Death notifications

Reposted from the original site, which is no longer online

It always happens - right after I announce one of my rare recesses from blogging I find a topic so compelling that I break my own vow to take time off writing.

In this case it is the combined media project between Time magazine and the Rocky Mountain News. They shared coverage of the procedures of US Marine Maj. Steve Beck, on whose shoulders falls the sad duty to notify families of Marines over a few western states that their loved one is dead.

Time's version is almost exclusively a photo-essay with minimal narrative while RMN's is a fairly detailed written narrative with extensive photo-illustration. Both are gripping, compelling pieces that should be read by every American.

They took me back to Dec. 2 when 10 Marines were killed and 11 wounded by bombs in Fallujah, Iraq. My son was based in Fallujah. Would I have heard quickly that he was one of the ten? I didn't know. I didn't know how long notification takes. 

Now I know how long: not long. There is a frenzy of necessary confirmation activity by Headquarters, Marine Corps and the headquarters of the officer who make the notification, then the two-Marine notification team drives to the next-of-kin's home and makes the notification. If the NOK isn't there they wait. Out west, where Maj. Beck is assigned, the longest delay is often the time it takes for him to travel to the NOK's home, which may be one or two states away.

The stories also took me back to the one time that duty fell to me. It was peacetime, the early 1980s - before cell phones or GPS to navigate. I was a first lieutenant assigned to Fort jackson, SC. My name reached the top of the installation-level duty roster just in time to be tabbed for NOK notification. I reported to the post's casualty office for instructions. There I was assigned a government van and driver and given a written packet of information about the deceased soldier, the address of his NOK, a map and a government credit card.

My instructions were simple: "Memorize this paragraph. You are required to state it verbatim, without notes, to the next of kin. That's all you have to do." Unlike the Marines, the Army assigns different officers to notification duty and survivor-assistance duty. An assistance officer (actually a senior NCO) would be assigned to help the dead soldier's parents with the funeral and settling his affairs; the soldier had not been married.

I got one final instruction before departing: "You must make the notification between 0600 and 2200. Use the credit card for any expenses related to this mission, including food and lodging if you need it. Don't come back until you have made the notification."

The dead soldier had been a member of the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC. He had died in an auto accident (fact was, he was DWI, but relating that fact was not my problem). The civilian casualty staffer at post HQ told me that tthe soldier's father already knew his son was dead (via unofficial grapevine channel from his unit), but that it didn't matter: the Army always sent an officer, in Class A uniform, to deliver the official word. Unlike Maj. Beck, I was alone; my driver was a driver, that's all. I was also distinctly forbidden to call the NOK by phone, even to ask directions.

We set out for rural northwest South Carolina. The NOK's address was an RFD box from a very small farming town. Because it was wintertime darkness had long fallen when we arrived. Absolutely everything was closed for the day; there wasn't even a place to get a cup of coffee.

The van needed fuel and we did manage to find the town's one gas station. It was, thank heavens, still open. I asked the attendant where Mr. "Smith" lived and showed him the address without telling him why I wanted it. The man shook his head and said he'd never heard of "Smith," but that the RFD route started along a certain state route heading out of town, so maybe if we began at the first mailbox and kept going, we'd find it.

I remember clearly the RFD box number: 479. What a plan.

Refueled, I bought some snack crackers and a coke for my driver and myself and we drove off to find the state route. Much to our surprise, once we left the town the first mailbox was number 100. (Apparently, all the RFD numbers were three digits.) But the next was, yes, "101." We kept going.

Believe it or not we followed the mailboxes all the way to number 479. There were many stops, wrong turns and restarts as we tried to stay on the state road; intersections were often not marked which road was which. Many mailboxes also were not marked at all and we simply proceeded on faith. Sometimes we drove a long way without seeing any box, then there would be one.

After almost four hours of navigating in the darkness, a mailbox marked 479 in simple handwritten, white paint ghosted into the headlights. It was 2145 hours. The house was set off the road about 40 yards. Bright lights shone through every window from interior lights. We turned in and parked near the front stoop. When I opened the door my ears were assailed by soul music coming from the house, very loud. I reached into the back seat and got out my Class A blouse (coat for you civilians) and saucer cap.

"Good luck, sir," my driver called as I turned to go to the house.

"Thanks." I walked up the wooden, rickety steps to the front door. I paused and ran my hands along my blouse to make sure it was straight and checked my cap. Then I knocked on the door loudly so it would be heard over the music. Momentarily a middle-aged (or so he seemed, hard farm labor can age you quickly) man opened the door. He was bleary-eyed and I immediately saw why: there were several open bottles of liquor on side tables behind him.

"Sir," I said to him, "I am Lieutenant Sensing from Fort Jackson. I am told this is the home of Mr. 'George Smith.' If so, I would appreciate very much speaking with him."

The man motioned for me to come in and said, "That's me." I stepped inside two steps, removing my saucer cap as I did. A young man in the room yelled at a boy to turn off the music, who quickly complied. I recall that there were a couple of women in the room, too.

"Mr. Smith," I said very formally, "on behalf the secretary of the Army, I extend to you and your family my sympathy in the death of your son, Sergeant 'Jim Smith.'" I don't remember after so many years the paragraph I had memorized then. I know I said that another officer would contact them about making arrangements and settling their son's affairs, and that he would be able to answer all their questions.

