A Message for the Murderers
One of the seminal photographs of my war was this one of the young, naked Vietnamese girl fleeing the horrors of combat, taken in June 1972, five years after I decided to leave the Army and pursue a college degree under the newly-reinstated G.I. Bill. Like the tens of millions, perhaps more, around the world, who saw that photo, I was horrified, perhaps more than most, because I had been there and seen worse. That picture brought all that collateral killing and wounding of those innocents caught in the war’s crossfires back, to me far too vividly.
Nothing has haunted me more from my tour as an infantry NCO in Vietnam than the now blessedly fading memories of children caught up in the violence they could not comprehend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bleeding heart; I’m a staunch supporter of America’s military might being employed to defend our interests. But that doesn’t mean I have to ever accept the killing of innocents that always seems to accompany military operations. For that reason, I will always consider John Kerry to be beneath contempt, because he made this gullible nation and an even more gullible world believe that young men like me, doing our best to defend the innocent, were cold-blooded killers of those innocents.
We weren’t.
We tried to protect them as best we could but that effort was hamstrung by the fact that we were Caucasians operating in an oriental environment; I was automatically suspect among the native Vietnamese I dealt with because of my Scot-Irish blue eyes, which they probably saw as colonial French. Simply put: they didn’t trust the Round-eyes, blatant but understandable racism on their part. But it was racism that killed them. We did try; as an NCO, I came down hard on any of my troops I saw being harsh or cruel to the locals. It did little good in the long run because the worldwide leftist propaganda machine saw it to be in their political interest to portray American soldiers as cold, heartless, soulless baby killers, the exact opposite of what we were. We were tried and convicted by the media and the Democrat Party and whipped through endless media distortions of battlefield events up that long hill to our Golgotha where John Kerry personally nailed us to his cross of pure political ambition.
All this is prefatory to my response to a photo I came across today in my daily searching of the web. This picture of this toddler caught up in mindless terrorist violence in Nairobi melted this old soldier’s heart. More importantly, and far more significantly for my enemy, those who perpetrated this atrocity upon these helpless civilians a world away from my comfort haven, this picture solidifies in my mind just who it is that is mine, my nation’s, and civilization’s real enemy. Events like this and the pictures they produce serve only to harm the Islamic cause, as they fill stubborn old men such as me, all round the world, with a cold resolve to never negotiate nor compromise with such evil beings as you, but only to kill you using whatever means and methods are required.
Count on this: We are going to hunt you down and kill you…
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Terror War
Yup, and Dearest Leader obamao is right now supplying arms and ammo to them in Syria…
No, we are not going to hunt them down. Besides Obama’s family connections (his brother is the Muslim Brotherhood’s finance minister), and Hillary’s personal connections to the MB (Huma Abedin); DoD and the rest of the national security and intelligence apparatus are wholly compromised by politics and penetrated with insider threats ranging from wholesale Marxist-Eugenicists to libertarians shocked that our spies are spying on everyone.
There is no unity of command. There is no unity of effort. The establishmentarian GOP and Dems are only concerned with managing the New Deal welfare state (and enriching themselves in the revolving Government-K Street-Wall Street carnival ride).
The people who lived in America who were among the attackers were not Americans: they got trophies for failure, passing grades for ignorance, EBT/food stamps and welfare checks, and in the name of multiculturalism and anti-JudeoChristian values, no one told that murder is wrong. These were a few who did this – we’ve got millions inside the US of A.
We’re not hunting down anyone. Terrorism is a law enforcement issue now, and it’s being enforced like the world is Chicago.
Maybe we will not, but since the Nephew of the President of Kenya was killed in the attack, I am pretty sure he is not going to forget and is going to do everything they can. One can only hope.
That is one of the saddest things I’ll remember about Iraq and Afghanistan – how many kids there were and how many I saw injured as bystanders after attacks. Still going on in Iraq. And they complain about drone attacks…
What is it with liberals in general that end up backing side that kills more innocents, subjugates more people, and leads to LESS peace, not more?
Every. Single. Time.
That the only thing that haunts me from my time in Iraq- the kids. It started getting to me after my daughter was born.
Sparky,
Because people who support freedom and personal responsibility are “hard” and “uncaring”. (Eye roll)
Pictures are a powerful weapon,and when there used by your
own press they can be devastating. I’m sure the photojournalist that took the photo did not know the background on how it happened. It was a South Vietnam air strike on a village thought to be filled with VC & NVA, but know matter the photo was out there we were going to get the blame. Another photo was taken in I believe Saigon when the police chief shot a VC in the head during the tet- offensive right there in the street. But the picture doesn’t tell you is that the police chiefs wife and child were kill by that VC that he just killed. Pictures don’t always tell to hole story. And that is why troops are a little leery about reporters.
running down that dusty road in obvious pain
i totally agree
i however had my moment a few years back…
i learned everything i need to know about islam on 9/11
islam is not only a religion that violates the human rights of half the people on the planet but it also doubles as a political ideology that is indistinguishable from nazism
Unable able to reach out and touch sKerry for his crap but, I know of one anti-war veteran/protester that would probably like to *try* and kick my ass after revealing his punk marxist ass for what he is to the infantry association he *used* belong to, reliving “memories” of combat and posting his smack talk on their site. Pretty freaking awesome that former squad members were aware of him in their presence but, didn’t know what to say or do until a former MP rolled up on their *barracks* er forum asking questions. Maybe I should get off my ass and write it up, see if Jonn will post it. Heh.
