I received this poem by e-mail and thought it deserved a post here, because they DO matter very greatly, to me.

A poem by:

 

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

 

 

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,

I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.
So that your family can sleep without fright.
It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers"

My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..

Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."


Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

     In the past few months it has occurred to me that many of the leaders of the Free World, not the Bushes, or Blairs, or Sakarovs, or Merkels, but the modern Thomas Paines or Mastro Ceccos or William Wilberforces.... are women.

     When I am looking for nobility these days I often find it in the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform (and they do sacrifice). But lately I have noticed several instances when it is civillian women who stand out for their bravery.  In October of last year an evil man went on a rampage in a Pennsylvania Amish school. Two young women, Mirian and Barbie Fisher, stood up to a piece of human garbage with more courage than I think I would have had. "Shoot me first" said the girls. The nearly undead thing that attacked them, wallowing in his self-pity, committed the vile act that they knew would occur, but Barbie lived, and so did others. When looking into the Face of Death these girls, these children, had only one reply "bring it on". "Ye thou I walk through the Valley of Death, I will fear no Evil" They knew that there was a difference between good and evil, and they choose to stand, and in Miriam's case die, for Love.  I stand in awe of these heroines.

     Another woman, with beginnings in tribal Africa as mean as can be imagined, is fearlessly taking on the evil that Islam is for so many women. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a voice that is practically alone in the fight against the religion of female submission. Personally abused by the horrid cult, she fearlessly continues to be almost the sole voice for these enslaved millions. Under constant guard against the Islamofacsists she tells one interview that there are millions of oppressed women who do not have the luxury of bodyguards.

When I see the video of Wafa Sultan standing up to the Imam, telling him that she is the one who decides if she will be a believer or not, I fear for her life. These hollow excuses for men, who think their masculinity comes from how poorly they treat women, will kill her if they get the chance, but she remains unafraid and unwilling to be silenced.

I am making certain that my son knows about these women, and my daughter when she is old enough to understand. They will know about their deeds, and their courage. Having two children of my own, I can only wonder, from where does such courage come? Even though I often become depressed at the dearth of Nobility in our society, it does exist, and these women are a shining example.
    


    

I never cease to be amazed when people say to me that mohamedeans do not wish to be free, like you and I are. These people make all kinds of semi-arguments that never add up to the sum they envision. Hundreds or even thousands of homicide bombers count more than millions of purple ink, stained fingered, voters.

Those convinced that the slaves of the "Religion of Peace" wish to remain so, have several arguments which they never even attempt to back up with empirical evidence. The first argument is that these people can not practice "democracy" because they have not done so before now. (We will use the term, self-determination, instead of "democracy" since the Founders rightly feared and opposed a "tyranny of the majority") The second argument is that they lack civil institutions, and that is what makes self-determination possible. The third most common argument I hear is that "they do not wish to be free".

I also hear how if they wish to be free they will have to fight for it, like we did. I always think this is really strange, I have never fought for my freedom, nor have most of the people that I know, but we all enjoy it and hope that it continues. Of the many people I know who have been in the military few have seen actual combat.

When you refute one of these arguments with a historical example, say, mention how the Japanese went from totalitarian government to a quite free one in the space of a generation they switch to one of the other "arguments". Taiwan and Korea have legislatures who occasionally fist fight but do not kill their political opponents.

That people who are not free wish to be free, is, to borrow a phrase from Jefferson, Self-evident. What is also evident is that it is an evil minority that pursues the enslavement of their fellows, under the guise of tribalism or religion. Take the Russians as an example. Do the majority of the Russian people really wish to return to the days of the "USSR"? I can not find a place inside myself that says that this is true. Do evil men, and women, wish to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of others? This too, is self-evident.

Well, the "we can't pay decent wages to have our houses cleaned and our lawns mowed" crowd is at it again. The WSJ editorial board has an article about how "work" is a conservative value that trumps all others. The "market", they claim, has created a demand for millions of non-assimilating "immigrants" and who are Conservatives to place the Rule of Law above the "work ethic". The article is so full of mis-representations and bizarre conclusions it is difficult to know where to start.

The very first thing that Mr. Henninger does is to confuse the entire issue by combining legal and illegal immigrants. He then goes on to make an unsupported claim that the places where immigrants go is where there is economic opportunity.

"What that list of states with high rates of in-migration tells me is that immigrants, legal or illegal, go where there's work. They constitute what in one of the few felicitous phrases in economics is called "labor-force participation."

He doesn't say why or how it "tells" him, so he throws in what I suppose he thinks is an intellectual sounding phrase, "labor-force participation".

Is there any chance, any remote possibility, that these people might go where there is the least enforcement of immigration law, or because they receive the highest amounts of Welfare? Of course there isn't, and his source for this information? the "Pew Hispanic Center"?! Pew is the organization that faked a public outcry about "Campaign Finance Reform" and then admitted they were lying later. But they are really, really telling the truth this time?!

But this part, is so disconnected from reality as to be beyond belief.