Uttering those words was 100 percent of my duties. I finished and Mr. "Smith" mumbled, "Thank you." He offered his right hand. I shook it and said, "I really am very sorry for your loss, sir." We dropped hands and briefly looked at one another face to face: he of a weatherbeaten black face, an uneducated farm laborer who had toiled in tobacco or bean fields all his life, who had worked dawn to dark to see his eldest son graduate from high school and become a soldier with a bright future. Then his son got killed one day on a rural road in North Carolina. And the next day I, a lily-white young officer, walked into his home from the night's darkness. With no personal connection to his son, I stood in his sharecropper's home purely by random chance of a duty roster to tell him that the secretary of the entire US Army mourned his young son's death.

Mr. "Smith" turned away and so did I. There was nothing else for either of us to say to one another. I stepped out the door and walked back to the van, placed my blouse and cap in the back and slid into the front seat. The driver asked, "Home, sir?"

"Yes," I answered, "if you're okay to make the drive. We'll stop for supper on the interstate."

"Roger that, sir." He turned the van toward the road where mailboxes were, or were not, marked with plain white numbers that haunted the roadside at 2200 hours, local time.

Before we reached the pavement, the former home of the dead soldier was reverberating again with loud soul music, booming through the darkness.

Remember Pearl Harbor

Last May (2005) my wife and I traveled to Oahu. On Memorial Day Sunday we visited the USS Arizona Memorial. The ship was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941, along with many others.

This is the original ship's bell of USS Arizona, recovered from the sunken vessel and now on display at the entrance to the National Park Service pavilion across the channel from the memorial, below.

Looking from the visitor's pavilion to the site of the sunken Arizona, topped abeam by the memorial.

A forward turret barbette of USS Arizona projects upward from the water. Across the channel is the hospital ship Mercy. Oil still seeps from the battleship; the oil spots have been nicknamed "black tears of the Arizona." A half million gallons of fuel oil are estimated to have sunk within the vessel. At the present rate of seeping a quart per day it will be centuries before it all leaks out. The oil bunkers seem to be in good enough condition not to spring large leaks for decades, minimally, and probably a few hundred years.

Many of the Pearl Harbor dead are buried in the National Military Cemetery of the Pacific, nicknamed the Punchbowl.

Here is an American movie of the explosion of Arizona, taken by a sailor aboard USS Solace. 

This is the only color photo of Arizona's agony that I have ever seen.

Arizona was not refloated after the attack, as most sunken ships were, because the Navy knew it was destroyed, not merely damaged. They also estimated that 900 - 1,000 sailors went down with the ship, most of whom still lie entombed within it. Arizona's site was transferred to the custody of the National Park Service 1980, although the US Navy retains title to the ship's remains. The San Diego Union has an outstanding article about the site and the efforts to preserve it.

Anyone living today who can document that he was assigned to the ship on Dec. 7 may be entombed within it. About 20 men have been entombed with their shipmates since the Park Service began allowing them. As I recall, the remains must be cremated because there is no way to manipulate a coffin under the water and entombments take place only on Dec. 7, which is certainly appropriate.

Update: See the National Park Service web site about the Memorial. Keep paging down and read the in-depth report on what happened to USS Oklahoma, too, which IIRC was berthed alongside Arizona. The site has galleries of photos, also. 

Also, Eric Scheie has a link-rich post that is worth the time.

Cooking the war

I have deliberately stayed apart from the arguments about whether President Bush cooked intelligence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. The reason is that I pledged myself after the last election that I would not do partisan politics on this site. I have not kept this promise completely, but I've come pretty close.

But enough is enough. My son is fighting in Iraq. He called via satellite phone yesterday and related taking part this week in a very large infantry, armor and air power raid against terrorists in the Fallujah vicinity. Prominent Democrats are accusing President Bush of lying to them and the American people, of cooking the intelligence about Iraq and claiming that their votes to authorize war were mistakes. They have crossed a line that I cannot in conscience ignore.

The question of the accuracy of the intelligence regarding Saddam and WMDs is certainly legitimate. Questions about the conduct of war are legitimate - I have not been kind at times to the administration about that, especially about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's deliberate discarding of studies by the Army Staff before the war that the prospective invasion force was to small by about half to secure the country effectively when organized resistance ceased.

I don't have a problem with inquiring whether the intelligence was "bent" by the administration. But it's been done. The Senate Intelligence Committee addressed at this issue in its "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq."

The Committee found no evidence that the IC's [Intelligence Community's] mischaracterization or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure.

The Committee detailed the many failures of the intelligence community, but there was no misuse of the intelligence assessments by the administration.

In fact, the president acted in the only responsible manner possible in light of the assessments he was given. These assessments included the unanimous conclusions by the intelligence services of England, France and Germany that Iraq was well on the way to becoming a nuclear power. The German assessment was actually bleaker than any of the other three powers.

Let's go back to Jan. 27, 2003, when Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix delivered his report to the UN as required and said the following:

Resolution 687 in 1991, like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq, but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. ...

... Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. ...

As we know, the twin operation declare and verify, which was prescribed in Resolution 687, too often turned into a game of hide and seek. ...

While Iraq claims, with little evidence, that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996. The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA. ...

For nearly three years [since Dec. 1999] , Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. ...

Resolution 1441 was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active. ...

[Blix then spent a few paragraphs reporting that ther inspection regime cionsisted of two parts, process and access. Access, he said, was satisfactory with only a few problems. But he recounted a number of times the inspectors were harrassed. Then:]

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1441 states that this cooperation shall be "active." It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items. ...

On 7th of December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441 ...

These reports [that is, two reports by Blix's commission] do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to a lack of evidence and inconsistencies which raise question marks which must be straightened out if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq, rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM.

Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number. ...

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. ...

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. ...

There are also indications that the agent was weaponized. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq. ...

The [Iraqi air force] document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi air force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot, 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved here in the past few years at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding.

Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve, but rather points to the issue of several thousand of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for. ...

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of ... a mustard [gas] precursor. ...

I turn to biological weapons. I mention the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as it is an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist. ...

As I reported to the council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December 2002 declaration Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24th of January this year to the president of the Security Council, Iraq's foreign minister stated that, I quote, "All imported quantities of growth media were declared." This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax. ...

Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary, they should have the benefit of the doubt; be presumed innocent.

UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq. But nor is it, or I think anyone else, after the inspections between 1991 and '98 presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem; evidence and full transparency may help. ...

This report could not possibly build confidence that Iraq was at heart a peaceful nation with no intentions of retaining or reconstituting mass-destructive weapons programs. Quite the opposite, the report reasonably led to concluding that Iraq was determined to do exactly the opposite. Furthermore, the president knew that there were real and substantive connections between Iraq and al Qaeda, even though Iraq was not linked to the 9/11 attacks. For example, Iraqi Fedayeen Saddam Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir:

Six days after September 11, Shakir was captured in Doha, Qatar. He had in his possession contact information for several senior al Qaeda terrorists: Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi who helped mix the chemicals for the first World Trade Center attack and was given safe haven upon his return to Baghdad; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, otherwise known as Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described by one top al Qaeda detainee as Osama bin Laden's "best friend."

Much, much more at the link. Then there's this summary by Richard Miniter. Were there constant, enduring ties between Saddam and Osama bin Laden? No. But both men hated the United States. Saddam had billions of dollars at his disposal while bin Laden has merely a few tens of millions, not enough to run an ambitious, worldwide terror program. (One al Qaeda perp captured after the bombings of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1988 complained bitterly that bin Laden wouldn't pay for a doctor's visit for the perp's pregnant wife.) As Stephen Hayes summarized, "I would certainly never argue that they were buddies. It was an on-again, off-again relationship based, as [Sen. Evan] Bayh says, on mutual exploitation and a common enemy."

One of the most powerful senators of the opposition party took to the floor of the US Senate in October 2002 and said:

I am forced to conclude, on all the evidence, that Saddam poses a significant risk.

Some argue it would be totally irrational for Saddam Hussein to initiate an attack against the mainland United States, and they believe he would not do it. But if Saddam thought he could attack America through terrorist proxies and cover the trail back to Baghdad, he might not think it so irrational.

...At the end of the day, we cannot let the security of American citizens rest in the hands of someone whose track record gives us every reason to fear that he is prepared to use the weapons he has against his enemies.

That would be Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who voted for the resolution authorizing war against Iraq. So can we claim, "Rockefeller lied, people died?" Then in the last week Sen. Rockefeller told interviewer Chris Wallace that he was not responsible for that vote.

I'll go even farther than merely recount the history that Democrats are deliberately distorting. Let's pretend that then-CIA director George Tenet never told the president that Saddam's possession of WMDs was "a slam dunk." Imagine that instead the country's intelligence chief had told President Bush:

(1) There was some uncertainty about what the data indicated,

(2) There was disagreement among intelligence professionals on the status of Saddam's weapons programs,

(3) The consensus of the American IC was that it was much more likely than not that Saddam possessed some quantity of chemical weapons and had active programs to preserve or reconstitute his biological-weapons program and atomic-weapon program. This report was buttressed by officials such as Ambassador Joe Wilson, sent by the CIA to Nigeria, where he found that although Iraq had not actually obtained uranium ore from the country it had made the attempt. (Oh, you didn't know that such is exactly what Wilson reported?)

Blix's report, btw, would stay the same.

Even had there been uncertainty about Iraq's weapons programs, there was ample just cause to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. In fact, Sen. Hillary Clinton said to the Senate on Oct. 10, 2002 that

But if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections [from the UN], I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

At the request of the United Methodist News Service, I wrote an article for its release in Feb. 2003 that UMNS entitled, "Just cause exists for action against Iraq."

Saddam's regime threatens American lives and the peace of the entire Middle East. The Bush administration and the U.N. inspectors have provided conclusive proof of Iraq's programs to develop mass-destructive weapons and its extensive efforts to conceal them - efforts that continue to this day. There is solid evidence of Iraq's links to transnational terrorists. Saddam's regime is brutally repressive of its own people.

Whether the status quo with Iraq constitutes a cause for war should be debated. That the status quo should continue cannot be faithfully maintained. The question is not whether Saddam's regime must be ended and the Iraqi people freed; the question is only how. We pray that open war may yet be avoided. But to fail to act effectively to accomplish the just end is to make oneself an accomplice of injustice and ally oneself with murderous oppression. ...

A key fact is being overlooked in today's debate. The choice is not really between peace and war. We have not been at peace with Iraq since 1991, and Saddam wages war upon his own people every day. The issue is not beginning a war, but how long the present war will continue. Absent Iraqi compliance, the choice is between brief, controlled warfare imminently or the continued suffering of the Iraqi people, the continued absence of peace and almost certainly a truly terrible war later.

President Kennedy's words during the Cuban missile crisis still apply: "We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security... The 1930s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. ... Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, but now further action is required. ... The greatest danger of all would be to do nothing."

I also explained Saddam's murderous regime against his own people (like this). I stand by every word, including what I wrote about WMDs. Why? Because it's worth remembering that the only reason we have certainty now about Saddam's WMD programs is because we invaded Iraq. As Tod Lindberg points out,

We took down the Saddam government, arrested and detained as many senior Iraqi officials and weapons scientists as we could find, questioned them thoroughly, scoured the country for biological and chemical weapons supplies, and found evidence of programs variously abandoned or discontinued or on hold.

