In today's
NY Times, David Douglas Duncan writes eloquently on the national sacrifice that was needed to guarantee victory when the United States went to war in a previous age. His conclusion: it is an age that has passed us by.
IT was dawn, early December 1950: 40 below zero with gale-force snow-laced wind slicing down across the Yalu River from Manchuria while Chinese legions blasted away on their attack bugles just up ahead and probably with good reason believed they would annihilate every marine fighting his way through other equally determined Chinese trying to interdict the mountain road leading down to the waiting United Nations rescue flotilla - and escape.
I asked a bundle of frozen freckles with empty eyes a simple question that then seemed almost rational, even fraternal. What did he want for Christmas? Words became ice cubes locked behind rigid lips - thoughts, too. Finally ... "Give me tomorrow."
Read on, it gets better
During our widely separated but shared wartime years, we were led by presidents of Olympian eloquence (Roosevelt during World War II) and almost brutal bluntness (Truman during the Korean War), yet, on their own terms, they spoke with clarity, conviction and honesty about our national threats, challenges, sacrifices. And the price of peace was high.
Mr. Duncan's clearly implied point is that we have had no clarification of what, we, as the American people can do to help in this effort. What is the price of peace? Keep spending our money, as our president has told us? Limit driving automobiles on 1 day of the week? Send care packages? What do we need to do in order to end this joy ride that our President has taken us on?
Mr. Duncan goes on:
Today, in Iraq, where nearly every dawn is lacerated by mounting carnage - local and foreign - American troops are hemorrhaging among the wounded and the dead, pawns in an unspeakable farce, for the United States of America is not at war.
Only 135,000 men and women in American uniform are fighting - volunteers, members of the National Guard, reservists. There is no draft. No threat of a uniform hangs over the citizens of a nation of nearly 300 million who, in polls, support the invasion of a remote country upon whom our government would pin guilt of 9/11 ... and then attack. An invasion that was ordered by an expertly trained but combat-innocent fighter pilot and a draft-deferred character with "other priorities" during the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, perhaps one crucial question was omitted from those polls: "Is any member of your family uniformed and in Baghdad?"
Remembering again World War II and Korea ... Give me yesterday - today!
My buddies are over there fighting and dying. We talk about supporting the troops. How are we? Care packages? My ass.
Laser missiles and shock and awe are not going to keep the American people living a convienent lifestyle. We need to do something now. We need leadership now--not from one party or another. Just strong, bold, honest leadership. We'll follow if we know the course.
Here is what we need to do immediately:
On the Executive level
1a. Bush eats crow and gets real honest, then tell us how we can help. "Not quitting" or "send a care package" ain't gonna cut it. Real talk, real expectations, the sooner the better.
1b. Fire Rumsfeld-incompetence
- Fire Rove-idiocy, dishonesty
- Make contracts available to Germany, Russia, France, Canada, and China (they will protect their own business interests with force if necessary)
- Ask Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morroco, and Pakistan for contingents of special forces to monitor the borders and buy time so that we can clean up the urban areas and get out. We all have been victims of terror and we need their help. The sooner the better.
On a citizen level-
- If you support the President and this war, sign up.
- If you encouraged this invasion and are no longer able to serve, then encourage your family to sign up--your kids, your cousins, and those that share your point of view.
- Drive your car less
- Register and vote
- Read the frigging newspaper
How else can we sacrifice? Spell it out to me.
How else can we as a nation sacrifice to help?