Any paramedic, fireman or emergency room doctor can attest that sometimes the difference between life and death can be measured in seconds. A moment’s hesitation, a heartbeat of delay, a mere breath of indecision can cost someone their life. Speed is of the essence a quick response is always crucial.
Every day in Iraq someone’s life hangs on even clings to seconds. While in Ramadi, my Marine son, John, saw many examples of this and seconds meant everything to a quick reaction force (QRF). Once while on foot patrol a young Marine was mortally wounded by a bullet along the edge of the road and a huge firefight ensued with Marines returning fire and taking incoming mortar and gunfire. Two men, a Marine and a medic, without hesitation or regard for their own lives, ran many yards through open fire to try and save the young private.
Another time, John saw in his rear view mirrors a ‘ten pack’, (a humvee designed to carry ten men) following him, hit by a remotely detonated IED. The ten pack, empty at the time except for the driver and a passenger flipped over twice, landing upside down trapping the men inside its burning wreckage. The Marines despite incoming fire did not hesitate and took defensive positions and pulled the two men, now helpless targets for snipers from the hummer seconds before it blew.
Though moved to action by something deeper than heroism, but by camaraderie and duty to their fellow warriors, a bond unique to combat, these men all knew seconds counted. They knew and they did not, would not hesitate.
Civilians and rescue personnel rallied together at the scenes of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon digging desperately through the rubble side by side, racing against time, because they knew lives depended upon it, that seconds mattered. Each day in this country, ordinary citizens find themselves in circumstances that require their quick reaction. Most are equal to the task and rush to action as they would want someone else to do for them. If you knew you had the ability to save a life wouldn’t you do it? Wouldn’t you rush to do it?
Imagine then, that in your hand, you hold the life of a young soldier or Marine. Sheltered in the palm of your hand lies the blood and sinew, dreams and hopes, heart and soul and yes, even the sanity of a young warrior who hopes and believes he is fighting for you. Imagine that your quick action means the difference between life and death for that warrior cradled in your hand.
We expect the quick reaction of paramedics and firemen rushing to the scene of an accident or fire because seconds count. Just since December 6, 2006 when the Iraq Study Group released its recommendations and as President Bush waits to ‘decide’ upon a new strategy, over 100 GIs have lost their lives.
As the 109th Congress argued CAFTA, obliterated the 2007 defense appropriations bill and even debated Terry Schiavo, hundreds of GIs died. In the seconds, minutes and days that the new Congress debates whether or not to withhold funding for the Iraq occupation more of our troops will die. More of our troops will die unless American citizens organize into a QRF and tell our representatives to withhold funding and bring home our troops.
Imagine that warrior clinging to life in your hand awaiting your quick and immediate action. Write your Congressmen and Senators and demand they withhold funding for the Iraq occupation and to bring home the troops now. Stand on a corner with a sign, march on Washington January 27 and tell every citizen to do the same. Fight for the troops. Fight for them as they hope and pray and believe they are fighting for you. We all have a chance to save a life and seconds count.
Actually, I agree with landsker, if our troops would revolt, much as they did in Vietnam, the occupation would end very quickly
Hi,
I responded to your post at the peace train.
You may find my view a little disturbing.
I suggest that the entire american military either desert or turn on their government.
The invasion was not to defend america, but to gain control over the oil and people of the middle east.
The war is lost, nearly a million Iraquis have died, and believe me, the ones that are left will never rest until every last american is killed or driven out.
Would you not defend america in the same fashion?
I still recommend that every soldier lay down his arms and just walk away, don`t give crap about “patriotism” and “serving my country”.
Remember, at the end of the Korean war, and the Vietnam war, the only thing that had importance was the fact that thousands of americans died, whilst the defense contractors got richer, and the powerful got more power.
Then as now, the troops were just treated like dirt, once injured or mentally unfit, they were discarded like stale garbage, and left to rot on the streets.
Peace.
We did not get your permission before 03/24/07, but having received it now, we repost “Seconds count” on Peacetrain on 03/29/07. Thanks for your permission, it’s a great article.
I would like to reprint your post “seconds count” on the peacetrain blog. We have reprinted a couple others from your blog awhile ago. I think this post really shows the urgency that we all should be about now.
I would like to post this 03/24/07 on our blog, if you give us permission.
the Peacetrain
Write Congressmen and Senators, you say. How ’bout like this :
“When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
So said Nixon to Frost.
Was he right?
If so, why did he have a pardon?
Indeed. Nixon could not have avoided noticing this, Could he? This shows just how compulsive he really was. It makes you wonder if he knew the differance between truth and fiction. It makes you wonder if he knew that there WAS a differnce, for, plainly, he didn’t suppose we could see it. That just might be the real answer, but I’m going to say it is an aside. I’m going to say the real reason Nixon had a pardon was, Ford gave him one. To hear Ford tell it, the reason was, to get Nixon off his desk. “America deserves a full time President” Ford couldn’t spare the attention, to prosecute Nixon. Or so he said. Had a lotta work to do, as those of us who were here then can’t seem to recall, hadda get out there and push the Win button, as everyone recalls, because they see Bush is still doing that, even now. And now that Ford is dead, we know what Ford thought of Bush.
