Over at Blackfive, Grim posts a request from Marine Col. Simcock:
COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I'll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about -- and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 -- we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we're taking over here are very, very important to America. We're fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.If anyone -- you know, just sit down, jot us -- throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It's broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we're a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn't know what's going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn't behind us and doesn't see the importance of what's going on. So that's something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we're doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.
The address is RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil.
Someone will read and vet the emails, and then hand them out.
Say something nice...
Thanks, AL.
Can't imagine a better way to spend some time than telling them how proud I am of their work.
This is a Good Thing.
Thanks for reposting this request - sometimes the simplest of things can make a difference. Sending an email a day to say thank you for the tough job the Marines are doing to protect us is now at the top of my to do list.
kj
I know a David Blue...
But he's no stinking liberal...
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Remind me again, what is it that our Armed Forces are accomplishing.
What I see is the world's best treadmill runners. It's awesome to see how fast they can go on the treadmill, and they should be congratulated for treadmill running so well, and supported when they fall off, and all that—but let's not confuse running a treadmill with moving towards an objective.
The most recent "success" is having forged an alliance of convenience with Sunni tribal leaders to attack foreign fighters who did not even exist in Iraq when we started this mess. And let's not be confused about the attitude of Sunni sheiks: these are not great friends of Modernity, as Mitt Romney puts Western culture. In fact, they're probably Saddam's cousins and uncles, without Saddam's appreciation for secularism.
Our surge hasn't controlled the capital city, and our numbers are nevertheless far too small to keep Bad Guys (whom we have decided to label Al Qaeda as if it were a brand name turning generic like Xerox and Kleenex) from simply removing themselves to some other, more hospitable part of the country.
This was supposed to be a cakewalk, 30K troops in Xmas 2003, pro-American and pro-Israel government drenched in gratitude, some sort of mass delusion at top levels not seen on these shores since the Salem Witch Trials. No amount of hard work can effect any of these phantasmal visions, that's Time's Arrow.
The problem is the public supports the tactical work the Marines do in Iraq. What I think the colonel fails to realize is that the strategic plan to control Iraq after the Defeat of Saddam's armed forces didn't exist beyond wishful thinking. The current administration then willfully rejected the idea of situational awareness to adapt and react to the reality on the ground. As a consequence Marines, Airmen, Sailors and Soldiers are being murdered. That the American public does not support. It is in denial to the fact that a pullout is the only strategic option for the USA. It is the only way to regroup and rebuild.
Does this mean maybe 1,500,000 more people may die as a result of partition and struggle over the natural resources of territory? Yes it does. But staying will only continue to erode the strategic strength(military and economic-because we are going to have to pay the cost)of the country.
[Evil "419" folderol. Deleted. --NM]