We found, however, no clear record of when or how (or whether) Saddam had destroyed whatever stockpiles he may once have possessed. Nor did we find any evidence that Saddam had done anything more than suppress his chemical, biological or nuclear ambitions for prudential reasons. On the contrary, there was ample reason to conclude that he hoped to reconstitute such programs at the first opportunity.

Then we come to the Duelfer Report, named after the chief of the US Iraq Survey Group, led by Charles Duelfer. No actual WMDs in Iraq, said the report, and that's where people usually stop. But the report also stated that:

Saddam wanted to re-create Iraq's banned weapons programs, including nuclear weapons.

Saddam was determined to develop ballistic missiles and tactical chemical weapons when the U.N. sanctions were either lifted or corroded.

Saddam retained the industrial equipment to help restart these programs, having increased from 1996 to 2002 his military industrial spending 40-fold and his technical military research 80-fold. Even while U.N. weapons inspectors were in Iraq, Saddam's scientists were performing deadly experiments on human guinea pigs in secret labs.

To what end? The overlooked section of the Duelfer report could not have put it any clearer: "Iraq would have been able to produce mustard agents in a period of months and nerve agent in less than a year or two." While Saddam had abandoned his biological weapons programs, he retained the scientists and other technicians "needed to restart a potential biological weapons program," and he "intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems [that is, missiles] and . . . the systems potentially were for WMD." These conclusions were based on interviews with Saddam Hussein, his closest advisers, and his weapons scientists, along with the kind of industrial equipment the Iraqi government imported and maintained.

The report also explained that materiel prohibited to Iraq by the UN was arriving in quantity "virtually no problem" from France, China, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and elsewhere.

There is no doubt - none whatsoever - that had the status quo ante bellum continued, my Feb. 2003 assessment for UMNS would have proven tragically true: had we not warred upon Saddam in 2003, we would have faced much more terrible war later.

So what to make of the current Democratic attacks upon the president? Fred Hiatt wrote in the Washington Post Nov. 14, of the "questions" about the use of the intelligence,

"Those aren't irrelevant questions," says Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). "But the more they dominate the public debate, the harder it is to sustain public support for the war."

What Lieberman doesn't say is that many Democrats would view such an outcome as an advantage. Their focus on 2002 is a way to further undercut President Bush, and Bush's war, without taking the risk of offering an alternative strategy -- to satisfy their withdraw-now constituents without being accountable for a withdraw-now position.

Many of them understand that dwindling public support could force the United States into a self-defeating position, and that defeat in Iraq would be disastrous for the United States as well as for Mahdi and his countrymen. But the taste of political blood as Bush weakens, combined with their embarrassment at having supported the war in the first place, seems to override that understanding.

Michael Barone put it this way:

The Democrats are trying to relitigate the prewar intelligence issue in the hopes of delegitimizing this administration. But in delegitimizing the administration, they also tend to delegitimize the efforts of the U.S. government, including military personnel, in Iraq and generally in the war against Islamic terrorism. To the extent they delegitimize the United States, they are hurting the cause of freedom for millions of people. I do not say the Democrats are being unpatriotic, a word they seem fixated on. So far as I am aware, no responsible Republican has charged that they are unpatriotic; John McCain refused Bob Schieffer's invitation to do so. But I do say this: The Democrats who are peddling the Big Lie of "Bush lied" are doing so either (a) deliberately to injure the cause of the United States and of freedom in the world or, as I think, (b) with reckless disregard of whether they injure the cause of the United States and of freedom in the world. What they are doing may suit their political needs, but it hurts our country.

So Barone shrank from saying "the Democrats are being unpatriotic"? I won't.

Listen, Senators Reid, Rockefeller, former Sen. Edwards, Sen. Kerry and your rhetorical allies: I have known many patriots. My son, fighting in Iraq, is a patriot. And you, sirs, are no patriots. You are actively betraying my son and his comrades. You are giving comfort to the enemy.

Have you no shame? No, I think not.

Update: Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), on the other hand, remains the moral voice of sanity in his party, as he proved yesterday; read the whole thing. Which is, btw, why he gained my support in 2004's Tennessee primary. 

I would also point out that Sen. Hillary Clinton has, on this issue, stood fast with her years-long assertion that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat to the United States and that it was right to remove him from power, although she has been critical of the unpreparedness of the administration for managing Iraq after the campaign.

My address to Gold Star families

I addressed Gold Star Mothers and their families, along with many Blue Star families, at a luncheon honoring fallen U. S. Marines on Sept. 17, 2005. The luncheon was sponsored by Tennessee Marine Families, a chartered not-for-profit organization of which my wife and I are members. Many readers will recognize that I modeled five paragraphs of this address on Pericles' oration at the first funeral of Athens' fallen of the Peloponnesian War in 431 bc. You will also see an echo of Shakespeare's "Henry V" in a closing paragraph.

There was a time in our country when families such as ours did not have to form organizations to offer one another moral and material support because a large percentage of Americans served in the military. Almost every extended family had a member in uniform at one time or another and endured separation or loss like we endure. Families of deployed service members were woven throughout the fabric of every town or city and so was a support structure for them. Today the privilege of service belongs to relatively few Americans, all volunteers - except us. Our sons or daughters - we can no longer call them children - volunteered for military service and then we discovered we had been drafted into another, softer service along with them. Softer service, yes, but not easy.

We have seen our sons or daughters or spouses volunteer for war, prepare for war, go to war. We have, most of us, given an embrace that we dared not think may be the last, taken photographs secretly fearing might be final, given and received tearful kisses hoping with all our hearts that they are promises, not really good-byes. And some us sadly have not welcomed our loved ones home and are living with the grief of fears that became fate.

