We sacrificed 500,000 healthy young men in WW II on President Roosevelt’s assurance that we were fighting so that people could be free to choose their own governments. Then, when the Vietnamese leaders came to the United States and asked for help in driving the French from their country, we turned them down. When the Chinese communists helped them, we helped the French: the French, those occupiers of the land who had cheered for Japan in WW II.   

I remember war every Christmas. I arrived on the front line with the 15^th Infantry Regiment on Christmas Eve, 1952, and saw my first enemy shell fire on Christmas morning. I was in a reasonable safe job, but volunteered for the scouts and served four months as a scout. I saw one bloody action, five nights of mass attacks interspersed with three days of minor attacks. I am alive because of combat smarts, quickness and luck, mostly luck. But this is beside the point. The point is that, like every other man who has been in combat, I hate war. But if we place men in combat they must have our support. Otherwise we are sacrificing them meaninglessly.

A year ago, running for election, Obama declared that Afghanistan was important, not Iraq. After he was elected he repeated the need for victory in Afghanistan. He replaced the general in charge and sent in 20,000 more troops. Obama’s general said that he needed more troops to win: 60,000 more. 

Months have passed following Obama’s election. During that time President Obama had time to travel about Europe and Central and South America apologizing for our help to the people and our weak attempts to neutralize dictators. He visited old friends in Chicago, went to Europe to campaign for the Olympics and campaigned for various Democrats running for office. But he didn’t have time to do anything about the request for help in Afghanistan.

During that time we had American soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan who lacked the support and equipment they needed. But Obama was too busy thinking about it. He finally decided. He will send thirty thousand more troops to fight, half of those the generals say they need, but plans to withdraw them in eighteen months. This is pure stupidity. Why sacrifice young people for eighteen months before bringing the survivors home?

Personally, I’m in favor of getting out. The founders of the United States fought for their own freedom, let the people of Afghanistan fight for theirs - if they want it. The one thing I know about Afghanistan is that no outside nation has ever conquered it, not even Alexander the Great, and I don’t believe Obama can.

I not only would want the United States military to come home from Afghanistan, I’d like them to come home from everywhere. We have thousands of troops stationed on Okinawa. The people of Okinawa don’t want us there. Why are we there? To defend Japan? Japan is quite capable of defending itself, as it proved by conquering much of Asia in WW II. 

Similarly, South Korea is one of the world’s wealthiest nations. It has much more money and many more people than North Korea. Why do we have thousands of troops in Korea? They have the money and the men to defend themselves. 

We also have thousands of troops in Germany. Why? 

I worked for the military for eleven years: in the United States, in Korea and in Germany. When at the WarriorPreparationCenter in Germany, I was asked to write the history of the center as a gift to a departing four star general. I did some research and wrote that the Center had been established to conduct war games to prepare the two army corps then in Germany to defend West Germany for an attack by the Russians through the Fulda Gap in East Germany. East Germany no longer existed. Poland was independent of Russia and the likelihood of such an attack no longer existed. W no longer had two corps in Europe and we had not conducted a war game in over two years. Still we currently employed six civilians, the one with the lowest rank being a GS 12, all of whom received free housing and medical treatment in addition to their salaries, more than thirty contractors the least expensive of whom cost the government $270,000 per person, and over a hundred military.

My history of the Center was never sent to the General.

During my tours in Korea and Germany, I saw many visitors: colonels, generals and politicians. They paid brief visits to our “research” facilities and then went shopping or visiting the sights in the area. The only reason I can see for keeping so many military men and women in these places is to expand the military, meaning a greater need for more well paid colonels and generals as well as a greater variety of countries to visit on well paid trips by high ranking officers and politicians from the States. Well paid with tax dollars. We spend billions of dollars on this. We could use that money at home. Bring them home.

In her article “Questions No One Wants to Ask Gen. McChrystal” (Townhall.com, December 11, 2008) Diana West lists some of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) that our men and women must obey in fighting the enemy or face the possibility of imprisonment when they return to the United States. According to Ms West’s article these rules include the following:

1.      No night searches

2.      Villagers must be warned prior to searches

3.      Searches must account for the Islamic attitude towards women

4.      Soldiers must not fire on the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire on them first

5.      Soldiers may fire on a person PLACING a mine, but not on one walking away from placing a mine. 

6.      She indicates there are others such as no air support for ground troops except in case of “emergency.” This rule already led to the deaths of some soldiers who had radioed for help, which was denied.)

As a person who has had six months “up front” in combat including four months of continuous front line duty as an infantry radio scout, let me respond to this. 

First, almost all of my work was done at night. That was when the enemy was up and about. Our most vicious battles, such as Outpost Harry which cost us 2300 casualties, were also at night.

Secondly, the idiocy of telling the enemy, who work from villages, when the village is to be searched is beyond understanding. Naturally the Muslim jihadists, who wear no uniforms, are going to take time to hide their weapons and be friendly during those searches. They might even be able to retrieve their weapons and kill a few of our men as they are leaving.

