If only for a moment...

For a brief moment last night, the mainstream media became the press again.  They just reported the news as the United States launched missiles against a Syrian Air Base.  I am certain that they have returned to the current model of 1% news and 99% ever-so-slanted commentary, but it was refreshing to see reporters reporting again and the press being the press, if only for a moment.

Walgreens to snub Vets in 2012

The national pharmacy and general merchandise chain Walgreens is giving veterans and their families the middle finger instead of a salute come 2012.

If you are on Tricare you will have to pay the full amount for your prescription and then complete paperwork to be reimbursed by your insurance if you get your prescription filled at Walgreens.

Really?

Yes.

Why snub the Vets?

It’s all about money.

This is one of the hidden costs of going to war and pretending we are not at war.  We don’t ration.  We don’t retool industry to win wars.  We try to make them invisible to the general public.

Those who have loved ones in combat zones feel the impact of the war.

Those who lose loved ones feel the impact of the war.

Businesses, well it is business as usual.  That means it is all about the bottom line.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think we need a law to compel Walgreens to respect those who provided them safe haven to pursue profit.

I don’t like laws that make us do things we should do out of honor or respect.

No laws, please.

But I won’t be shopping at Walgreens.

I will speak their language—the language of currency.

I once sent all my photo work to Walgreens.  That’s over.

They occasionally have some vitamins on sale.  You know, the buy one get one free or buy one get one half-off.  They still make plenty of profit even during the sales.

No more vitamins from Walgreens.

I usually drop a couple hundred bucks a year on cold and flu medicines, ankle wraps, Band-Aids, and other similar items.  Walmart also carries these.  Come to think of it, so do many small town, mom and pop pharmacies that are struggling to get by.  Perhaps this will work out well for them.

Will my lost revenue mean anything to Walgreen’s bottom line?

Probably not much.

If all the men and women in the armed forces, retirees, and their families decided not to patronize this establishment that would make some difference, but surely Walgreens has already factored this in and will make up the difference by sales to other customers.

If Americans as a whole decided that this was not acceptable, that would wake up the money changers at Walgreen’s headquarters.

The problem is that when the general public does not feel the impact of the nation at war, there is no appreciation for those in uniform.  We clap at the airports when a serviceman gets off an airplane, but will we forgo the convenience of just dropping in for a couple items and continue filling the coffers of Walgreens executives?

We tell the young woman returning from overseas that we appreciate her service, but do we appreciated it enough to send Walgreens a message?

Sadly, most don’t.

That’s the cost of being at war and pretending you are not at war.  You get to keep your comfort zone and don’t have to consider the consequences.

Walgreens can do what they want.  They will just do it without my money.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.   

Thomas Paine

Lessons Learned [or not] from the Black and Tans

War has been defined as "the continuation of political intercourse with the admixture of different means."  Carl von Clausewitz  in his major work, Vom Krieg, analyzed and classified war to an extent that surpassed any comparable work.  He did, however, relegate to insignificance an aspect of armed conflict which has become one of the realities of the modern world.  That overlooked area of belligerency was revolution and insurgency.  Referred to as a ^"phenomenon of the nineteenth century, an intensification of the fermentation process known as war," and "similar in character to all others fought by second rate troops;"  Clausewitz much underestimated its impact upon the larger spectrum of politics.  Perhaps the contemporary expert in the field of revolution, insurgency, and protracted war was Mao Tse-Tung.  According to the former chairman of the Peoples Republic of China, revolutionary war is an antitoxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison,  "but also purges us of our own filth. Even his accounts are subjectively written from the vantage point of the insurgent and though they address the singular repetitive technique of "encirclement and suppression," they fail to address a strategy for effectively combating the unconventional warrior.  One might contend that no such strategy is necessary for this country as the majority of our national movements manifest themselves in media campaigns or in the established political process.  Our national interest, however, has extended well beyond our borders for the majority of this century.  One has only to look at the last twenty years to realize that United States military forces have become involved in every aspect of unconventional warfare.  From fighting a combination of guerilla and regular units in Vietnam, to the establishment of a Peacekeeping Forces that are thrust into the very lifelines of the communities they are sent to protect , to the variable scale of  involvement  of military forces in the war on drugs; U.S. forces have embarked upon expeditions into aspects of warfare for which there was no clear doctrine or national strategy.  Our own experience in using trained combatants in a less than clearly defined, limited scale conflict has been less than successful. Before we engage in such future actions, we should examine a broader base of historical precedents.  The case of the Anglo-Irish conflict which manifested itself in violence in the early part of this century falls rather cumbersomely into both the category of conventional warfare and into those varieties of conflict collectively termed unconventional. Of the two adversaries, the methods and forces employed by the British government to suppress the Irish rebellion were by far the most brutal, and were exemplified by a unit known as the Black and Tans.  The use of this infamous, counterinsurgent force in Ireland resulted not in the restoration of subordination to England, but in an increased alienation of the Irish population from the English nation.  The Black and Tans were unsuccessful because they faced an enemy which they could not discern  from the population they were to protect, and as such t could not focus their combat power upon him.

