Supporting the troops and the mission

Brian Bresnahan:

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It doesn’t mean they all have to support the war, and I know there are some who don’t. It is their right to do so and I would never begrudge them their opinion.

But I do question two veterans in positions of responsibility, Chuck Hagel and John Murtha, who spew forth anti-war, sometimes anti-troop, positions. They should know as well as anyone that their statements portray the same attitudes that made the return from Vietnam a domestic hell for some of their fellow vets and forced America to lose that war.

After each major step forward by the Iraqi’s, election after election, and progressive step after step, Chuck Hagel has refused to acknowledge any success in Iraq. Instead, he follows a philosophy of the latest step being relatively unimportant, the next step as more critical, and then showers that step with doubt. Yet, when that step is made, there is no triumph acknowledged. Instead we hear the same: the step taken is irrelevant and that we are losing the war. His ongoing stand against any success in Iraq is reminiscent of the same anti-war domestic political posturing seen during Vietnam.

John Murtha’s attacks against the war and our attempts to defeat terrorists have been incessant. But, last week he spiraled downward, moving from attacking the war effort, to attacking our Marines in Iraq. He held his own personal media trial, immediately condemned, and then convicted the Marines being investigated for an alleged atrocity at Haditha. If the allegations turn out to be true, all involved should be punished accordingly. But to have immediately and publicly convicted the Marines the way he did, long before the investigation was even finished, let alone allowing the Marines a fair trial, was a disgusting display of his feverish pursuit of our defeat. His words and actions mirror those which were designed to and eventually created the internal discontent that forced our loss in Vietnam.

I think many veterans, as I do, look at those who have gone before and see them as a notch above us. As having endured more. As having sacrificed more. We hold them in higher esteem than we might ever hold ourselves.

But Hagel and Murtha are definitely off my list. Because of the Vietnam experience, they should know better than anyone not to do what they’re doing, yet they lead the charge to stir up enough anti-war sentiment to force our surrender. They lead the charge toward instilling courage and confidence in our enemies who know they only have to defeat the American will, not the American troops.

Murtha is a disgrace. He is a man who wants to lose the war in Iraq and appears willing to do and say anything to accomplish that objective. How bad is he? Zawahiri and Osama are picking up his talking points. Hagel is more a mystery, but I find myself not trusting him. Whatever his experience in Vietnam, he has not learned much since then about warfare or the operational arts.