[4mrusmc]

Nice post Mheisig, but I too am a former USMC (clever screen name huh?) and I kind of think Doug's opinions are somewhat misguided concerning the insurgency. First of all I thought that it was great that you listened to Doug talk about his experiences in Iraq. But, being that America is a nation that is highly civilzed and compassionate when it fights wars. The media has a way of portraying us as an evil bunch mongrels out for blood with bullets blazing. Which I feel is very far from the truth. Why don't the press go and embed themselves with the insurgents or Al Qada? That's because heads would be rolling (literally) and it wouldn't fit their agenda. We as a nation are held to a higher standard when we fight wars, and I feel that ties our hands and puts our men and women in jeopardy. War is not pretty, it's hellish. I was in Desert Storm back in 1990, so I have a little perspective on what was our reasons for going over there. First of all Saddam H. had WMD's, and the peace treaty that he signed to end the first Gulf War he was to have destroyed. Now, we had an inventory of his WMD's, and he was to have destroyed UNDER the supervision of our weapons inspectors. All the while, and over the years that passed by under a different administration at the watch, Saddam would play a little shell game with his WMD's. We never got a full accounting of his weapons programs because the UN and the rest of the free world never held Saddam accountable. So think about it, you have a list of items that Saddam had NOT disposed of properly, and he isn't cooperating and coming clean as far as their whereabouts. He had them, where are they? That one fact alone is enough to go to war, but we didn't. So then 2001 comes and we have some Islamic crazies crash airplanes into our buildings. We do our reasearch and find out where these guys are from, and what they stood for and who supported them. We knew from looking through their captured doccuments that they too pursued WMD's. Now, knowing that there were some rogue WMD's unaccounted for, kind of close by we as a freshly attacted nation felt duty bound to hunt for such items. And I for one support that. Also, I might add that we had envelopes of Anthrax circulating through our postal system at that time as well. And yes, Anthrax was considered a WMD that Saddam had not fully accounted for
Now, I may not be as smart as your friend Doug, so that might put me in the catagory as one of those "streotypical" (former) Marines, but my memory of those terrorists and Saddam's WMD's is still very clear. The war in Iraq is a little bit bigger than the insurgency and special contracts given to cronies. And unfortunately for Doug and many of his fellow Marines, they are sometimes not given the best body armor. The Marine Corps that I knew, we prided ourselves in knowing that we did more with less. But, playing with lives and the well-being of our fellow Americans should not be taken lightly, because they deserve the very best equipment we as a nation have to offer. People, this war we did not ask for, it was thrust upon us. We cannot fail, because if we do, our way of life will be forever threatened. I for one am very greatful for Doug's service, and I appreciate all that he and others like him are doing. I hope that we as a nation will not forget about our men and women overseas fighting the good fight for a good cause. Despite our political differences, let's hope and pray for a good outcome. But, I'm sorry to say that our war on terrorism will be long, and it may never end, we just need to be vigilant and brave and know that we are the good guys.