Sunday, March 28, 2010

U.S. Marine Sgt. Responds to Threats of Violence

I saw this first at MadMikesAmerica:

An arti­cle I wish I would never have to write — To those call­ing for a civil war, this Marine wants you to stop, and think…



By Sgt. C USMC


It’s been said that the mil­i­tary is always prepar­ing for war. That is true. We pre­pare for com­bat every day. We ran 5 miles today to the rifle range and shot nearly 200 rounds a piece at tar­gets and then ran back. How­ever, we also pray for peace. I would love one day to be com­pletely unnec­es­sary. But alas, I am a real­ist, and I know that day will never come.


The head­lines of the last week have reminded me more of glimps­ing at the S2 Daily Brief­ing Sheets while in the­ater or the Al-Jazeera than the NY Times or the Wash­ing­ton Post. Think about that for a moment, let it sink in.


Before I get into the main premise of this arti­cle — I need to make two state­ments here.


First and fore­most , when it comes to the back and forth of who did what to whom and why — I don’t give a @!$%#. It doesn’t change the action. In life we’re judged by our actions, noth­ing more, noth­ing less. One of the great­est things of the mil­i­tary is when it comes to an enemy, the pol­i­tics behind the sit­u­a­tion — don’t mat­ter in accom­plish­ing that mis­sion. For the mil­i­tary , life is sim­ple in that regard.


Sec­ondly, Regard­less of your polit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy, you’ve earned the right as US Cit­i­zens to say your piece — no mat­ter how wrong it may be. That is your right, and I will give my life to pro­tect it.


But this gov­ern­ment of ours is a democ­racy. We vote for our rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and they vote in our inter­ests. Some­times, the votes don’t go our way. That’s life, bet­ter luck next time. Exhaust your leg­isla­tive options, and then focus on gain­ing the required votes and/or seats to achieve your desired leg­isla­tive vote next elec­tion time. That’s the way things work.


But the SECOND you start com­mit­ting acts of vio­lence and van­dal­ism, then you’ve usurped that Con­sti­tu­tion. You in a way have assaulted it. And then you and I (I being every ser­vice­mem­ber who has sworn to defend said Con­sti­tu­tion) will have a MAJOR PROBLEM.


For those of you call­ing for a civil war, I implore you to stop and think about what you’re say­ing. Look around your neigh­bor­hood and your city. Now imag­ine using that ter­rain to sur­vive. Imag­ine dodg­ing semi-automatic rifle fire as you scram­ble from cover to cover, drag­ging your wounded child behind you. Imag­ine the deaf­en­ing report of a mor­tar as it strikes the ground a 150 feet in front of you, the over­pres­sure enough to shat­ter your teeth and per­fo­rate an ear drum. Try and envi­sion a Stryker rolling through neighbor’s front lawn or a F/A-18 mak­ing lazy loops over your head in Close Air Sup­port for the troops in the distance.


Now with that vision in mind, stop by your local Marine Corps base, being they will be the first mil­i­tary units you’d face in an all out ‘civil war’ . Look at them for a moment, exam­ine their ‘work envi­ron­ment’ . They’re run­ning the track, they’re climb­ing ropes, they’re grap­pelling with each other in mock hand-to-hand com­bat, and shoot­ing tar­gets while mov­ing in raid lines on a daily basis. Nearly every­one on that base, down to our ‘sec­re­taries’ has a com­bat award of one type or another, they’ve faced some of the most stress­ful sit­u­a­tions on Earth where suc­cumb­ing to the stress can get you killed, and they flourished.


Now ask your­selves and be hon­est — when is the last time you’ve run any­thing other than late to work, climbed any­thing other than a flight of stairs, grap­pelled with any­thing other than a paper jam, and shot off any­thing other than your mouth? When’s the last time you were in any sit­u­a­tion more stress­ful than a traf­fic jam?


Now I’m not blam­ing you for your career choice, not in the least. I can’t think of a sin­gle job that’s not use­ful in some way or another. I just want you to sim­ply com­pare and con­trast your work envi­ron­ment with ours and ask your­selves “Who is bet­ter suited to win this bat­tle ?” We both know the answer here, and if you doubt that answer, look at the results from Fal­lu­jah in 2004. Over 1200 of them ‘lost’ and we ‘lost only 28. That’s a ‘win-ratio’ of almost 60–1, and they’ve been fight­ing their whole lives.


Put this in another sce­nario. You and your office­mates think your local pro foot­ball team sucks , so you put together your own team of the best your com­pany has and chal­lenge them to a game. Even if your team might be good, they’re pro­fes­sion­als. This is their job. Your job is to answer phones and type on a key­board. In short, they’ve for­got­ten more than you will ever know about foot­ball. The result, will be a slaugh­ter for you, and a prac­tice for them. But at least you’ll get a chance to sit at home, ice your wounds and say ‘whew I never should’ve done that!’


Not so with com­bat. The results of com­bat are far…FAR..more per­ma­nent. There are no sec­ond chances, no time for regrets, and no do-overs. This is not Call of Duty.


Now I ‘d like to dis­perse a myth here — many of you think that US mil­i­tary would not fight civil­ians. I can’t speak for all, but in my case — the moment you declare civil war, you’re no longer civil­ians. The moment you attack the con­sti­tu­tion, you’re now ene­mies of that con­sti­tu­tion. And I swore to defend and sup­port and if nec­es­sary give my life for that Con­sti­tu­tion and uti­lize every tool, tech­nique, and weapon at my dis­posal to do so. And trust me, I’m not alone.


I hope some of you heed my words and cool the rhetoric and focus on achiev­ing your goals diplo­mat­i­cally instead of phys­i­cally. It would never want to receive a frag order to Mary­land, or North Dakota, or Texas, but it is an order I will fol­low no mat­ter how much it pains me to do so.

3 comments:

  1. Good article, but who is calling for a civil war?

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  2. Get a newspaper, Waverly, get a newspaper. Buy a freaking TV. Google something about Tea Party signs. Come back when you have a clue what is going on. I get exhausted trying to explain it all to you on every single thread.

    He's talking about the fools at the capitol waving signs that read slogans like "We're not Armed...this time" and such. The people with the violently themed Tea Party signs at all the protests. The violent signs are in there with the racist and other ignorant signs. The people you keep defending on other threads are holding them.

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  3. Thanks for posting this.. I reposted and linked back to you. This is a wonderful article and he has posted more which I included in my post.

    Again, SG, thanks so much for this.

    ReplyDelete