Anglo-Irish politics never existed in an international vacuum.  At the close of the eighteenth century, Britain and France were at war with each other, William Pitt and King George III were in total disagreement upon the question of Catholic emancipation, and Ireland, in hope of French aid, was ripe for revolution. (1  Keir)  With hope of reconciling domestic problems peacefully, Pitt devised a twofold solution.  The first component would create the legislative union of Ireland with England, which when coupled with Catholic emancipation, offered prospective tranquility on the whole of the British Island.  In order to achieve any degree of success, both measures required enactment; however, Pitt approached each problem separately.  The idea of union met little resistance in England, and the promise of religious emancipation won the support of a majority of the Irish Catholics.  In the summer of 1800, Parliaments at both Dublin and Westminster enacted the Act of Union.  The promise of Catholic emancipation was not so easily fulfilled.  George III, believed to have been constantly on the brink of insanity, absolutely refused to permit any degree of Catholic emancipation.  In order to preserve his honor as a statesman, Pitt resigned; but the Irish Catholics had to wait thirty years and once again threaten revolt before they received their promised emancipation.  The Union Jack became a stigma of political treachery, not a symbol of union.  The seeds of political discontent were sewn.

Approximately one hundred years later, the English were once again at war on the European continent.  The cabinet was formed by coalition and definitely not of homogeneous thought, and the Irish again threatened revolt.  Ireland, except for the Ulster counties, was determined to achieve home rule.  John Redmond~ leader of the Irish Party in parliament, was set on winning self-government by supporting the British cause of defeating Germany.  Much to the annoyance of his fellow countrymen, whom he did not consult, Redmond pledged Ireland's loyalty and her resources to England.  Many Irishmen served England faithfully, but many did not.  ~s their predecessors had sought Spanish or French aid, Irishmen desiring home rule looked upon the German aggressors as a potential ally.

In all previous wars, the Irish had thrown their hats in the air and hustled off, as many of them as could, to join Britain's enemies.  It was tradition to do so and good Irish patriotism.  Any enemy of Britain's was a friend of Ireland's, and when the Irish regiments of the British Army were embarking for the Boer War, they cheered the Boers whom they were going to South Africa to fight. (2  Wibberly)

Irishmen, in fact, did seek German aid.  Even with Sir Roger Casement as their primary advocate, the actual assistance received was minimal.  The major resistance to the British came from within Ireland in the form of Sinn Feiners, a de facto appendage of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.  Sinn Fein in Gaelic meant "ourselves alone" and that is precisely what its members desired.  While Redmond worked for a negotiated transition to home rule, the Sinn Feiners prepared for a turnover of a more radical nature.  Sinn Fein's best recruiters were not members of the movement per se, but dissident members of Redmond's National Volunteers. The will to resist British rule was as strong in this group as it was in any other Irish society dedicated to the same cause; however, it was the actions of these dissident Nationalists that distinguished them.  Their leaders were Padraic Pearse and James Connolly, and their most provocative action was known as the Easter Rebellion.  The rebellion was scheduled for Easter Sunday 1916, but shortly before the time designated for its execution, Sir Roger Casement and a supply of German arms were intercepted by the British.  An attempt to cancel the rebellion was made, but through thoroughly decentralized communications, the revolt was attempted one day late, henceforth known as Easter Monday.  British intelligence sources concluded that nothing more than a demonstration would take place on that historic weekend.  They were wrong.

