[...] Michael Yon: I took that photo on May 2nd of 2005 up in Mosul. A suicide car bomber had lined up to do an attack on some of our soldiers, and they were in Stryker fighting vehicles. And Farah, and about twenty other kids, had run out to…when they would hear the Strykers, they would run out and waive, and the soldiers throw them candy and that sort of thing. And Farah’s mother later said that she ran out barefooted, you know, to waive and get candy or whatever, the suicide car bomber, who could have waited two or three blocks to attack our guys, or at least do it away from the kids, just ran right, drove right through the kids and exploded, detonated right there, killed one boy outright, burned him up. And then, you know, Farah…a woman, I don’t know if it was her mother, but a woman ran out with Farah, and came to the first American soldier she could fine. Walt Gaya, this is a pattern I’ve seen over and over, when Iraqis get hurt, they immediately go to American soldiers. And Walt was pushing out to a sniper position, but…and that’s really where he needed to go. But when he saw Farah injured, he grabbed her and took her back to the medics. The medics started working on her, and then Mark Bieger, he’s the major who’s in the photo that’s on the cover of the book, he picked up Farah, wrapped her in that blanket, and started to rush off to the hospital, grabbed up a few of the family members, and rushed to the hospital with Farah. But she, unfortunately, Farah died, so that’s how that photo was taken. [...]

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On my drive home, I was listening to Ollie North being interviewed by Dennis Miller, and North mentioned questioning an Iraqi soldier what took him so long to join the Iraqi Army. The man told him he wanted to be sure he was choosing the winning side. Ollie’s point in relaying the story, is that these are indeed real people who have to live there and suffer the consequences of decisions and actions taken; and when allies and enemies in Iraq listen to our Congressional leaders back here in the States (and they are following U.S. news and politics closely), and some presidential candidates speak about how on day one, they are going to change the course and withdraw our commitments from Iraq, that doesn’t instill confidence in our allies that they chose the winning side to be on, and encourages the enemy to persist with the carbombs and the terror and the chaos; to make the sensationalist headlines to influence public opinion and the will of Congress back here in the States.

Memo to Obama:

How We Won The War
by Vo Nguyen Giap

Excerpt from: http://www.war-stories.com/Hayden.htm
By Gene Kuentzler: The question raised by Gary Beaver, “Do you have any data on actual U.S. troops, by name who were killed as a direct result of Fonda’s actions?” can be answered by reading the book written by General Giap, Commander of NVA forces. Giap clearly indicated that NVA troops were without sufficient supplies, and had been continually defeated time and again.

By 1968, NVA morale was at it’s lowest point ever. The plans for “Tet” ’68 was their last desperate attempt to achieve a success, in an effort to boost the NVA morale. When it was over, General Giap and the NVA viewed the Tet ’68 offensive as a failure, they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate a surrender.

At that time, there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, as the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard Walter Cronkite (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet ’68 offensive by the communist NVA. They were completely and totally amazed at hearing that the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, The NVA had not gained access to the Embassy–there were some VC who had been killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn’t gained access. Further reports indicated the riots and protesting on the streets of America.

According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, eventually the protesters in American would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield. Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of 1967, beginning of 1968.

Today, there are 58,000 names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial that was built with the donations made by the American public. Although Giap did not mention each and every protester’s name in his book, many of us will never forget the 58,000 names on the Wall. We will also never forget the names of those who helped in placing those additional 48,000 names there: Bill, Jane, Tom, Cronkite, and others.
Those of us who rotated prior to Walter Cronkite’s report on “Tet-68″ can clearly state, “We were still winning when I left!”

Gene Kuentzler, ’66-67
S-3 Operations

http://www.9thinfantrydivision.com/html/actualenemy.htm

I don’t care how the critics feel about whether or not going in and removing Saddam the way we did, when we did it, was the right or wrong decision to make (well, I do….but it’s a separate if related argument and issue); what I do care about, is that they understand that we are there now, and we need to act responsibly and make wise and honorable decisions to insure what’s best for America, Iraq, and the security of the world; not decisions just to insure a Bush defeat and failure.

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Fasternu,

That is the understatement of the day.

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Our best ambassadors are not employees of the State Department.

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