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A Tale of Two Marines
By Lt Col P
By now everyone has heard of Matthew Hoh, a former Marine and Iraq vet who loudly and publicly resigned from his post as the senior Foreign Service official in Zabul Province.
I'd like you to meet Gunnery Sergeant D, who has also recently left Zabul Province. Left, that is, after successfully completing a tour of duty attached to SF and EOD units. He's been put in for the Bronze Star (the real kind, for combat), and for the Soldier's Medal for saving a man's life. Part of his fitrep-- not written by Marines-- reads, "His leadership, decision-making, and recommedations to the supported commanders within the province is [sic] sought out and relied upon. His leadership is of the highest caliber and he is the Marine that everyone wants to work with. In an environment where he is the senior Marine within the province, he has surpassed expectations of those he worked with and set the bar for all that follow."
So, I suppose that if you have the luxury of quitting, you can just fucking quit. But if that's not an option, you figure out a way to win. Gunny D is truly no better friend and no worse enemy. The other guy? I think he's the opposite.
Oh, and BTW... Gunny D's a reservist, out of 4th ANGLICO. :-)
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Comments
I read Mathew Hoh’s resignation letter in full and he makes some very good, reasoned arguments for his position. He may not be a Gunny D, but his experience and study of Afghan history does give him some credibility.
The U.S. has been fighting in Afghanistan for nearly twice the time of all of WW2. Granted, this is a different kind of war against a very different enemy, but we can not afford in either treasure, or more importantly lives injured and lost, to continue indefinitely down the same path we’ve been on the past 8 years.
I have all the respect in the world for the service of our military personnel everywhere, but while they are fighting our foreign enemies abroad, our domestic enemies are having far more success destroying our liberty and freedoms than any militant foreign enemy. Communist China owning American debt is a much greater threat to our security and freedom as a whole than al Qaida. “Quitting” in Afghanistan or Iraq will not destroy the U.S., but failing to stem the ideological drift of the hearts and minds of the American people away from the Western ideals that founded this country and made it great most certainly will. Spending money and blood indefinitely in Afghanistan trying to figure out a way to win there (however that is defined) while our country engages in both foreign and domestic policies that are eroding the foundation of the Constitution as well as our national sovereignty sounds more like a strategy of overall defeat than victory for our Republic.
I’m not saying we need to get out of Afghanistan immediately. Just that America’s threats are on many fronts and that victory in defending it must be measured by the long term survival of the country in the form of government envisioned at its inception. Anything less is abject defeat. Mathew Hoh makes a compelling case that the current and proposed strategies in Afghanistan and elsewhere are flawed regarding the overall security of the U.S. Not knowing the guy personally, I don’t know if his actions are opportunistic or genuine, but I don’t think he should be labeled a quitter just yet. He served this country honorably in several capacities for many years and I suspect he would still be serving if he believed the strategies were correct and working. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now and believe his ideas should at least be given thoughtful consideration.
If Hoh ends up working for Podestra, I guess we'll have our answer.
As for D, is he single? Call me!
Semper Fi Gunny D!
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The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/29/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.