When James Connolly stepped out of Liberty Hall just before noon on Easter Monday~ he was smartly dressed in a uniform becoming his rank.  The Headquarters Group, on the other hand, might have startled a conventional observer.  There was a small detachment from the Irish Citizens Army, but its members were not all clothed in the Army's dark green uniform, far from it; nor were all or nearly all the Irish Volunteers in the group wearing their heather green.  Uniforms were always in short supply   Most men had merely bandoliers, and brassards:  and for arms they displayed a curious panoply--old German Mausers from Howth or rifles or a more ancient make of shotguns or pickaxes or pikes.  Such was the headquarters of a revolutionary army which set out to confront the British Empire.  (3  Dangerfield)

Pearse and Connolly enjoyed success for a period of one week, at the end of which, his headquarters surrendered.  Pearse and fourteen of the revolt's leaders were executed.  To a nation at war with Germany, these harsh actions were simply pragmatic.  The Irish populace had a different perspective.

In short, the swift and savage suppression of the rebellion! which was followed by the arrest of several hundred people on dubious evidence, did what Padraic Pearse, a tenth century bard living in the twentieth century, failed to do.  It united the Irish in militant hatred of Britain.  Pearse's Easter morning rebellion was attributed by the British government to the Sinn Fein movement--that somewhat pacific nationalist organization which had attempted to present the wonder of Irish-grown tobacco to the world.

Sinn Feiners accepted the accusation readily and proudly. People who were not Sinn Feiners became Sinn Feiners.  An organization which sought Irish independence by legal methods became a militant force.  And it found a leader in a strange man with the monstrously un-Irish name of de Valera.  (4  Wibberly)

Born in New York City in 1883~ De Valera was the son of a Spanish father and an Irish mother.  During the Easter rebellion he hand commanded a battalion of activists involved in minor skirmishes.  Of the fifteen primary leaders of the revolt, only he was not executed, and that was due to his American citizenship.  Initially sentenced to death, that judgment was commuted to life imprisonment, and then because of the unpopular sentiment aroused in the United States over the handling of the prisoners, he was released after only a year's incarceration.  De Valera returned to Ireland a hero and emerged before the British as a leader of the Irish cause.  The general election of 1918 sealed the doom of Redmond's constitutionalist policy by overwhelmingly electing the Sinn Feiners. This mandate had been foreshadowed by the rejection caused by Unionist opposition in the coalition cabinet to an agreement between Redmond and Lloyd George which would have granted immediate home rule to Ireland with the exception of the six Ulster counties.  The Sinn Feiners elected were pledged to sit in a parliament in Dublin, but never in Westminster.  While the Sinn Feiners did attempt to set up a parliament in Dublin, the actual importance of their election was as a symbol of national resolve and as such those not in hiding or in jail, renewed their declaration of independence.  The arena of conflict had forever been changed from the British Parliament to the Irish streets.

Both the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood, and the military commander at Dublin House, General Sir Nevil Macready, believed that only harsh methods would win the fight against what they termed treason and murder.  This punitive attitude prevailed and resulted in the recruitment of two quasi-military police forces.  One was a large unit of former British soldiers who served as constables.  This unit was not, as once proclaimed, the sweepings of English prisons; the soldiers, in fact, had been carefully screened.  Even so, their military demobilization had not removed the painful scars of participating in a world war, and their experience in that realm of world-wide, but conventional combat did not prepare them for their mission much closer to home.  This detachment was outfitted in khaki tunics, breeches, puttees, large tam-o'-shanter bonnets, belts, bandoliers, and holsters of black leather.  The members of the unit, eventually numbering twelve thousand₇ acquired the colloquial name of Black and Tans, which was derogatory in that this was also the name of a well known pack of fox hounds in Limerick County.  (5  Asprey)

The other unit was the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary.  Known as Auxies,  this unit eventually numbered about fifteen hundred men, most of whom were former British officers who wore their uniforms without rank.  Later they wore dark green and khaki uniforms and were organized into one hundred man "shock companies."   While both the Auxiliary Division and the Black and Tans engaged in bitter fighting; it was the Black and Tans alone that acquired notoriety.

Neither group was trained in counter-insurgency operations, and from the start they presented easy targets to the Irish "terrorists."  In attempting to flush out the Sinn Feiners, their heavy hands often fell innocent civilians; moreover, the British government inadvertently sanctioned this sort of action by emergency legislation enacted in July 1920.  The bill approached attainder and was known by its dissenters in Parliament as the "revival of the Star Chamber."  It gave wide powers to the military command to arrest and imprison without trial, to try civilians by court martial, and to hold witnesses in custody for failing to produce evidence.  Macready pleaded with the British government for the authority to declare martial law, and in 1921 his request was granted.  In effect, the British government had lifted all restraints on the forces occupying Ireland, and those forces, especially the Black and Tans, exercised little in the way of self-restraint.  The British government, in an attempt to quickly resolve this conflict, had permitted the operating forces, which were not trained for this sort of combat! to enact their own rules of engagement

One of the earliest incidents involving the Black and Tans occurred when a Royal Irish Constabulary officer was shot and killed in Limerick. Within an hour of his death. twenty to thirty Black and Tans, many of whom were well inebriated, began destroying houses of local residents. Destruction was arbitrary and regard for military necessity was abandon. The drunken avengers had no well defined enemy force from which to exact retribution.  They rationalized that all Irishmen were "shinners'¹ in order to avoid the confusion, more appropriately the frustration, of distinguishing the enemies of England from those bystanders involved only by geographical coincidence.  The ensuing actions resulted in one Black and Tan Casualty, and that was from friendly fire.  A veteran of both the first world war and the Boer War, he was killed by mistake by one of his own comrades as the residents of Limerick offered no resistance; however, the casualties accrued by the Black and Tans were far more damaging than this singular victim.  Standing operating procedures had evolved from frustration and inebriation and not from the calculating minds of once professional soldiers.

A second major incident took place in the town of Balbriggan.  The triggering event for this second rampage was the shooting of the Head Constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary while he was in a hotel at Balbriggan.  The news quickly reached Gormanstown which was a Black and Tan Stronghold only three miles away.  Upon their arrival, the Black and Tans smashed in the door of a public house, seized a large quantity of liquor, and proceeded to burn what hand not been "confiscated."  The pattern of reprisal was again arbitrary, but on a much larger scale than the incident at Limerick.

The pattern which emerged from conflicts involving the Black and Tans was a simple one.  First there was provocation₇ then there was reprisal.  The factor which distinguished the Irish combatants from those of the English was the target population.  The Irish of course, had the simpler task in avoiding injuries to noncombatants for the simple reason that this aggregate was composed of Irishmen indigenous to the battlefield.  A member of a British occupying force was a likely target for rebel attacks.  It was considered a rather conventional hazard of the occupation.  On the other hand, any Irishman was a probable target for the Black and Tans, regardless of where the victim's loyalties rested.  At no other time in history, hand England's government permitted such a disregard for innocent, civilian life; even during the intense fighting of the Boer War--which was far from conventional--Kitchner's forces exercised a positive degree of professional, soldierly restraint.  Unable to identify an enemy which easily identified and engaged the Black and Tans, this organization sacrificed its military discipline in the name of preserving order.

The Black and Tans had acquired an ironic reputation for preserving order.  When it was announced that some of them would be stationed at Drogheda (the scene of Oliver Cromwell's Irish Massacres), mill owners checked their fire fighting equipment and the local Royal Irish Constabulary refused to work with their "reinforcements."  Nevertheless, the Black and Tans made their presence known upon their arrival.

DROGHEDA BEWARE

              If in the vicinity a policeman is shot, five of the leading Sinn Feiners will be shot.

It is not coercion-it is an eye for an eye. We are not drink-maddened savages as we have been described in the Dublin rags.  We are not out for loot.

We are inoffensive to women.  We are as humane as other Christians, but we have restrained ourselves too long.

Are we to lie down while our comrades are being shot in by the corner boys and ragamuffins of Ireland?

We say "never," and all the inquiries in the world will not stop our desire for revenge.

Stop the shooting of police, or we will lay low every house that smells of Sinn Fein.

Remember Balbriggan.

                                                            (By Order)  Black and Tans (6  Bennett)

The actions taken by the Black and Tans not only enraged the Irish, but a majority of the English population as well.  Few on either side were as upset by the conflict as they were by the way in which that conflict was conducted.  The English population was no more accustomed to fighting an invisible enemy than were the men they sent to conquer them; and with this conflict much closer to home, England faced the loss of national resolve.  In 1921, the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned both the violent tactics of the Irish and the British reprisals.  Speaking in the House of Lords! he summarized the dilemma "You cannot justifiably punish wrong-doing by lawlessly doing the like.  Not by calling the Devil will you cast out devilry."   (7 Asprey) Lloyd George had likewise recognized and voiced the dilemma, "I recognize that force is itself no remedy, and that reason and goodwill alone can lead us to the final goal.  But to abandon the use of force today would be to surrender alike to violence, crime and separatism, and that I am not prepared to do."  (8 Asprey)  By the spring of 1921 George had made a retreat forward  by authorizing an increase in the forces deployed to Ireland.  In a strictly tactical sense, he reinforced failure instead of pursuing another avenue of approach. (9)

