So You Support the Troops?
Since writing the poem "Fightin'
Words," I've had some emails and posted comments indicating the belief
that I'm just another rightwing, media-hating nutcase with an ax to
grind. Actually, I'm more of a moderately conservative nut case and I'm
not against the media as a whole, just some segments; nor am I against
all combat reporters; Kevin Sites, a reporter of recent notoriety, has
one of my poems, "The
Sheepdogs," on
his website and I have seen a few
comments on various blogs that the very presence of my poem, which is a
tribute to our warrior class, is evidence that Kevin truly does support
the troops. I also have written a piece quoting a reporter embedded with
the 101st Airborne during the invasion of Iraq that is quite respectful
of his wisdom and insight, entitled "That's The Way They Were Raised,"
which can be found on many websites such as this one. [I
combined "That's The Way They Were Raised" and "Proud Thanks" into one
post which you can read
here. -- BF]
But, yes, it is true; I do have an
ax to grind although it would give me greater satisfaction to bury it in
a few carefully coiffed talking heads. You see, what I'm wholeheartedly
for is the troops, and not in the sense that most liberal Americans
profess to be, in that they believe they are demonstrating their support
of the troops by calling for them to be brought home and removed from
harm's way. If that's what you call supporting the troops, then take it
from an old trooper who's been there and done that, the troops don't see
you as supportive at all; they see you as undermining their mission,
which is to go in harm's way, with deliberate intent to prevail by force
of arms.
What the troops perceive as support is hearing you cheering not
jeering when they are seriously kicking the butts of jihadi terrorists. So, on behalf
of the troops you support, it's with you peace-at-any-price
liberals and your synergistic media pals that I have an ax to grind.
Warriors don't train endlessly and
exhaustively to be withdrawn ignominiously from the battlefield before
they can implement that training and achieve victory, simply because a
well-intentioned but weak-willed segment of the citizenry can't abide
the losses that the warriors themselves understand as necessary and
sustainable. Not infrequently, troops are killed in the course of their
rigorous training programs. Do you not suppose that if they are able to
accept the deaths of comrades during training and continue to soldier
on, that they probably suspect that they and others may well perish in
the accomplishment of the mission for which they trained? Anyone who's
ever served with such men knows the easy answer to that; and unlike
certain weak-willed civilians, warriors do not shrink from this reality.
So yes, our troops do expect
losses, and while they indeed mourn their dead, they accept those
deaths and honor the fallen by completing the mission and killing those
who killed their brothers in arms; and that includes making sure, very
sure, absolutely certain that there is no question the bad guys are
truly dead, totally, completely, 100 percent dead, on the highway to
their hedonistic Hell, where multitudes of virgins await them, but,
alas, no Viagra. They want to die for Allah? Then by all means, help
them observe their faith; and if a bullet to the brain is needed to
insure their fealty, so be it.
What warriors can't accept is the
constant, backbiting hyper-criticism by puerile pundits who have no idea
of what it is to be in the midst of an intense firefight. These elitist
expositors, pontificating from their safe havens, have the temerity to
admonish the troops for failing to adhere to the media's interpretation
of the Geneva accords and some silly, schoolboy sense of fair play they
harbor. Guess what, girlie-men; in ground combat, there is little time
to think about inapplicable treaties or the rules of fair play learned
by gentlemen, “on the playing fields of Eton,” or wherever. Fair play
in war is a construct of fools who think of combat as sport, fools who
have never faced uncontrolled mayhem in which their lives can be
snatched from them in the first moment of weakness.
In a firefight what you desire
most is fire superiority; you want to be throwing so much s**t at them
they can’t possibly throw any thing back without getting hit. You want
it to be totally one-sided for your side; there isn’t anything fair
about it at all and there shouldn’t be. Of course, it is seldom that
easy, that one-sided, but you can damn well bet that’s the way the
troops and their commanders want it to be. You try your best to make the
rules all work your way, so it’s Chuck out of luck, not you. Tactical
rules of engagement are fluid and ultimately determined by those
immediately engaged and those in control of the battlefield, not some
snide network know-it-all or some corrosive columnist at the New York
Times. My poem, "Fightin' Words," is
about those in the media who report on war but have little understanding
of the intensity and immediacy of ground combat. Hell, most of them
never gain enough understanding of the military system to get the
military ranks and unit structures reported correctly. Yet these
blow-dried blowhards want to tell the professional warriors how to
fight?
Look at it this way: if they were
sports reporters covering a football game for their local paper or
station, they might second-guess some of their home team's play-calling,
but they wouldn't be complaining if their team was getting away with
holding on every play, or tripping, or face-masking, or committing other
fouls against the opposing team, would they? Nope, they’d keep their
mouths shut and hope the officials didn’t call the infractions. Nor
would they be demanding their team be pulled back into the locker room
and forfeit the game just because of a few blown plays or a few serious
injuries to some of the key players. Hell no, they'd be exhorting those
players to stay out there and fight, to get tough, play hard, play rough
and not come off that field with anything less than a victory.
Now that’s supporting the team,
right? So why can't these oh-so-smart liberals and the see-all,
know-all, decide-all-for-you media, see it’s the same way for the
troops? No wonder they lose elections.
Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute
Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