Without reservations the fallen Marines we memorialize today believed in ideals that formed the very soil from which America grew. They held it self-evident that human beings are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. The fundamental premise on which America was founded was that human freedom is the will of God. Over 230 years of our history this idea has become so deeply rooted in the American psyche that even Americans who profess not to believe in God nonetheless say that freedom is the natural condition of human life. Historian and retired infantry officer T. R. Fehrenbach observed that the virtues required to protect a democracy are often at odds with the virtues of democracy. So while we cherish life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as just ends of democratic freedom, our Marines put their lives at risk, surrender many personal liberties and submit to rigorous discipline that is often most unhappy.

Why did they do this? The most reasonable thing to do when battle begins is to run away, not stay and fight. Were they truly willing to die for their country? I don't think so. There's an old story that goes back probably to the Civil War of the young soldier whose commander asked him, "Are you willing to die for your country?" The young man answered, "Certainly not. But I am ready to die, unwilling." The American armed forces really have no use for someone who is willing to die. We do not seek and soon weed out anyone seeking martyrdom in battle; this is a key distinction between us and our enemy. We do not send our soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines to die even though we know some inevitably will. Our country is instead ably protected by those who accept the risk rather than seek it. But why accept it?

What civilians rarely discern but what every veteran knows is that military service, especially in battle, is steeped with the convictions of deepest emotion. In battle there is fear and courage, anger and compassion. There is resignation and determination. There is hope and despair. The chief emotion of the battlefield is an unlikely one. It is love. Across the range of mental, physical and emotional states in the desolation of combat, love abides. Our Marines chose to serve for a variety of reasons, and love of country was a big one. But when enclosed by the mournful mutter of the battlefield, patrolling deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan, men at arms stay where flies the angry iron not for country or flag or other abstractions. In the final sense they fight for their friends. One Iraq veteran wrote,

[T]he first casualty of war is innocence. ... I've found the hard way that war is not glamorous. You quickly lose the idea of being a man fighting for his country when you have to carry your comrade who has been wounded in a gun fight. That nobility is lost quickly. ... It's not about fighting for the flag, it's about fighting for my life and fighting for my buddies' lives. These men I am lucky enough to serve with, I have become so attached to it's like they are my brothers.

A Marine major in Iraq wrote of a young corporal, a squad leader, who, during the invasion of Iraq was wounded by a grenade. This Marine refused evacuation and continued to guide his squad until he passed out from loss of blood.

Recovering at a US Army hospital in Germany, he convinced his doctors to release him, "borrowed" a camouflage uniform from a Navy corpsman, called his wife and told her that he wasn't coming home because his Marines were depending on him, and then talked his way onto an Air Force transport back to Iraq. He had the "golden ticket." He was headed home as a war hero with medals to prove it, but he just couldn't bear to let his Marines down, so he schemed and connived, as only a good Marine NCO can, and got himself back into the fight. There are those who will call that kind of response foolish. Then may God grant that I be such a fool. You may question the wisdom of that Marine, but he's the kind of man you want on your side when the chips are down.

Whether they served in peace or war, the Marines we memorialize today were not so impoverished of spirit that they were unable to surrender the pleasures of life. None of them excused themselves from hard service even though a softer lifestyle could have easily been gained. They deemed that their love of country and duty to freedom were of greater value and more important imperative, so they reckoned that if dangers must be faced, they would face them in the most desirable way, by placing their own mortal bodies "between their loved homes and the war's desolation."

They determined at the hazard of their lives to be honorable in their young adulthood, to make sure of their duty, and to leave everything else for later, if later ever came. They gave over to hope their chance of lifelong happiness and the uncertainty of final success, and in mortal danger they relied only upon themselves, their buddies and the Corps itself. They chose to risk death young as free men rather than live long as conquered ones. And when fearful lethality loomed they resolved to resist and suffer, rather than flee to save their lives; they ran away not from danger but from dishonor. On the battlefield they stood steadfast, and in an instant, at the height of their resolve, they passed away from this life but not from our lives or the destinies of generations yet to come.

Such was the end of these men's lives. We need not desire to have a more heroic spirit than they, although we do pray that others and their families suffer no such fate. The value of their spirit is poorly expressed in words. Anyone can speak to you about the advantages of such devotion, but you know about that already. Instead I hope that we can fix our eyes upon the greatness of our country and of these men's love of it and one another, and reflect that this country was established and has been preserved by men and women who knew their duty and determined to do it even at cost of life.

We should make them our examples. Their courage is our freedom and our freedom is our happiness. We whose loved ones still serve must not weigh too hard on the perils of war. We accept their love of country as our assurance and their service as our blessing. So it is comfort rather than pity I have to offer you, the families of the fallen. There are numberless chances to which lives of men and women are subjected: none of us here is promised even to see our own homes again today or ever.

These Marines' service ended in their honorable deaths and your honorable sorrow. Their passing is truly sad, for which you rightly mourn - but their deaths were not tragic, for tragedy is found in futility and selfishness, never by attaining the great honor of selfless service for freedom's sake. I know how hard it is to hear this, for the good fortune of others will too often remind you of the gladness which once lightened your hearts. There is a portal you have passed through that we frankly hope never to cross ourselves. So we honor your grieving and will never forget your sons and husbands.

