Today another young soldier friend heads out for deployment. This is his 12th and he is not yet 30 years old. It is a bit different for him this time. He is the sergeant in charge of over 30 men (no officer avaliable) and only 4 have any previous deployments. By deployments, I mean to a war zone. This time is different than anything he has done before. I don't want to be too specific as you can imagine. But he and his family have been heavy on my mind.
How long have we been in Afghanistan? Seventeen plus years is it? I am getting to the point that I am fed up with our involvement there. I don't know what our goals there are anymore. I don't think we have accomplished any meaningful change to that primitive society. That is something that will take many generations to effect any real change there. At least enough to be significant. Are we prepared to do that that long? At what cost? Yes, I understand some, not all, the ramifications of us leaving. But I can't stop thinking of these young soldiers that put everything on the line over there. At this point, it doesn't seem I will see an end to it in my lifetime. This saddens me.
My thoughts are a jumble right now. I am frustrated that we are still there, fighting a seemingly endless war, with little results. The rest of America seems to have forgotten we are still at war there and American lives are in jeopardy every day. The press has moved on to other things that they think are more important, like destroying a president or undermining our society.
I am currently reading T.R. Feherenbach's, This Kind of War. It is the classic history of the Korean War.
I see so many parallels in that book to today's press and the liberals that want to gut our military. That approach got a lot of our young men slaughtered in that war. The attitudes bled over into the military. Lack of preparation, lack of discipline all added up. Yes, we were tired of war as a country, this just 5 years after WW 2. I see some of the same happening recently, especially under the previous administration. Hopefully the current can correct some of that. I would suggest that every military man be required to read this book.
1 comment:
Thoughts and prayers for him and those he leads.
Post a Comment