Third, caring for the Islamic attitude towards women is a statement which would border on the hilarious if it didn’t reflect such profound ignorance. My first knowledge of this attitude came from a Master Sergeant whom I had learned to respect when he was coach of Andrew’s t-ball team. He was sent on a mission to Iraq and I met him on his return. I asked him what it was like. He responded, “They are a really beautiful people, but women are strictly second class citizens. They use women and girls to clear mine fields because women are less valued than men.” (Anyone who doubts that attitude should read Surah (Chapter) two, line 288 of the Qu′ran.) For men in combat, this means that these Islamic fighters are quite willing to have women conceal weapons and explosives under their burkas or hide behind women while shooting at them. (Incidentally, the North Koreans used women in this fashion in the Korean Conflict, but we weren’t prevented from shooting them.)

Fourth, to not shoot at an enemy fighter unless that fighter is preparing to shoot at them. Any soldier stupid enough to obey this is giving the enemy the first shot. Of course if he doesn’t obey, and lives, Obama’s generals will send him to Leavenworth prison.

Fifth, this means that anyone who is spotted placing a mine only has to turn his (or her) back and begin walking away to be safe. 

When combat soldiers are not working, all they are is tired, but when they are working they live by combat or die. 

On the positive side, I never knew of any combat soldiers who harmed peaceful civilians. In fact, I knew of those who tried to help the innocent. Red Curry, who was a top combat scout, actually cried when he had to carry a sick young woman to safety. Our supply room took in an elderly, wandering, civilian man; gave him a bed and provided him with food. Our cook was criticized by a colonel new to Korea for feeding stray children. A friend who was present said he looked at the colonel and replied, “Sir, as long as I am in charge of this mess hall, I’ll feed children.” The colonel left. The same could not be said for some rear echelon soldiers. I heard some of these non-combat men brag about how they had abused innocents in the rear area, but, fortunately, there weren’t too many of them. Good thing for us they were in the back, they wouldn’t have had what it takes to face armed men interested in killing them. 

To return however, to the “Rules of Engagement” promoted by our current leadership, anyone who has a loved one going there should get an extra hug from them.  Their work is being made suicidal.  They are much less likely to return alive than they would be under intelligent leadership.   

Sorry if this is badly written. It is an emotional topic for me.

I did not vote for McCain, I voted against Obama. Having been brought up on the sayings, “birds of a feather flock together” and “you can tell a man by the company he keeps” I considered the anti-American, anti-democratic and corrupt politicians with whom Obama associated in Chicago and voted against him. I had no idea, however, how thoroughly corrupt the Democratic party had become until I read Michelle Malkin’s book, “Culture of Corruption” in which, as is her style, she gives names, dates, cash flow and her sources of information. It is disheartening reading. Now, I have read “Obama’s Moral Leadership Balloon Crashes” by Mona Charon (Townhall.com, Oct. 20). Ms Charon takes a different approach, but, like Michelle, names events and sources in writing about how Obama’s messages of “hope” in his campaign have translated into his support of dictatorships around the world.

Disappointed in the National Football League refusing permission for Rush Limbaugh to become a part owner in the Rams, based on false charges of racism brought by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the president of the players’ union, I decided to stop watching professional football. I quit this past Sunday and was surprised to discover that I didn’t miss it, or even notice that I was missing it.

Perhaps this belongs under “Family Affairs,” but I suspect it is more political. I had a bad night last night, the first in a long time.  Fifty-five year old memories woke me at two and kept me awake.  I know what caused it. While at the hospital yesterday I spotted my friend Jim, an unreformed Democrat, waiting in Dr. Blazer’s office so I dropped in to make certain this was simply a routine visit. Reassured, I traded fun, political, jabs with him before asking if he still liked Obama. He said he objected to Obama having a thirty thousand dollar a plate dinner with people he had just bailed out with millions of tax payer dollars. I didn’t respond to that, but what bothers me, and woke me up this morning, is something different. I don’t like what is happening in Afghanistan.

We have generals and military leaders saying we need more men and equipment, but Obama is too busy to talk with them: busy interviewing five year old children in New Orleans, busy visiting Chicago and Europe to try for the Olympics, busy giving political speeches in New Jersey and attending that expensive donor dinner. All of this while our men and women are fighting, and dying, with a lack of help and equipment in Afghanistan. 

