War on Terror

9/11, War on Terror

The 9/11 Generation

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“In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn’t answer the phone.” — Dean Barnett

There is a excellent piece in The Weekly Standard that struck home with me. I went from 7 to 16 during the 1960s and thank God everyday that I wasn’t born a day earlier or more afflicted mentally (with the lone exception of Dr. King’s inspiring life) by that decade’s “progressive” thinking. Mr. Barnett is correct; this generation is Better than the Boomers:

One of the excesses of the 1960s that present-day liberals have disowned and disavowed since 9/11 is the demonization of the American military. While every now and then an unrepentant liberal like Charlie Rangel will appear on cable news and casually accuse U.S. troops of engaging in baby-killing in Iraq, the liberal establishment generally knows better. They “support” the American military — at least in the abstract, until it does anything resembling fighting a war.

In search of a new narrative, 21st-century liberals have settled on the “soldiers are victims” meme. Democratic senators (and the occasional Republican senator who’s facing a tough reelection campaign) routinely pronounce their concern for our “children” in Iraq. One of the reasons John Kerry’s “botched joke” resonated so strongly was that it fit the liberals’ narrative. The Democratic party would have you believe that our soldiers are children or, at best, adults with few options: In short, a callous and mendacious administration has victimized the young, the gullible, and the hopeless, and stuck them in Iraq.

But this narrative is not just insulting to our fighting men and women, it is also grossly inaccurate.

Kurt Schlichter is a lieutenant colonel in the California National Guard. A veteran of the first Gulf war, he’s now stateside and commands the 1-18th Cavalry, 462-man RSTA (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition) squadron attached to the 40th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. The last media representative he spoke with before I contacted him was a New York Times stringer who wanted Schlichter’s help in tracking down guardsmen who were “having trouble because they got mobilized.”

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Iraq, John Murtha, Keeping the faith, Political wind, War on Terror

Marine’s Parents Want Murtha Censured for Haditha Remarks

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From CNSNews.com:

The parents of a U.S. Marine accused of killing three Iraqis execution-style in Haditha in late 2005 said Thursday they would ask Congress to censure Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for saying that the Marines “overreacted” during the incident and killed civilians “in cold blood.”

“It’s too late for an apology,” Darryl Sharratt of Canonsburg, Pa., told Cybercast News Service after the hearing officer in the case, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, released an 18-page report recommending that all charges against Sharratt’s son, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, be dismissed because his actions “were in accord with the rules of engagement and use of force.”

Sharratt said that he, his wife Theresa and other supporters of their 22-year-old son were planning to visit Martha’s office, and “we’re going to ask for more than an apology.”

“We need this man censured by our Congress,” he said, because “he denied my son — and the other Marines involved — their constitutional rights to a fair trial and a presumption of innocence.”

“This is what we’ve been fighting for in Iraq,” Sharratt added. “This is what we’ve been fighting for — what soldiers and Marines have been dying for — for the past 200 years.”