"Some of the soldiers streaming into Iraq are raw and new to battle. Others are serving their second, third and fourth combat tours, having fought across Afghanistan, or down in Africa, or in some corner in a secret fight, on a special team of some sort, killing men in jungle camps in South America, in wars few people have heard about. Around the world, dangerous American soldiers will close in on men tonight and kill them in small battles that will never be spoken of. Al Qaeda turned it on, but is powerless to turn it off..."
Some of us were lucky enough to make it out of the meat grinder in one piece, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I was lucky in that I learned about war long before ever stepping foot in the Middle East, and back then old salts were needed most desperately. Young men look to senior NCO's like puppy's to a new master. Some day in the not too distant future, these young men will be the old timers stalking into a tent and shouting for the group to drop their cocks and pick up their socks and fall in for a day of killing. There will always be war, we've too many enemy's, too much unfinished business, too many zealots wanting to show their deity or dictator how worthy they are.
I shook my head in disbelief when the Soviet Union fell and the clueless among us proclaimed that war as we knew it was at long last over. Trouble is, we're the only ones left with enough backbone to man the wall.
But we're Americans. We're supposed to be surrounded.
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