Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tell a Marine that you remain faithful
I am late to this story because I have been on the road and otherwise heavily engaged, but it remains crucially important.
You can help the United States Marines.
Blackfive's Grim interviewed Col Simcock of the Marines' Regimental Combat Team 6 a few days back, and asked the colonel whether there was anything the Marines need that we -- meaning those of us enjoying the repose of civilian life -- could send him.
COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I'll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about -- and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 -- we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we're taking over here are very, very important to America. We're fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.
If anyone -- you know, just sit down, jot us -- throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It's broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we're a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn't know what's going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn't behind us and doesn't see the importance of what's going on. So that's something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we're doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.
The Marines followed up with an email address, and a commitment to distribute your messages of support. The address is: mRCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil.
What are you waiting for? Open a new message, paste it in the "to" line, and get writing.
My letter to "my" Marine, whoever he or she may be, is below:
To a United States Marine in Iraq,
Thank you.
I am writing this at 1 in the morning from a hotel in Lyon, France. I have been traveling for five days, and have not slept more than four hours in a night. Briefly, on the ride from the airport, I thought I was tired. Then I read a story about our Marines in Iraq and it reminded that I do not know the meaning of tired. You guys must be incredibly tired, yet you go on.
I have heard that the Marines and other American military in Iraq wonder if Americans still support them. Certainly, some Americans do not. That is sad, but hardly unexpected. There are a great many Americans who never fundamentally accepted the mission in this war, and they never will.
They are wrong, and I believe that deep down they are profoundly in the minority. Most Americans who are disenchanted with this war are unhappy with its price, as I am sure you are. They do, however, support the ultimate mission, which is to deprive the radical Islamists of the victory they so desperately crave by handing them the military and propaganda defeat they so desperately deserve.
Let me be very clear: I support you, my family supports you, and my friends support you.
Whether or not we picked the right time and place to depose Saddam's government in Iraq -- at the time I thought we did, and now I confess to wondering whether I was right -- there is no question that the jihad has decided to stand and fight in Mesopotamia. So be it. If we had it to do all over again, would the Allies have fought their way up the boot of Italy in 1943 and 1944? Would we have chosen to take those awful casualties -- 54,000 Allied dead -- at Monte Cassino? We cannot always choose or even predict where the enemy makes his stand. In this case, he has chosen Iraq, and as in Italy in 1944 we must press on. You are doing great, dangerous, noble, terribly necessary work. You are standing in the way of a vicious enemy that has repeatedly attacked the United States since it declared war on us in 1996 and again in 1998 -- imagining, I suppose, that we did not hear it the first time. Without you there, countless more people will die. Does any intellectually honest person doubt that?
Thank you. When the history of this long war is written, the question will not be whether it was wise to start this war, but whether America stood its ground when its declared enemy came to Iraq for the purpose of humiliating it. If we stand our ground, it will be because we trust the United States Marines and other American fighting men and women. If we do not, it will be because our politicians are more interested in their own careers than the future of the world, and that will make both of us, I think, very sad.
Thank you.
Be well, and take great care.
Semper Fi.
CWCID: The Corner and Cassandra.
9 Comments:
By 
Unknown, at
Thu Jun 21, 12:10:00 AM:
By 
, at
Thu Jun 21, 10:36:00 AM:
Do your job and come home sfalt and never mind the rediclous blabbering from the dumb donkey demacrats and espcialy that pathetic JOHN MURTHA
By , at
Thu Jun 21, 05:14:00 PM:
Done.
That's two emails from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Princeton!
Andrew
By Cassandra, at
Thu Jun 21, 07:01:00 PM:
Oh, thank you!
You made my day :) What a wonderful letter.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Thu Jun 21, 10:55:00 PM:
What a silly, silly letter. These guys are more like "Swofford" in "Jarhead" than this inane myth you've built up.
How about:
Dear Marine:
Come home alive. We miss you.
Sincerely,
The American Public
By , at
Fri Jun 22, 12:47:00 AM:
Ooooo rrraaahhh sepmter fi and come home alive and never mind the blabbering from the PEOPLES REPUBIC OF SAN FRANCISCO
By Cassandra, at
Fri Jun 22, 09:00:00 AM:
How many Marines do you actually know Christopher? Since you seem to be such an expert.
Just curious.
By Grim, at
Fri Jun 22, 09:29:00 AM:
Thanks, TH. I don't get over here as often as I should.
By Cassandra, at
Sun Jun 24, 06:30:00 AM:
We finally made it to 6000, Grim reports.
Many thanks to everyone who sent an email. Your help is greatly appreciated.
