Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Rules of alumni engagement
The March 19, 2008 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly contains an important letter to the editor from Will Bardenwerper '98, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I could not find a link, so I have taken the liberty of reproducing it below:
As a Princeton graduate who voluntarily left his financial job in Manhattan to serve as an infantry officer in the Army for the past four and a half years, including 13 months in Nineveh and Anbar provinces, Iraq, in 2006-2007, I was troubled and hurt by the Jan. 23 letter by William K. Mettler '51.
Mr. Mettler's glib observation that we were "blasting the Iraqi population to hell and gone" could not be further from anything I ever saw on more than 100 combat patrols. In fact, while I was shot at numerous times, traveled in vehicles struck by IEDs, and lived in buildings that were shot at and mortered daily, not once did I discharge one round of return fire since I could never positively identify the enemy and as a result, I could not shoot. The discipline and restraint I saw were universal in my battalion and, based on extensive interactions with neighboring units and friends in other units, hardly unique.
Yes, Abu Ghraib happened, as did Haditha and some other heinnous and unforgivable crimes, but they are so far removed from the behavior of the vast majority of the troops to hardly warrant the attention they have received. While we enjoy the comforts of America, every day soldiers are risking their lives to help the Iraqi people -- most of whom desperately need it. I spent the better part of nine months working to restore basic services to my Sunni Arab town of 60,000 -- such as water and electricity -- as well as develop a local government in the shadow of a ruthless al-Qaida murder and intimidation campaign.
I understand Mr. Mettler's misgivings about our current government and some of its foreign-policy decisions, but ask that the behavior of our brave and decent troops not be slandered as they labor in anonymity and show superhuman discipline in the midst of an ambiguous and challenging fight in which the enemy often exploits our very restraint and uses it to attack us. Despite this, in my experience we almost without exception kept to the moral high ground.
In-freakin'-deed. Mr. Bardenwerper has definitely earned a rousing "locomotive" from this alumnus, especially for his service but also for writing this letter. He may have been defending his honor, but he equally understands that will is often the most important resource in a counterinsurgency.
2 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Tue Mar 18, 10:28:00 PM:
Yes, I saw both the Mettler letter and Bardenwerper response in the PAW.
I wonder if Mr. Mettler had similar things to say to the gentlemen he may have overlapped with as an undergrad -- say Class of 1948 or 1949 -- who served in the Army Air Force in Europe in 1945, and participated in the raids over Dresden. Now that's what I call blasting the population to hell and gone. (It's probably not a coincidence that we haven't heard much about German/Prussian militarism since then.) Obviously, a different war under different circumstances, with less precise technology and greater political consensus -- and, most notably, much different ROEs, as was implied in the response letter.
I second TH's motion -- thanks for your service, Mr. Bardenwerper '98.
By jj mollo, at
Wed Mar 19, 11:34:00 PM:
Bardenwerper is on my hero list twice -- once for giving up a cushy job to take his chances serving his country, and second for the clarity of his vision. This letter rings so true to me. I really have trouble grasping why others can't hear it.
