Posted on September 20, 2007
President Bush has decided to scale back U.S. troop levels by at least as much as the recent surge called for, which is roughly 20,000 troops. This drawdown comes in the wake of intense political pressure on the administration, especially on members of Congress who have supported the president’s plan and are approaching election season soon.
In the midst of this political turmoil, in which Democratic presidential candidates and Republican congressmen are formulating their own exit plans, our forces keep fighting every day.
New recruits voluntarily join knowing that they too will likely find themselves on Iraq soil. These individuals continue fighting alongside one another despite the frequent calls by their political leaders at home to abandon their cause.
This is not to say that a continued full-scale military presence in Iraq is the right course or even a sustainable one, but try telling that to a soldier in Iraq who has been watching his comrades die in battle, or fall prey to the nastiest of wartime injuries.
Our dialogue at home has long since shifted away from support for our forces in Iraq and has become dominated by scrutiny of the plan as a whole. Our media coverage focuses on how many suicide bombers blew themselves up in the streets, or what new U.S. military gadgets were deployed in the field. The media seldom goes far enough to take us into the shoes of our men and women in the field so that we can adequately comprehend their struggle.
The reality of our current conflict has never been made clearer to me than it was over the summer. A good friend of mine is a lance corporal in the United States Marine Corps and on several occasions throughout the summer he took it upon himself to show me videos of his friends and fellow Marines that had found their way onto the Internet. These videos contain raw material recorded often compiled by the Marines themselves, and are a fraction of many online videos put together by regular citizens in honor of those who have fallen and those who carry on the fight.
My friend has yet to serve in Iraq, but many of his fellow Marines have. He told me the story of one such brother-in-arms who was commemorated in an online video put together by his fellow Marines.
The video is one of many in which those who have fallen in Iraq or Afghanistan are glorified for all the world to see — but you won’t find it on your nightly news program and probably not in your daily newspaper.
Yet oddly enough, these first-hand accounts are more accurate than almost any piece of war reporting which seeks to speculate on the morale of our forces or the mindset of the particular civilian populations.
An overwhelming majority of the U.S. news media has fallen short in reporting the realities of this war. I say this knowing that there are many in the media who frequently risk their lives to report the real stories on the ground, but in the big scheme of things these news outlets have failed us miserably.
A new path must be found in Iraq and that may require drastically changing our tactics. However, in the search for a new strategy we must never forget the valiant efforts of our men and women in the armed forces — and we must learn to listen to their stories. For it is only by hearing from those who do the fighting on the ground that we can begin to comprehend the true significance of this ongoing conflict.
As this particular Marine was being laid to rest, my friend had the honor of giving the American flag to the Marine’s young boy. The small child cannot fully understand what his father fought and died for.
The Marines standing over him at that funeral — the brothers of the fallen patriot who held back their tears as they stood at attention — know that their comrade died for them and for his country. It is for him and for us that they carry on the fight each and every day.
Patrick Callahan is a senior political science major.
About Us | Supplements | Advertising | Contact Us
Website design by Erik Pitzer ('07)
