Duty, Honor, and Country—Still Alive and Well
May/June 2003 Editorial
by Elwood McQuaid
A quiet debate reportedly has arisen in the Bush administration over
whether our victorious men and women in uniform should be awarded
ticker tape, flag-waving parades down New York City’s 5th Avenue and
other streets in the good old U.S.A.
It seems there is some trepidation about whether such fanfare would
offend Muslims and Europeans and evince a kind of pride deemed
unbecoming in a world given to apology, appeasement, and shamefaced
breast-beating over who we are and what we have accomplished.
If we’ve learned anything from the fiasco following the Vietnam War
it is that a reputable nation does not tolerate radical minorities
tagging its heroes with badges of cowardice and mantles of ridicule and
disgrace because they honorably answered the call to serve their nation
in time of war.
These young men did not slink away to Canada and hide out while more
than fifty thousand of their peers gave their lives for their country.
Neither did they join the unwashed rabble that desecrated the streets
of America and trafficked with the Communist killers who debased a
country and savagely ravished a people.
In those days, it was my duty to help bury some of the young men who
had made the ultimate sacrifice. Most were unsophisticated, simple kids
who believed it was right to stand up for people who could not stand up
for themselves.
Although never credited as such, these were genuine
American heroes—young people a cut above most of the rest of us; true
soldiers who still believed in the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s
immortal words, Duty, Honor, Country.
Many of us had begun to believe that the concept was dead and buried
with him and the casualties of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. But
such was not the case. Iraq has shown us and, we hope, the world that
when it comes to America and our coalition allies, duty, honor, country are alive and well.
So why shouldn’t they march in a parade? And why shouldn’t we, as
God-fearing and profoundly grateful people, line the streets, cheer
them on, wave our flags proudly, and proclaim victory?
What do we have to celebrate? Perhaps a competent and committed
leadership equal to any since the days of the Founding Fathers. Perhaps
the greatest single military campaign in the history of the modern
world. Perhaps the greatest show of technological genius ever displayed
on the planet. Perhaps one of the most successfully planned war
strategies exhibited in human history. Or perhaps the most uncommon
courage, devotion, and willingness of our young men and women soldiers
to risk it all to free people from oppression.
So to whom do we have to apologize?
Certainly Not to the Muslims
Our leaders have persisted in telling us that this war was not about
religion—and that statement is true from our side of the line. But such
was not the case for Islamists who strapped on the paraphernalia of a
suicidal obsession in the name and for the honor of Allah. For them, it
was a clash of religions.
People in the West made sport of the Iraqi minister of information
who stood daily at the podium denying that coalition troops were
anywhere near Baghdad and that those who were there were awash in their
own blood. Although we may scoff, most Westerners fail to comprehend
that this type of Alice in Wonderland fantasy is an integral part of
the rhetoric that dupes the Arab street into delusions of superiority.
Two well-documented events are historical proof. During the 1967 Six
Day War, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser sent urgent dispatches to King
Hussein of Jordan expounding on his forces’ sweeping victories over
Israel. In truth, however, they were suffering a devastating defeat at
the hands of the Israel Defense Forces. Nasser’s lies convinced Hussein
to get in on the action in order to share the spoils of victory.
Hussein’s "reward" was the loss of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.
In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Egypt and Syria suffered one of the
most humiliating defeats in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Yet, despite the cold facts of reality, they persisted in celebrating
the Arab forces’ early advances as a victory. It was a delusion that
cost Egyptian President Anwar Sadat his life. As he sat on a reviewing
stand celebrating Egypt’s "triumphs," Islamic fanatics murdered him.
Thus the lesson inherent for the deluded Osama and Saddam wannabes
in the Islamic world: "Don’t try it!" Clean up your act, or risk
suffering the same consequences. Your mullahs and information ministers
may tell you the sky is not falling. But look out your windows; a
Predator drone may be soaring overhead.
Certainly Not to the Antiwar Warlords
We have long since come to expect that publicity-seeking, show
business know-nothings will rouse the rabble for any cause that
produces a few fleeting moments of face time on the small screen.
The sad fact is that the very people who risked their lives for them
give them the right to denigrate this country and the freedoms our
Constitution guarantees. Their religionist, pacifist next of kin,
unfortunately, profess to represent the gun-shy Christians of America
and the Western world. Without a doubt, the "mainstream" Protestant
clergy have long since certified their credentials as card-carrying
dupes of the radical left. Their strident rants, rising from the
streets alongside the leftover Hippies of the ’60s antiwar movement,
have confirmed their irrelevance in the marketplace of the real world.
Their churches are virtually empty; their pronouncements, hollow;
and their posturing as world leaders of Western Protestant religion
have disappeared behind the barricades of opposition to decency and
order in a disorderly world. A recent article by Hollywood producer
Dave Berg titled "Anti-war Protestants" in The Washington Times lays the facts on the line:
One mainstream bishop, wrote Berg, "recently whined, ‘I’d like to go
somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the
United States.’" The bishop and his fellow travelers apparently would
have felt much more comfortable in Baghdad when, earlier this year,
Berg continued, "the National Council of Churches . . . went to Baghdad
and gave aid and comfort to the enemy. They met and even prayed with
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. . . . Unlike their leaders,
most Protestants sitting in the pews are, indeed, mainstream. . . . But
now, parishioners are plugged in to what their leadership is doing
through various Web sites."
That’s a bit of good news. What liberal Protestant leaders have
tried to hide from those who dutifully pay their salaries has been
unveiled through the Web and the Bible-believing Christian media, in
particular.
Revolutionaries in Disguise
If you take the time to listen to the voices of the jaded left, this
is what you will hear: the shout of Communist dogma, which does not
rest beside Lenin in his Moscow crypt. It is back on the street,
bellowing the slogans of an era that has outlived its time: "Power to
the People"; "Occupation, Not Liberation"; "Power to Hussein, Death to
Bush"; "Free Palestine From Israeli Imperialism"; etc. The mantra goes
on ad nauseam.
The unvarnished truth is that these denizens of defeatism,
intolerance, and appeasement are, in fact, articulating a declaration
of war. They are not peaceniks. They are revolutionaries whose one
great hope is to overthrow the government and establish a Bohemian
Utopia. The question is, If they tear down the establishment, what do
they plan to erect in its place? They have nothing to offer—nothing
they would dare articulate on the streets of America at this hour,
anyway.
Roll Out the Red, White, and Blue Carpet
Let the confetti fall and the streets of America overflow with
millions of flag-waving patriots. Let’s have a sea of young men and
women in olive drab and desert gear, heroes all, march by reviewing
stands to receive the gratitude and salutes of our leaders and all
loyal Americans. We have every reason to honor the victory and the
victors and, yes, to unfurl the flag.
And although the General has been off the scene for many years, his wo