"No wonder it's hard to pass a bill. It's hard because Congress is trying to elevate one American value, respect for the law, by demoting an American value that up to now has been an unambiguous, uncontested ideal--respect for work, for labor."

Why one or the other? Why would "work" trump the "rule of Law"? The "Rule of Law" respects and rewards and protects those who work. Mr. Henninger has it exactly backwards. Those who support amnesty for illegal aliens claim that the work ethic trumps the Rule of Law. No, they are equal, the practice of one does not negate the need to adhere to the other. It is true that both are "unambiguous, uncontested ideals" but it is he who claims that one should be held above the other.

Ultimately the biggest lie of the "pro-amnesty" crowd, Mr. Henninger included, is the idea that these people are immigrants. The are not. Immigrants are, by definition, attempting to become part of the culture to which they immigrate. Invaders, on the other hand, wish to bring their own language and culture to the place where they are invading, rejecting the culture of the people to whose land they have moved. How can one view the existence of organizations like "La Raza" or the giant number of non-English speaking people who wave Mexican flags and boo the National Anthem as "immigrants"?

Looking for Nobility does not find any at the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

Jefferson wrote that the "tree of liberty must regularly be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants."  Is there any better example of this than the current war in Iraq? While the anti-American Left will always claim that there are great profits to made by Haliburton, "Big-Oil" and the like, even the most deranged from the fever swamps rarely claim that the average soldier fights for profit. Of course there are even some slimy exceptions to this rule.

Our enemies in Iraq and around the world are almost always also know to be the embodiment of evil whether they are indiscriminately murdering people or simply destroying ancient works of art.

When our soldiers engage the enemy they are truly living up to Jefferson's challenge. When our forces sent Uday and Qusay to the death that they so richly deserved they were watering the tree of Liberty. Sgt. Paul Smith , when he defended his fellows at Baghdad International Airport to his very death, was following Jefferson's words.

I often despair that "Rome is burning" when I watch the news and hear about how there is no Just course in Iraq. When "luminaries" such as James (f**k the Jews) Baker III and his Iraq Study Group inform us that there is nothing to "win", and that we should actually negotiate with their business partners the Iranians and Jordanians, I wonder if our Nation can be saved.

But then I read about Casey Sheehan, an ordinary man until a fateful day when he is reported to have said, "I go where my chief goes". Or about Sgt Rafael Peralta, pulling a grenade into his bullet ridden body, saving the lives of his fellows. Or about Chief Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, who after failing Seal training the first try, came back, endured "hell week" again and went on to also leap upon a live grenade. Then I know, that through their Blood, the Tree of Liberty endures.

This is where I find true Nobility in our world.

I just absorbed the almost 8 minute rant of Michael Moore wannabe Keith Olbermann and I have a few questions for the "esteemed journalist".  I do not recommend that children view such idiocy but you can see this moron here.  I watched the whole thing, and even paid attention, when I wasn't laughing. I wonder if KSM could stand this? Two minutes of being "waterboarded" seems small by comparison.

I have to ask Mr Olbermann, when did he get elected "Speaker for the people of the United States"? He talks about a mandate and "the people" demanding surrender. The house is divided less than 60/40. This is a mandate for surrender, ahem, withdrawal? Somehow I would guess that he does not consider President Bush's 50%+ election in 2004 a mandate.

The worst part about this tirade is the comparison to Neville Chaimberlain. He actually compares, not the Dems positions regarding Iraq, but their capitulation as far as a "timeline" for withdrawal! He attacks the Democrats because they are surrender monkeys to the President, instead of fighting until the very end, for us all to surrender in Iraq. Presumably this comparison is not without also comparing Bush to Hitler. How do you get paid to be so stupid?

In the Republican debate the three front runners: Rudy, McCain and Romney all said that they opposed the torture of a prisoner who was believed to have evidence of an impending act of violence. Or they him-hawwed. They claimed they would do "what ever was necessary" without using the "t" word specifically.  McCain actually said that "enhanced interrogation techniques" were torture and that he opposed it. Waterboarding was invented in the Inquisition, he claimed. So we are evil inquisitors if we torture terrorists who we know have knowledge of an impending attack?

We are not talking about rounding up every Moslem and in the country and randomly torturing them! We are not even talking about torturing every Islamist that is captured by our armed forces or police. We are talking about torturing a person who has likely knowledge of an impending attack! The pain of one individual trumps the lives of hundreds or thousands. McCain even says that we shouldn't torture ANYONE or we are then like our enemies. He could not be more wrong. He was no threat to the Vietnamese people when he and his fellows were tortured. They were tortured for the sake of cruelty and spite, not in an attempt to save innocent lives. The Senator's comparison is a slur to our intelligence people who are attempting to protect us. They do not use torture because they are sadists, but because they have sworn to protect the American people.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding are NOT  torture, and McCain knows it. CIA officers are subjected to waterboarding to help them learn out about counter-interrogation. Do we torture our own people? No.

