The 'Thirty Fallen Warriors' Deserved a Better Leader

Larry Purdy is a Minneapolis lawyer who, after graduation from the Naval Academy in 1968, was a contemporary of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) in his Swiftboat unit in Viet Nam.  His ‘Open Letter to John Kerry’ was a delicious part of the attack (or belated counter-attack to be more precise) of his cohort on Kerry during his presidential campaign in 2004, this after Kerry’s 1971 self-serving denigration of our forces who were even then still fighting, accusing his countrymen of a variety of war crimes and atrocities.  It would be fitting if a law were passed to require that Purdy’s letter be appended to every copy of Kerry’s despicable screed against the American fighting man.

Purdy now sees a similar circumstance with Obama’s harried impatience with the American military experience in this war against the Great Jihad, a war that Dare Not Speak It’s Name, and that has compelled him to pen ‘In Memory of Thirty Warriors Lost in an Afghan Wasteland’, which starts as a plangent memorial to those shot down last month.  Excerpts:

America is a poorer country today because of their deaths; but not just theirs.  Every life lost in this now-god-forsaken effort is a tragedy solely because the current American commander in chief and his political allies in Congress don’t care enough about the mission to justify further sacrifice. . . .   

When thinking about Obama and Afghanistan, “abandonment to a ruthless enemy” is the phrase that most frequently comes to mind. To continue sending our troops each day into harm’s way, while never fully committing to the defeat of the Taliban, is all but criminal in the eyes of most Americans, irrespective of their political stripes. 

The sad unvarnished truth is this: Though we, and our NATO and Afghan allies, face an almost incomprehensibly evil enemy, America’s president offers no agenda for defeating them.  His heart simply isn’t in it.  So, today, despite the heroism of our fighting men, the war in Afghanistan has disintegrated into little more than a series of needlessly deadly training exercises, conducted in a desolate and faraway land Obama is desperate to leave.  Unlike the steel-tempered character of the men ordered to carry out the most perilous missions in Afghanistan, Obama’s constant derogation of American exceptionalism makes plain that America’s warrior class possesses a devotion to duty, honor, and country their commander in chief finds impossible to summon. 

To be fair, the president is not entirely to blame for his inadequacy. His limited personal experience prior to his election provided no basis upon which the country could expect him to appreciate the life-and-death seriousness of war. While not disqualifying, Obama never wore our nation’s uniform. In fact, one can barely imagine a man with Obama’s ultra-thin veneer surviving the standard humiliation endured during basic training by every recruit, officer ,and enlisted alike. Had he done so, even in a peacetime setting, it would have served him well. Yet, like so much else that speaks to his inexperience, he lacks the most critical experience necessary for a man who now commands American troops simultaneously engaged in three armed conflicts around the world. 

It is now evident to the world that Obama’s carefully scripted, teleprompter-delivered 2008 campaign promises regarding the “good war” in Afghanistan were nothing more than political theater. The weakness he has displayed after a scant two and one half years in office — which becomes more pronounced with each passing day — is painful to observe. His robust campaign rhetoric never matched his command decisions since he assumed the office. 

In Afghanistan, alone, the examples are legion:(a) His undeniable dithering on the “troop surge” recommended by America’s combat-hardened generals, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal; (b) Obama’s eventual decision to reduce, significantly, the troop levels sought by our nation’s most trusted military advisors; and (c) his inexplicable decision to accompany the smaller-than-requested surge force with his bizarre — many would say militarily irresponsible — decision to publicly announce a date certain for its withdrawal. One is hard-pressed to imagine a more foolish and naïve action than Obama’s decision to telegraph to our enemies his intention to begin recalling troops within a matter of months after the surge had barely been completed.

Our troops deserve for you to read the whole thing.

(H/T to Powerline)