In gratitude we should offer them praise that does not grow old, and acknowledge they occupy the noblest of all tombs. I speak not of that in which their remains are laid, but of that in which their glory survives and is proclaimed whenever people protect their freedom or are liberated from tyranny. For the whole world is the memorial of these Americans; they signed the earth itself with their blood and their honor. Not only are they commemorated here in their own country, but in Iraq and Afghanistan there are countless, unwritten memorials of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of tens of millions of peoples newly freed from murderous oppression.

Because of these men's sacrifice we go safely to our homes. Henceforth we should stand in humility when their names are read. Their comrades in arms who see old age will recall them fondly and show their medals and say, "These ribbons I earned beside true heroes." We will forget many things in years to come but we shall remember these great men and what feats they did one day. These dates shall never go by but that in them our fallen shall be remembered. They were a few, a band of brothers; and may we gratefully call them who shed their blood for us our brothers. And people in our country safe in their beds should think themselves accursed they knew them not, and hold their courage cheap when we speak of those who fought and died for freedom's cause.

The prophet Micah wrote that the time will come when God will judge between all the peoples and will settle disputes between strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. All people will be at peace, and no one will make them afraid (Micah 4:3-4).

Let us pray that day comes quickly. Until then may the Lord watch over those who serve today, to make them instruments of justice, enablers of peace, and finally to see them safely home. To our Gold Star families, may God bless you and keep you and comfort you, from this day until the ending of the world.
_________________________________

In honor of and gratitude for the service and sacrifice of these Marines:

LCpl. Benjamin Gearheart - Franklin, Tennessee
Cpl. Patrick Nixon - Gallatin, Tennessee
Capt. Brent Morel - Martin, Tennessee
Lance Cpl. Jeremiah Savage - Livingston, Tennessee
Pfc. Daniel McClenney - Shelbyville, Tennessee
Lance Cpl. Timothy Creager - Millington, Tennessee
Lance Cpl. Brad McCormick - Allons, Tennessee
1st Lt. Andrew Stern - Germantown, Tennessee
Lance Cpl. Tyler Cates - Mt. Juliet, Tennessee
Sgt. Christopher Heflin - Paducah, Kentucky
Lance Cpl. Joshua Dickinson - Lafayette, Tennessee
Pfc. Nathan Clemons - Winchester, Tennessee
Sgt. Morgan Strader
2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer 
Added Oct. 2006: Lance Cpl. Richard A. Buerstetta, Franklin, Tennessee

They will not grow old as we that are left grow old. 
Age shall not weary them nor the year condemn. 
At the going down of the sun 
and in the morning we will remember them.
From, "For the Fallen," Laurence Binyon, 1914

To war: Lance Cpl. Stephen Sensing

The future’s fortunes are opaque; 

we see now as through a glass darkly,

and so live each day with fear, faith and hope.

Yesterday my eldest son, Lance Cpl. Stephen Sensing, deployed with his unit to Iraq. His mother, brother, sister and I traveled to Camp Lejeune, NC, to see him off. Cathy’s dad, from Durham, went with us also.

He was released Monday at 10 a.m. until noon Tuesday, so we had a very good visit with him. Then he and his unit drew weapons and gathered their sea bags at the barracks to await transportation. The time of departure slipped a couple of times, but not by much. They shipped out to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, NC, on commercial buses about 30 minutes later than the originally scheduled time.

At MCAS CP they flew by chartered commercial air to Kuwait; I don’t know the route. Just as I was typing the last paragraph, Stephen called from Kuwait to report he arrived fine and there were no problems. He couldn’t talk but a moment, so that’s all the news we got, but it was wonderful to hear his voice and know all was well. He did say he doesn’t know just when they’ll move into Iraq. He does know where they will go, but I’m not going to include that here.

The standard-issue M16A4 rifle. It’s heavier and more rugged than the M16A1 I carried as a young artillery officer. Seeing this picture I am reminded somehow that when our kids were small, I never let them play with toy guns even though I taught them how to shoot the real things. Guns are not playthings but are deadly serious. There’s no doubt that Stephen knows that now.

They wear their name tapes everywhere – back of their covers, above their right breast pocket, above their right rear trouser pocket, on the sling of their rifles, on their seabags and day packs. They lace a dogtag into a bootlace, standard practice at least since World War II. The other two remain around their necks.

There were many “last” embraces, but there was one that you make count and you give it before you know it’s time to watch him run to final roll call. It’s so hard to let go; you want to make time stand still. You barely breathe and try to feel his heartbeat in your own breast because his heart will always beat in yours.

Steve’s grandfather, Col. (ret.) George D. Stephens, USA, is a World War II veteran who made eight combat amphibious assaults in the Pacific. Since those days he’s always had great respect for US Marines.

Final formation. Frederick the Great observed, “Ninety percent of a soldier’s time is spent waiting for something to happen.” So also with Marines! But the wait wasn’t long.

The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Michael L. Kuhn, came by to talk to the company and wish them well. He also read a prayer by the chaplain – why the chaplain didn’t come himself I don’t know (for all I know the battalion chaplain might already be deployed with another element, so I judge not harshly). Lt. Col. Kuhn’s talk was brief, to the point and professional – these Marines need no pumping up. Many of them have fought in Iraq before; in fact, every one of the NCOs in Stephen’s chain of command I met were already combat veterans, which reassured me greatly.

Lt. Col. Kuhn kindly dropped by our little family group after his short talk to the troops. Several families came to see their Marine off and I am pretty sure that the battalion commander spoke to every one. We had a good conversation for quite awhile. I told him what I had told my son the night before, that I was deeply envious of my son and his fellow Marines. Some people reach the end of their lives still wondering whether they ever made a positive difference in their country or the world. Marines don’t have that problem, and neither, of course, do soldiers, sailors, airmen or Coast Guardsmen.

