Each American soldier deserves our efforts to bring them home as soon as possible.
I will begin by telling you that I supported the Strimling Resolution that would have encouraged this administration to give the weapons inspectors in Iraq more time to locate weapons of mass destruction. Having been a platoon sergeant in Vietnam in 1968, I know that once we had committed our troops, they would accomplish any task asked of them at any price. On the floor of the Maine House, I asked my colleagues to use all the words necessary for once the bullets started flying, the crimson in our flag would be redder, dyed with the blood shed by these patriots. My father landed in North Africa in Operation Torch. My older brother became a decorated paratrooper with the 173rd Airborne and 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, and my younger brother with the 11th Armored Cavalry, Vietnam. I believe this history gives me the qualifications to know what a soldier thinks and feels.
By not joining in a U.N. incursion, we are now mired in a country where tribal law and survival of the strongest is the norm. Our troops who dispatched the regime in short order are now being asked to patrol the streets and bring law and order to Iraq. There are about 150,000 troops in Iraq, a country with 23,000,000 people. An example of law enforcement of that magnitude would be New York City and Long Island. There are over 100,000 police officers in New York City and about 40,000 police on Long Island. This is the blue line, combined with EMT’s and Fire Protection that keep the peace and protect the citizens.
If you are a parent of a high school aged young person, like the parents of the 60s, you should be paying close attention to what will be asked of your 19-year-olds when he or she graduates. Civilians in Iraq like civilians in Vietnam will be collateral damage because our soldiers won’t be able to distinguish between friend and foe. By attrition, we will kill more of them than they kill of us and we might win over the people. These are arguments that didn’t work before.
I would suggest that we bring our troops home for a much needed rest by combining our efforts with the United Nations. If it’s about oil and Halliburton, then lets share the profits of oil sales to pay for the U.N. occupation. It is hard to ask our troops, who won the war, to pull security for the oil industry. Let Wankenhut or Pinkerton Security do this job as they are run by former FBI and CIA officials and are probably already involved.
Each American soldier deserves our full support, and his or her life deserves all of our efforts to see that they are not sacrificed because someone can’t admit to having made a misjudgment. These are our children.
When Jerry Palmer died in Vietnam, I couldn’t write to his mother to tell her what a wonderful soldier he was because I couldn’t explain to her why he died. The ground he died on was the same ground we covered week after week in a police action. It is easy for the talking heads on cable news to say we are going to do this or we are going to do that when they don’t have anything to lose.
Raymond Pineau is the state representative from District 76. He resides in Jay.
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