My knowledge of this awoke me in the middle of the night: memories of night after night of explosions and men dying. I laid down to sleep in Outpost Howe on the 10^th of June, 1953, thinking that it was the first night in over a week I could sleep with my boots off. I woke up an hour later with dirt falling in my face as shells exploded on top of and around our bunker. I spent the night working in stocking feet. The Chinese had decided to take Seoul by going through us, and they allocated two divisions to do it. When morning came and life calmed down, three of us were sent to a watching post about a hundred and fifty yards in front of the front line and a hundred or so yards off of the west slope of Outpost Harry, the point of the Chinese attack. I was there for the next three nights. As a point radio scout, I received radioed requests for more men, more ammunition and more medical supplies and forwarded them to headquarters. After the third night, the fourth night of the battle, we three were pulled back and returned to Regimental headquarters for a night’s sleep. I remember being shocked by the supplies and the guns. There were hundreds of cases of grenades and bullets stacked immediately behind the line. Heavy guns had been pulled into the area to support us: forty and fifty caliber machine guns, heavy mortars, artillery of all types including rockets. This was all new. We were in a fight, but our government was supporting us. Over the eight nights of that unknown battle in that forgotten war we lost about 2300 men while killing an estimated 7000 enemy, but we held. And we held with our government’s, President Eisenhower’s, support. 

Where is that help and support for our people in Afghanistan? Obama is too busy doing other things to even talk to those trying to run this war.

I know his work isn’t easy. Any decision he makes, to fight or to run, will be criticized. It wasn’t easy for Truman or Eisenhower or Johnson or Nixon or Bush either, but they were in charge and knew their responsibility. It is time Obama learned his.

Other favorites include Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Star Parker and Larry Elder. Looking over the list, it interested me that so many of my favorite columnists are black. It would be interesting to know if there is some common element in our backgrounds, such as growing up in poverty during the depression, which transcends race in giving us a commonality of belief. 

Discussing the “Cash for Clunkers” gimmick, a friend at church said he was concerned that Obama was building another “Fannie Mae” problem, that people who couldn’t afford new car payments would be trading in their dying models for brand new cars and that in six months we would be hearing of the need to “bail out” car owners who couldn’t get to work if their cars were repossessed. 

Obama’s health experts are planning to take money from Medicare for their new health plan. They have also commented that the elderly need to accept the problems of their age. This will be “Cash for Clunkers” changed to “Cash FROM Clunkers.” Actually, I resent this. Unlike Medicaid, which is supported completely by tax dollars, the elderly, of whom I am one, have paid for Medicare since its start and continue to pay for it out of their Social Security subsistence.

It could be the beginning of euthanasia by medical neglect and then on to enforced euthanasia for the elderly. Don’t think it can’t happen. Liberals are the same people who threw simple schizophrenics and other mentally ill people out of the hospitals because they were “no harm to anyone” – except themselves of course. Now the intellectual descendants of those liberals who closed the mental hospitals complain about the homeless wandering the streets.

Our government sponsored Fannie Mae has received $10.7 billion in bail out funds and is now requesting $34.2 billion more. Our government run Medicaid program, also going broke, is characterized by fraud, waste and abuse in addition to just plain mismanagement. (One article I read claimed that in Tennessee Medicaid is the source for much, if not most, of the illegal drug traffic in middle Tennessee.) It amazes me that intelligent people know this, but believe the same government mismanaging Social Security, Medicaid and other programs can run a health care program for everyone which will improve on what we already have – which provides medical treatment for all.

OneNewsNow.com (July 30, 2009) reports that it should please the average citizen to know that Stimulus grants (tax dollars at work) are being use to fund pornography. Frametime, a “gay and lesbian” film house received a $50,000 grant, while CounterPulse and “the Symmetry” projects, both pornographic performances received $25,000 each. If you object to such things remember, after all they are “stimulus” funds. 

You should begin to hear Obaman officials and their enchanted vassals in the news media to begin complaining about Bush’s war in Afghanistan. Not immediately however. The military leadership is asking Obama to double the current number of military there. On top of the 20 twenty thousand soldiers he has already sent, this will be a sizeable crew. The casualties will mount and costs will skyrocket. Then expect the Obamanites of the press to complain of Bush’s war and for the Great One Himself to announce that he will bring everyone home in six months, as he did in Iraq.

I am honestly sorry for the “Blue Dog” Democrats. Pelosi has an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives if one includes the Blue Dogs, most of whom are elected from districts where voters pay attention to how their Representative votes – and behaves. Considering the general disapproval of the “ObamaCare” bill, I suspect Ms Pelosi will carefully count her votes, put pressure on enough of the Blue Dogs to pass the bill and permit the others to vote against it. Whom she permits to vote against it will probably depend on how well they have obeyed her during the year. 

I have seen several cartoons and read several articles suggesting a lack of respect for the American people by Pelosi. I appreciate this opinion on her part. She has been taught this by voters. They continuously elect her.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is unhappy with the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) for its treatment of the Controller and his supervisor who were on duty at the time of the crash of a helicopter and a small plane over the Hudson River. They were suspended and are considering being fired. This seems terribly harsh. So what if the Controller was talking to his girl friend on a cell phone and his supervisor was out of the building at the time of the crash. They are government workers. They can’t be expected to spend all of their duty time working. Just think. The same types will be running our health care.