What sort of man speaks his mind on condition no one hears before his death? Perhaps a man with something held over him? Perhaps a man who views bending reality (lying) as one of the perogatives of power. For example, the documents reveal that Ford tried to move the wound on Kennedys’ back, to better fit the single shooter story the Warren Commission hung on us. Perhaps, though, the problem is more serious. Consider what Ford forwent by the expiedience of issueing that pardon.
Briefly, had Nixon faced the Court, it would have had to have been stated explicitly the actual import of using the methods Nixon did. That being, that the methods were physical, as distinct from methods that are verbal. Our political system is specificly and emphaticly non-physical, we do not manhandle our policical opponants, we do not threaten them, we do not break into thier homes or offices to take or leave something, we do not slash thier tires or clip thier brake lines, We do not dognap thier pets and when that fails send back part of the dog and grab one of thier kids. And while it is true that Nixon did not use ALL of these methods, they are all illegal therefore to that extent equivalent (slippery slope), and he did use some of then, demonstrating his lack of rejection of the set. And this is why he left by the back door before we threw him out the front door. The differance between physical and verbal politics is one of the least subtle things that can be compared, and the choice between the two being the choice between the cream rising, and in the alternative, the scum rising.
Had we that disscussion then, there would be certian points that would not need making today. Chief among them, that We invaded Iraq.
I wish it were not neccessary at this point to say that, but it is. The fact has not yet been grasped. Not yet been appreciated for what it is. Not yet been admitted to be the genuine truth. Iraq did not invade us. We invaded Iraq.
The reasons have been examined each in thier turn, both the reasons we were handed at the time, and the reasons invented later. All were found deficient. Most, fraudulent. None, more than the attempt to explain what cannot be, that we are there, STILL. This is not the same thing as being there at all, as must be plain to all, and for which we cannot account, honorably, in the first place.
And now having gone through every reason and found none, we are promised more, of the same, explicitly because, the three thousand dead and 25,000 wounded we have sustained (while killing, how many?) Shall not have died in vain. We will fight for the lie that killed those already fallen, sacrificing the youth and ideasim of our land, not to mention the wealth and prestige, to make, through force, that lie, “the” truth, and make those men now lost into heros, by making the cause they are said now to have fought for, and died for, into a cause of some merit, in someones deranged view of history, sometime in the far, far distant future, while creating thousands more dead heros to get it done, and bankrupting the Country in so many ways we won’t be able to afford a second thought.
This is the job the President keeps insisting be finished before we leave Iraq.
Because, You see, you can’t be a hero, How ever fine and brave you personally might be, if the cause you support is dispicable. How many NAZIs are heros? So you see. And so, the President is offering us the sacrifice of our soldiers, each of those who die from now on, a literal human sacrifce, to make heros of dead men by forcing us to profess to beleive, out of the simple fear of the alternative, that the dead are heroic BECAUSE they are dead.
The President offers us sorcery. Black magic. Necromancy. Wichcraft. Or perhaps it is just insanity. To explain his war. For those of you wondering if this is a religious war, that would be a big fat yes, but I don’t think we are talking about a religion any of us know much about.
Or want to.
If Bush cannot explain his war using ordinary english, without the winks, the nods, the dirty looks, the threats, the obtuse bluster, the symbolism, the psycological games, the magic tricks, and most particularly without the Human Sacrifice, then the simple fact is that Bush cannot explain his war. It is for such occasions Impeachment was placed in the Constitution. To refuse to impeach is to support the insupportable. To refuse to permit the disscussion of impeachment, is to cast your lot with the opposition.
This is so, because the point of impeaching the President is to either get rid of him, or let the rest of us know who his friends are, so we can get rid of them. It would seem the democrats would prefer to keep us in the dark about this. But this too is revealing. And I think it worth suggesting that the democrats consider the effect a candidate for President offering the Voters Bushs’ hide nailed to the barn door would have on thier chances in 2008.
My take : it would shave enough off the left wing to ensure the democrats do not win the Presidency…and it would color every other race going. And I’m making the assumption he won’t win. You know what happens when you assume.
It will inevitably come up, that Bush might have a pardon by then, President Cheany would issue it. That is something I would lay $50 on. When it comes up it will inevitably be pointed out that extraordinary rendition trumps not just Bush and Cheanys’ Pardons, but the rest of the Judicial system as well, and by doing that, also makes a joke of the Legislature.
That is what Physical Politics is all about. It is why we have a Constitution. And it is why we have a steadily growing crowd of deeply concerned citizens.
Frosted Flake