Targeting the Cause
It is because of our lack of unity and the perception the average American does not know a thing about the rest of the world. That is, unfortunately, true. You were led by the very same personalities and organizations down the road to your willing defeat in Southeast Asia.
Not the defeat of our valiant military and those of our allies but, yours. Never again!
How easy are you to lead down the road to defeat? Please allow me to refresh your memories. Contrary to what the media and politicians put out today, I and my brave fellow warriors were participating in the Vietnam War when it was popular.
Locating Blame
Did our battlefield defeats, like the French, lead to a demand for us to quit and pull out? Oh, no. It was you on the homefront who lost heart initially, listening to the very same voices you are listening to today.
The claim was that American soldiers and Marines could not find this elusive enemy and could not defeat him because this kind of war could not be won.
We Did Win
We beat that 5-foot tall, 85-pound sucker into dog dirt, and our very own media called it a “defeat.” Walter Cronkite said it. And you, not us but you, believed it then. Too many of you darned fools believe it today. This time we will require truth, and you will listen to us and not the mob. Never again!
John Kerry is not your President today because of us, the real veterans of the Vietnam War.
The Kerry Defeat
He was not “Swift-boated.” He was knocked out by those of us who actually know what a low-life nobody of war he was in his few months in Vietnam.
The “Swift Boats” and “POWs for Truth” are not some right-wing lobby.
They are us. We are them.
You want to use our dead, many of whom may be rightly laid at your feet and at Cronkite’s feet?
Not this time, you uneducated in war fools.
Make Believe
You want to make movies, then tell us you are experts on the real world?
Sean Penn is a punk with no experience in the world. This allows him to sit in judgment on any real man.
He is a pretender. That is his job. He, like Jane Fonda before him, has no special insight into politics or war.
Un-Believable
They are pretenders. It is their function to play real or imagined people and make themselves believable on the screen.
But, once again, they and you want to extend that to real life? Never again!
You have the gall to allow Dan Rather to march out in front of you on the screen and proclaim himself a “former Marine.”
He Did Not Last
He got the boot in boot camp. He never made it to being a Marine. How dare you tarnish the image of a brave and legendary branch of service by allowing that quitter to claim he was one of them. You want to hold up U.S. Rep. John Murtha and U.S. Sen. John Kerry as people to be listened to about the military and wars?
They were the least of us. You want to shove them in our faces again, proclaim them “heroes”? Not this time, boys and girls. We are not going to put up with it. Never again!
A Warning
You want to come to our wall and use it to make some political point to bring another generation to battlefield defeat?
You are not going to shout us down this time.
You come near that wall, and it had better be with nothing but quiet respect.
Your Ilk
We do not ask this by appealing to you as fellow Americans.
We know this does no good with your ilk. We require you to show respect to our fallen brethren, those still missing, and those serving today and to us.
This is not a request. It is an order, an order from the only group with the authority to give it:
Us.
Earned, the Old-Fashioned Way
We earned the right, on terrible battlefields, for you to listen to us, not Fonda, Penn, Kerry or even a fallen honorable man’s mother.
He is us. We are him. If he died, it was with us, not with you. Never again!
How To Be Heard
In closing, let me say that we, by being who we really were on the battlefield, need not even raise our voices or fists to the mob.
You shall, by your very presence and bearing, show you are greater men and women than any who mount their podium. By merely looking them in the eye, directly, you will say to those of ill intent on our sacred ground:
You shall not pass.
Never again!
God bless you all, at home and on the battlefield.
And God Bless America.
Maj. Mark A. Smith, U.S. Army (ret.), can be reached at majorzippo@yahoo.com.
