Sunday, May 27, 2007

Memorial Day 2007

I am a lover of movies depicting military history: Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them. At any rate, history tends to repeat itself. This weekend, in Memorial Day spirit, I was watching The Green Berets. The movie recalls the experiences of a Green Beret Detachment dispatched to Vietnam with a naysayer journalist embedded in the team. With overtones of today’s current situation, the media has painted an entirely different picture than what exists in the lives of our fighting men and women in a combat zone.

Prussian General Karl von Clauswitz, in his magnus opus On War, wrote “War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means. Regardless of what one thinks of the civilian leadership of the military, wars are fought and won by the soldiers in them: Squads of 8-16 personnel through corps of 20,000-40,000 personnel are made up mostly of soldiers in the rank of staff sergeant (E-6) and below that work towards the end of winning.


No comments: