THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR

I get letters & I answer every one of them. Check this out:


Sean:
Need your feedback. I am thinking about writing a commentary on the current states (sic) of US forces, particularly the troops on the ground doing the fighting, in terms of the long period we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan. I cannot help thinking that we have asked too much of these and the National Guard troops we've sent to combat. They are, I believe, about one percent of the US population being asked to fight for all the rest of us. I come from a different era of the universal draft in the 1960s when it was understood to be one's patriotic duty to serve and that every able-bodied young man was expected to.

On the record or off, I would appreciate your thoughts if you care to share them.

Regards,
A.



This is what I came back with:


I'm on the road right now, cannot write at length. I don't know where you're going with this, here's my take on it:





I enlisted Infantry 11C mortar maggot, Airborne my whole career, first time re-up came around I went "down the street" to Special Forces and never looked back.





When I first came into the all-volunteer Army our drill sergeants and platoon sergeants were all 'Nam vets, they all served in the draft Army and they all told us the same thing: that we wouldn't want to be in combat with a bunch of draftees who did not want to be there. They told us about disciplinary problems in the draftee military you would not believe.




Don't get me wrong - I am quite sure that most of the Vietnam generation served honorably - I am just going by what I heard from multiple sources amongst the professionals who stayed in afterward and made the Army a career.


The war we are currently engaged in is The One Hundred Years War and the sooner the American People get used to the idea the better. I do not differentiate between the "Iraq War" and the "Afghanistan War" - they are simply different theaters of the same war. It makes no difference to the G.I. who is KIA'd whether its Iraq or Afghanistan or the Philippines or the Horn of Africa or Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the Pentagon on September 11th 2001; they were all killed by the same people - al Qaeda - and we must never forget that their objective is TO KILL EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.







We can win this war; there is a way to win it. Any war is winnable just as every war can be lost and when both sides are convinced they’re about to lose, they’re both right (#41, Murphys Law of Combat). The way to win this war is NOT via "taking counsel of our fears" in other words succumbing to desperate loser philosophies out there. "When you find yourself in a war, the stupidest thing to do is anything BUT whatever it takes to win it. In fact it is criminal not to seek victory, because defeat means death & destruction to you & yours." - this is the Philosophy of STORMBRINGER.

So now we have a warrior class - so what? We always did in this country, now its a little more visible and guess what? At least twenty three of our kind are running for Congress in November.






I had the honor & privilege to serve 25 years in the greatest army that ever marched across a battlefield. I am not a hero but I served in the company of heroes. If I had to do it all over again I would not change a thing.

STORMBRINGER SENDS


.