My son and his fellows are producers of freedom, not mere consumers of it. And those who only consumed freedom will one night lie in their beds and think themselves accursed that they didn’t serve with them.

The fastest jet pilot ever

Transcontinental speed record holder, retired SR-71 pilot Ed Yeilding,
showing a remarkable unconcern about with whom he is photographed.

Today at church I had the pleasure to meet retired Air Force pilot Ed Yeilding, who honored us by attending before he headed home to Alabama. He said he had seen me on The O'Reilly Factor on April 4. In Nashville for a couple of days, he looked me up, which was very kind. Ed was an SR-71 "Blackbird" reconnaissance aircraft pilot for several years. When the plane was retired from service in 1990, 

... an SR-71 (972) accomplished history on a record breaking flight from Los Angeles to Washington, DC Pilot Ed Yielding [sic] and RSO Joseph T. "JT" Vida made the flight in 64 minutes, 54 seconds, averaging 2,144.8 mph, setting the coast- to- coast world speed record. On that historic event, aircraft 972 was turned over to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport. [link]

Ed Yeilding, right, with co-crewman J.T. Vida

As you may imagine, it is fascinating to talk with Ed in person. There are only about 100 SR-71 pilots, according to Ed, and about that many navigators. It's a very exclusive club! Many thanks to Ed and all his comrades for their invaluable service for well over two decades of the Cold War.

Update: I like this story, too: The King of Speed, US Navy F-18 Hornet v. USAF SR-71, guess who won?

The Pope and communism's fall

I wrote briefly this week about Pope John Paul's role in bringing about the end of Polish communism, springboarding off an Agence France Press report that said the assassination attempt against the pope's life originated in the Soviet KGB.

Leopold Stoltch writes today that John Paul's role in the fall of communism is "overstated." He cites a quote by Lech Walesa:

"We know what the pope has achieved. Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing," Walesa told The Associated Press on Friday. "More than one year after he spoke these words, we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations.

"Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us."

To which Leopold responds,

It seems to me that Walesa and others completely overstate the Pope's impact on the fall of communism in the Soviet Union. In fact, it has been my position that the Pope (and the Church in general) has been extraordinarily weak in the face of tyranny, always counselling the United States against using military force but never calling the Soviets or other dictatorial regimes to account for their persistent violations of natural law.

The most recent example of this one-sided pacifism occurred when the Pope admonished President Bush not to invade Iraq, but never called on Saddam Hussein to stop murdering his own people. To constantly call for the good to stand down in the face of evil, in the name of allowing peace to come in God's time, seems a contradiction that I can't get over.

I would reply thus: First, it is far too much to credit John Paul II for the fall of communism as a whole. The credit he deserves relates to what he did to bring about the fall of Polish communism. That is what Walesa was addressing. What he did, in conjunction with Walesa's Solidarity movement, was de-legitimize the Polish government and lead, not exactly to its collapse, but to its growing inability to monopolize the political life of the nation. Once men like Walesa found political effectiveness outside the Party, communist rule there was doomed.

The pope visited Poland in 1979, a year before Solidarity was born. By 1982 (IIRC) the Communist government had outlawed Solidarity and had imposed martial law. But John Paul visited Poland again in 1987. Reported the BBC:

When he re-visited Poland in 1987, the Polish leader, General Jaruzelski, and the Communist leadership gave the Pope the welcome due to a foreign Head of State. But the pomp and ceremony could not disguise the authorities' nervousness. Television viewers noted the General's trembling voice. The battle for the Polish soul was an unequal one. In a sonorous baritone, as yet untouched by the Parkinson's Disease that afflicts him today, the Pope told the customary huge crowds that came to greet him what many wanted to hear... ."

There was still a long, hard row to hoe before the Warsaw Pact broke up, followed by the Soviet empire itself. The Polish political revolution was not the foundation of the fall of Soviet empire, it was a big crack in the wall. The foundation was Communist East Germany. When the people there threw off the authority of the government, the whole facade collapsed and the Soviet empire - indeed, the Soviet Union itself - was shown to be a house of cards, politically speaking.

John Paul's role in the revolution in East Germany was nil. The locus of resistance there was the Protestant Lutheran church, not the Catholic church. But I hold that without the example of the Polish resistance the East Germans would likely not have been so bold.

As for John Paul's one-sidedness in dealing with Saddam, I have no explanation. But this article by Father Raymond J. de Souza, writing from Rome in 2003 sheds a lot of light, I think. It first appeared in the National Catholic Register.

George Weigel, the papal biographer, once asked his subject what he learned from the Second World War. Pope John Paul II answered instantly: "I learned the experience of my contemporaries: humiliation at the hands of evil."

The moral of the war story for so much of Europe is just that: humiliation and evil. ...

The Holy See, too, felt the pain of humiliation, with the tiny Vatican City State surrounded. The Church felt compelled to moderate her voice to preserve the neutrality upon which her freedom depended. It was a defensible policy but there was no glory in it — there was only humiliation in the face of evil.

Indeed, with the exception of Poland — which fought bravely and lost — and Britain — which fought bravely and won — the moral of the war story for Europe was that, as John Paul is fond of saying, "nothing is solved by war." The subsequent Cold War only reinforced the view that war brings more evils in its wake and further underscored the impotence of free Europe to combat evil in its own neighborhood. ...

So the Iraq war has produced an odd situation. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are men of deep Christian faith, explicitly motivated by the morality of their policy and committed to the role of religion in public life. Yet the Holy See has opposed them every step of the way.

