Courageous Sacrifice in Afghanistan — Two Simple Stories that Highlight the Cynically Calculated Cowardice Displayed by America’s Political Leadership

© 2012 Peter Free

 

16 March 2012

 

 

Stark contrasts in human performance become morality plays — if anyone cares enough to think about them

 

Afghanistan War veteran (2011-2012) Charles Dijou wrote:

 

I served with a West Point lieutenant, age 24, who stopped his platoon on patrol at a bridge over the Arghandab River.

 

Though intelligence said the bridge was clear, the lieutenant had a “funny” feeling. So he approached the bridge alone to investigate.

 

A Taliban insurgent, using a command wire, detonated an improvised explosive device that killed him, slicing his body in two and throwing the pieces 20 feet in the air.

 

Because of the lieutenant’s actions, he most likely saved the lives of his platoon. He left behind a young wife and 1-year-old daughter.

 

I served with a staff sergeant who was leading a squad of 10 soldiers when radio traffic picked up Taliban insurgents massing to ambush his men.

 

The sergeant, knowing the need to find cover quickly and get his soldiers protection, went alone into a nearby ditch, which had not been cleared for mines. He wanted to be sure that his men could take cover safely.

 

He stepped on an IED. He lived but went home missing both legs.

 

© 2012 Charles Dijou, What I learned in Afghanistan, Politico (15 March 2012) (paragraphs split)

 

 

The obvious lesson

 

Contrast these acts of courageous, self-sacrificing leadership with the cynical cowardice consistently displayed by the people we elect to political office.

 

Then reflect on the fact that our elected leadership-cowards cavalierly commit their morally much superior military charges to unwinnable and nationally self-destructive battles.

 

 

The moral? — The contrast between these two groups of people is enough to make you puke

 

Visit the silence of Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery.

 

Recognize that the stark contrast — between what is admirable and what is not — is regularly repeated, in a constant drip of sad individual finalities, in Afghanistan.  And wherever else the avaricious Military Industrial Complex sends our finest.

 

Sacrificing the best among us, in order to profit the least worthy, is a soul-smashing obscenity.