How about a little lesson for the esteemed Senator. Pulling out teeth or fingernails? Torture. Listening to loud Christina Aguillera music? while painful I am sure, not torture. Being beaten or having bones broken in various ways? Torture. Not knowing which direction to pray? Not torture. See how easy this is? Having an "infidel" guard touch the object that you draw your evil ideology from? Not torture. Watching your loved ones jump to their deaths from a burning building that was intentionally targeted? Torture. Being denied the opportunity to practice the religion in whose name you have murdered? Not torture. McCain's "logic"? Torture.

Let me say that I would not reserve this to members of the "religion of peace", although I am sure everyone knows that is who we are discussing, but not because they commit terrorist acts or anything. If Neo-Nazis, if Southern Babtists, if I personally am believed to likely have knowledge of impending acts of mass murder I say torture away. How dare anyone sacrifice hundreds or thousands of lives to tout their "moral superiority".

In 1992 the United States deployed forces to protect food shipments to the starving people of Somalia. In October of the following year the US initiated "Operation Gothic Serpent" in an attempt to capture the Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. In the course of the operation two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down by Somali's with rocket propelled grenades. The Book and movie "Blackhawk Down" describe the events that took place on October the 3rd and 4th.

During the battle, one of the downed helicopter's crews was trapped and wounded inside their crashed chopper. Hundreds of armed Somalis closed in on the crash site. Circling nearby was a sole "Littlebird" helicopter with two Delta Snipers, SFC Randy Shughart and MSG Gary Gordon. After twice being denied, permission was granted for the two snipers to be placed on the ground and move to the site to protect the crew. Of the crew and the two snipers only the helicopter's pilot, Michael Durant, survived. Gordon and Shughart  were posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

What motivated these two heroes? How and why did they face almost certain death? I can not imagine their courage or what must have gone through their minds. I can only guess. I think that these men could not do nothing. Even though they knew that they would most likely die, they also knew that they did not wish to live when they could have done something. They could not sit and watch as their fellow men were killed. They knew that while they breathed they COULD NOT GIVE UP THE FIGHT. And they did not. They died on their feet, rather than live on their knees. They did not ask for "redeployment". They knew there was likely no "exit strategy".  Honor dictated that they could not surrender, even if  "mistakes had been made".

When I mourn the loss of these men I must remind myself of the words attributed to George S. Patton "It is foolish and wrong to mourn that these men died. Rather we should thank God that men like these lived".

In this age of the "me" generation it is difficult to find Heroes to help you teach your children about sacrifice and Honor. People are more likely to fight over their "rights" than accept their duties or responsibilities. The example of Gordon and Shughart is one of the highest Nobility and their names and story should be known by every American. 

Thank you for your example, Randall and Gary.

If you can share their story with someone who has not heard it, please do so. These men earned it.

I just received, for the second time, the stupidest e-mail about how we can affect gas prices. The e-mail says that a "retired coca-cola" executive came up with the idea. Supposedly he has a buddy who works for....Halliburton?! You will  note how they claim this "idea" came from two of the big businesses that few Americans understand anything about, apparently.

This "idea" has absolutely no basis in reality, none. They even waste time stating the stupidity of not buying gas on a certain day. It claims that reducing the market share of the biggest oil producers will affect prices. They pick a price out of the air that they claim can be achieved. They even claim that they are a "mathematician".

Doesn't supply and demand have ANYTHING to do with oil prices? Considering the fact that this e-mail has made the rounds more than once the author is pretty certain, and with good reason, that the people  who forward it are also much less than "mathematicians".

Do Exxon and Mobile simply make up prices? Do the e-mails authors think that the difference in cost will be made up by removing the companies profits on "surplus labor"? What about the regulation of the distillation of petroleum? What about restrictions on exploration? Taxes make up around .50 per gallon of gas and ethanol subsidies another .50 a gallon.

What about the FACT that adjusted for inflation gas prices are lower at $3.00 today than they were at $1.50 10 years ago?

No one cares or has a clue. They FEEL that the "rich" take to much, and they want some of it. For no effort, of course.

As my first post it seems appropriate to write something about the War in Iraq. Something about the battle of good and evil that we, the entire World, now face.

When I hear that the "war is lost" or that "mistakes have been made" I want to scream, "the world is not a perfect place! The Noble among us have to fight to make it better!" How else can the Noble be Noble?

 What happened to Kennedy's words "we do not do these things because they are easy, we do them because they are hard"? How did the "Shinning City on the Hill" become the land of "withdraw"  and "exit strategies"?

In the the movie "The Return of the King" , before the final decisive battle, the soldiers ask the King how they will have the strength to break the lines of Mordor. The King responds "We cannot. But we will meet them in battle none the less" WE WILL MEET THEM IN BATTLE NONE THE LESS!

This blog will always be dedicated to the brave men and women of our Armed Forces. Our people and politicians and the media betray them, and talk nothing of their success, and they meet EVIL in battle, not because they will win or lose, but because honor and nobility dictate that they must.