De Souza's point is that Europeans generally do not see military force as being inside the moral universe, that war is purely destructive, never politically liberating. See also, Janet Dalety piece in the UK Telegraph, "Freedom? Why Europe's not bothered."

(Catholic theologian George Weigel, cited by de Souza, has also written extensively on the theology of war. I've discussed his works five times. See this index.)

Update: Arthur Chrenkoff was a child in Krakow when John Paul visited there in 1983.

My John Paul, not surprisingly, is the political Pope, the Polish Pope, the one who helped to bring down the Soviet Empire. There is no doubt in my mind about the role he played in this grand spectacle of history. Forget all the rather silly theories about cooperation with the CIA, or some "holy alliance" with President Reagan; he made a difference not on the account of some covert shenanigans but because of who he was, what he said and what he did out in the open, in front of the billions.

If you distill it all into one word, it is this: hope. He gave us hope. By us, I mean initially the Poles, the troublemakers who in 1980 started rocking the communist boat ...

Read the whole thing.

Pope John Paul II and Polish communism's fall

Leopold Stoltch writes today that John Paul's role in the fall of communism is "overstated." He cites a quote by Lech Walesa:

"We know what the pope has achieved. Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing," Walesa told The Associated Press on Friday. "More than one year after he spoke these words, we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations. "Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us."

To which Leopold responds,

It seems to me that Walesa and others completely overstate the Pope's impact on the fall of communism in the Soviet Union. In fact, it has been my position that the Pope (and the Church in general) has been extraordinarily weak in the face of tyranny, always counselling the United States against using military force but never calling the Soviets or other dictatorial regimes to account for their persistent violations of natural law. The most recent example of this one-sided pacifism occurred when the Pope admonished President Bush not to invade Iraq, but never called on Saddam Hussein to stop murdering his own people. To constantly call for the good to stand down in the face of evil, in the name of allowing peace to come in God's time, seems a contradiction that I can't get over.

I would reply thus: First, it is far too much to credit John Paul II for the fall of communism as a whole. The credit he deserves relates to what he did to bring about the fall of Polish communism. That is what Walesa was addressing. What he did, in conjunction with Walesa's Solidarity movement, was de-legitimize the Polish government and lead, not exactly to its collapse, but to its growing inability to monopolize the political life of the nation. Once men like Walesa found political effectiveness outside the Party, communist rule there was doomed. The pope visited Poland in 1979, a year before Solidarity was born. By 1982 (IIRC) the Communist government had outlawed Solidarity and had imposed martial law. But John Paul visited Poland again in 1987. Reported the BBC:

When he re-visited Poland in 1987, the Polish leader, General Jaruzelski, and the Communist leadership gave the Pope the welcome due to a foreign Head of State. But the pomp and ceremony could not disguise the authorities' nervousness. Television viewers noted the General's trembling voice. The battle for the Polish soul was an unequal one. In a sonorous baritone, as yet untouched by the Parkinson's Disease that afflicts him today, the Pope told the customary huge crowds that came to greet him what many wanted to hear... ."

There was still a long, hard row to hoe before the Warsaw Pact broke up, followed by the Soviet empire itself. The Polish political revolution was not the foundation of the fall of Soviet empire, it was a big crack in the wall. The foundation was Communist East Germany. When the people there threw off the authority of the government, the whole facade collapsed and the Soviet empire - indeed, the Soviet Union itself - was shown to be a house of cards, politically speaking. John Paul's role in the revolution in East Germany was nil. The locus of resistance there was the Protestant Lutheran church, not the Catholic church. But I hold that without the example of the Polish resistance the East Germans would likely not have been so bold. As for John Paul's one-sidedness in dealing with Saddam, I have no explanation. But this article by Father Raymond J. de Souza, writing from Rome in 2003 sheds a lot of light, I think. It first appeared in the National Catholic Register.

George Weigel, the papal biographer, once asked his subject what he learned from the Second World War. Pope John Paul II answered instantly: "I learned the experience of my contemporaries: humiliation at the hands of evil." The moral of the war story for so much of Europe is just that: humiliation and evil. ... The Holy See, too, felt the pain of humiliation, with the tiny Vatican City State surrounded. The Church felt compelled to moderate her voice to preserve the neutrality upon which her freedom depended. It was a defensible policy but there was no glory in it — there was only humiliation in the face of evil. Indeed, with the exception of Poland - which fought bravely and lost -and Britain - which fought bravely and won - the moral of the war story for Europe was that, as John Paul is fond of saying, "nothing is solved by war." The subsequent Cold War only reinforced the view that war brings more evils in its wake and further underscored the impotence of free Europe to combat evil in its own neighborhood. ... So the Iraq war has produced an odd situation. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are men of deep Christian faith, explicitly motivated by the morality of their policy and committed to the role of religion in public life. Yet the Holy See has opposed them every step of the way.

De Souza's point is that Europeans generally do not see military force as being inside the moral universe, that war is purely destructive, never politically liberating. See also, Janet Dalety piece in the UK Telegraph, "Freedom? Why Europe's not bothered." 

Update: Arthur Chrenkoff was a child in Krakow when John Paul visited there in 1983.

My John Paul, not surprisingly, is the political Pope, the Polish Pope, the one who helped to bring down the Soviet Empire. There is no doubt in my mind about the role he played in this grand spectacle of history. Forget all the rather silly theories about cooperation with the CIA, or some "holy alliance" with President Reagan; he made a difference not on the account of some covert shenanigans but because of who he was, what he said and what he did out in the open, in front of the billions. If you distill it all into one word, it is this: hope. He gave us hope. By us, I mean initially the Poles, the troublemakers who in 1980 started rocking the communist boat ...

Read the whole thing.