Three thousand American lives have been lost in Iraq over the past three years. I hear that it's time to bring our forces home and let Iraq fend for itself. Pronounce the effort a failure and live with the consequences. Perhaps you agree.
More than 3,000 men died on D-Day alone; in one day, just one day. It is no secret that the D-Day plan was not particularly well thought or carried out and that many may have died needlessly. Was it a failure? Was there uproar, a call for withdrawal, for returning the troops to the good 'ol USA?
Of course not, the failure would have been to display the cowardice we now contemplate. Had we done so, most Europeans would speak with a faint German accent. Anti-Semitism would be a part of nostalgia, given that millions more would have been starved, poisoned, burned and buried. We did not let them "fend for themselves," did we?
How about Shiloh, or The Wilderness, or Gettysburg, or Cold Harbor or ... the hellish blood-soaked sunken road at Fredericksburg. Losing 3,000 troops took hours, not years. Over 1 million were lost during the Civil War. A failure? Pure idiocy. Had President Lincoln succumbed to the outrage that followed the horrific losses and sued for peace, we would be two countries. That would have been a failure. As for the slaves, we did not let them "fend for themselves," did we? One shudders to think of the retribution they would have been subjected to, not to mention the extra generations of bondage.
Somehow, we have lost something of our identity. The battles noted above occurred when Americans collectively accepted the awful sacrifices that accompany the forging of a better destiny for the country and the world. I know that loved ones of those killed in Iraq suffer the same devastation as those in any war. What concerns me is the ease with which we are willing to accept that they died for nothing, that they are part of a failure.
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Since the baby boomers, including myself, have held the reins of power for some time now, I am forced to conclude that it is we who have allowed this to happen. I simply hope that subsequent generations discover a yearning for a return to our gallant and noble past, and turn their backs on the selfish whining that now dominates.
Stephen Bailey
Bemidji
