the traditional main stream media.
Speaking of Senator John Kerry – check out this post on “Blackfive:” “Jawn Carry - Looks Like 3rd BCT, 1st Cav, drew the short straw.”
Michelle Malkin does the senator’s visit even more of the justice it deserves.
Bryan Preston sums it up: "I've never seen a snubbing so richly deserved."
I'm sure the Wall Street Journal will call this another of the blogosphere's "second-order distractions." But the troops think it's newsworthy and snort-worthy. And so do I.
Words have consequences.[my link added – or go here or here]
Please understand, for all the civilians out there, just how profound it is for military personnel to snub Senator Kerry. Military folks are usually publicly very respectful and deferential to elected officials, no matter what their personal feelings. It’s called professionalism and discipline. So for folks in the military to play hide and seek with Senator Kerry, it is quite noteworthy.
Additionally, David Ignatius, an Op-Ed columnist with the Washington Post made an attempt at addressing the disconnect that is going on between reality in the Middle East and the way it is being reported by the liberal United States main stream media.
His column is titled, “Their Christmas at War” and it was published in the Washington Post on December 22, 2006 on page A33.
It was a good beginning by Mr. Ignatius, but he got lost in the weeds about half-way through the piece. He did regain control of his column about two-thirds of the way through, but only after some off-topic commentary about: “A young woman who calls herself "Techno" has a small Christmas tree at the foot of her bed. She explains in her blog that she broke up with her boyfriend before joining the Army and coming to Iraq.”
Then: “…says he has learned two things from Iraqis: the importance of having a special place for your gun at home, and the requirement that "every male should have some sort of facial hair.”
Huh? WTF?
However, this excerpt made his column worthwhile:
This holiday season, America is struggling through a searing national debate about Iraq. The horror of the war feels immediate, even to people who've never been near Baghdad, but less so the humanity of the thousands of American soldiers who are serving there. That's part of the Iraq disconnect: The war dominates our political life, but the men and women in the midst of it often are nearly invisible. We see them in thumbnail photos in group obituaries but not as real, living people.
If you read soldiers' blogs, and I've looked at several dozen over the past few days, you see a recurring anger that the media aren't telling their story. So I'll let a few of the military bloggers speak for themselves. If you want to share in the conversation, a good place to start is http://milblogging.com, which collects blogs from soldiers deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
Needless to say, the first thing most American soldiers are thinking about is getting back home. They wait for a magic acronym: RIP/TOA, which means: "Relief in Place/Transfer of Authority."
Read his column here.
Tentacle, Moonbat, Iraq War, Senator John Kerry, Military.
####