#8 Bruce –
The photo of the Saigon police chief was taken by AP photographer Eddie Adams who was very much aware of the backstory behind it. If memory serves, the photo location, this was during Tet in January 1968, was outside the police chief’s house. Where things sometimes get lost is that it’s not usually the photojournalist’s job to provide narrative context except for brief cutline information to go out over the wire.
What was significant about Tet in ’68 was that, administration assurances to the contrary, the military situation was still up for grabs. Somebody like Walter Cronkite, for example, didn’t suddenly decide to start carrying around Mao’s Little Red Book; he was pissed about being lied to.
Personally, I never saw evidence of GIs being cruel to children. Most GIs liked kids. Here’s a true story:
On Christmas Day of 1971, I happened to be in Nha Trang after having come down from LZ English. Somebody in the mess hall in Nha Trang, for some mysterious Army reason, had gotten a large shipment of fresh Washington State apples packed in big card-board boxes. Since the supply of apples was beyond normal needs, somebody else in the mess hall got the idea, it being Christmas and all, that it would be a hoot to give the extras to the Vietnamese locals.
And that’s what we did; we loaded a jeep full of boxes of apples and spent the afternoon cruising around Nha Trang handing out apples to random groups of children. As a linguist, I evidently got recruited into the effort because the mess hall guys thought it might be useful to have somebody around to explain things to a bunch of kids who wouldn’t normally have been able to tell the difference between an apple and a baseball.
NHSparky, ask that question of the people who voted Hitler into office.
Streetsweeper, do it. Just have facts, not hoohah, as backup.
@ #8: By the way, Bruce. There isn’t any need for you or anyone else that served honorably in South Vietnam to be rolling down those dusty roads in obvious pain.
Hoohah? lmao! 😉
Well, Bruce, there are those who understand because they also were there. Then there are the rest of us who were not there but got your back anyway. All you really need to know is that you are not alone on that dusty road.
Ok, hold on gentleman, first the line about running down that dusty road in obvious pain, was supposed to have been
a line I was going to put in about the little girl and forgot to delete it. Second I was never in Vietnam served
in the Marine Corps from 1959 to 1963 Vietnam did start till
1964, served my 4 years and was never in combat.
#5 NHSparky: this love and adoration of terrorists comes from the the Cold War, in which the Prognazis supported the PLO without reservation because the PLO was a proxy of the USSR.
The radicals who supported the PLO are the voters who support anti-Zionists and Muslim jihadists – and have trained their children and grandchildren to do the same.
The primary reason GI’s in Nam would be mean to kids was because they were such persistent little thieves. If you dropped your guard around them, you were fair game.
Once upon returning from an extended patrol, my platoon was driven to a bathing point on a river near our base camp. Our clean clothes and valuables were under guard while we scrubbed off the grime, the security necessitated by the presence of a horde of children hanging around the beer and soda stands thrown up by enterprising Vietnamese.
Once I was clean and dressed in fresh jungle fatigues, I grabbed a plastic chair and a bottle of Tiger Piss. A cute little toddler came up with his hand out so I bought him an orange soda and let him sit on my lap while he drank it. Big mistake. When I went to pay for my next beer, I discovered the little booger (who’d quickly disappeared)had picked my pocket to the tune of fifty bucks. My troops got a big laugh out of ol’ soft-ass sarge getting scored on by a three year old.
Well, then, Bruce, you are among “the rest of us!” We still all need to watch out for each other.
I don’t know about Vietnam but I can draw parallels to “my” war. Without going into to details, I know how it is to see innocent children and other innocents hurt. We always did our best to protect them, but it was never enough.
“…I’m a staunch supporter of America’s military might being employed to defend our interests.”
Eff that Bravo Sierra! “Our interests” can pretty well be anything the politishuns and mega-corporations — whether they produce fruit, oil, or anything in between — WANT them to be. Exhibit “A”: “Your” war. So tell me, Poetrooper, just HOW were America’s “interests” being defended in Vietnam? Or Korea (“my Dad’s” war) for that matter? Well over 90,000 dead Americans later (not including all the “enemy” and non-combatant deaths), and we’re not allowed to ask the question of which one of them actually ATTACKED America or Americans? Same ol’ same ol’.
A friend who’s a soon-to-retire flight officer on KC-135s recently regurgitated the old cliche that the troops don’t fight for the politics, they fight for each other. Well I know this sounds crazy, but supposin’ we never SENT guys like you and my Dad to fight two Asian nations who HADN’T ATTACKED US? How many lives — American, “enemy” and non-combatant — might have been spared?
Were the lives of your dead buddies WORTH it?
… and “We are going to hunt you down and kill you”?
Uhh, YEAH. Let me know when you get your passport and tickets.
Apparently Eagle Keeper forgets that we had Americans in South Korea when the North invaded. I guess you think we should have just abandoned them and our allies?
@17–DaveO–the left’s infatuation with murdering tyrants goes back well before the Cold War as well, witness Wilson and FDR with the Soviets, etc.
May G-d forgive me, but I want Him to strike those [creatures] off the face of this Earth and into the deepest pits of Gehenna.