Strength settled nothing.  Irish terrorists, British reprisals, and sporadic but intensive violence continued to plague the Irish hope of a sovereign and benevolent homeland.  Likewise, ineffective British police actions and aroused public opinion impeded the government's quest to restore the Union.  Britain's coalition cabinet was still composed of a substantial number of strong-willed Unionist who apparently would succumb to nothing short of total victory.  By the late spring of 1921, the cabinet had privately concluded that the only way to ensure victory was to raise an additional 100,000 troops and special police.  These forces would cover the whole of Southern Ireland with barbed wire and blockhouses₇ then they would proceed to sweep through the entire country and capture every Irish insurgent.  The strategy worked once before in the Boer War and to the cabinet it appeared a feasible means to achieve victory.  However, "wiser heads pointed out that British public opinion would topple any government suggesting such a move." (10 Asprey)

In July 1921, the British government realized that a reversal in policy on its own part was the only method acceptable to both the Irish and to the English public which would stop the fighting.  Subsequently, the government proposed to the Sinn Feiners what could have become law in 1914.  Ireland was offered a treaty which granted it dominion status in the Empire, one such as that which existed in Canada.  By December of that year the treaty had been signed and Britain quickly withdrew its forces and over one hundred twenty years of some degree of Anglo-Irish conflict had officially ended.  Peace in Ireland, however, lasted only for a short time.  Factions split over the treaty and otherwise divided, mainly by North-South geographical boundaries, and resumed the fighting in the only manner in which they had ever achieved success.  What ensued was an Irish civil war governed once again by the unrestricted rules of this brand of warfare.  England failed in its effort to enforce unity on the British Island and Ireland continued its domestic struggle with increased bloodshed.

To hold one adversary or the other responsible for the Anglo-Irish conflict is at best questionable and really not the focus of this examination.  The success or failure of the means employed by the belligerent factions to achieve their respective objectives is quite ascertainable.  In the case of the British government's use of the Black and Tans to compel Irish subjugation, the inability to locate and destroy the enemy force without arbitrary destruction ultimately destroyed the discipline of the force sent to accomplish this task.  The Black and Tans were composed of the same high caliber men which defeated Germany in the First World War, yet they could not contend with what Clausewitz termed "second rate troops."  The frustrated actions of this force did not simply fail, they served as a catalyst in developing an insurmountable will in the force whom they were to subjugate.

The politics of this polycentric world deny the United States the isolationist position which it sought well into the 20^th century.  The national interest no longer resides solely within our borders and when diplomacy fails to protect what is deemed vital to that interest, military intervention is often the mandated course of action.  We maintain well equipped and well disciplined active and reserve forces which could respond to any military threat.  But have we subscribed to Clausewitz's dogma of war and politics too long?  How much longer will the national focus of military effort remain on winning a re-enactment of World War II. Grenada was an anomaly in the midst of third world insurgencies and Desert Storm returned us the comfort  of defining policy and doctrine for conventional warfare.   Daily acts of terrorism and the infiltration of our borders by a cartel which defies nations with impunity are clear indicators of the battlefield of our future.  If we are to seriously consider the use of military force in defending our national interest against any of these threats, we must first learn from the failures of the British in Ireland and our own failures in Vietnam.  The force which we commit must be trained to locate these enemies which cannot be seen, must be prepared to apply the principle of military necessity when engaging an enemy integrated among noncombatants,  and must be prepared to fight a protracted war without alienating the indigenous population or forsaking our own national resolve.  Let's learn from the historical failures of the Black and Tans and not from our own future reenactment of their unfocussed combat.

Thus a victorious army wins its victories before seeking battle; an army destined to defeat fights in the hope of winning.       SUN TZU

NOTES

1  Sir David Lindsay Keir, The Constitutional History of Modern Britain since 1945 (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 1966), p.

380-381.

2 Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberly, The Trouble with the Irish (or the English, depending on your point of view) (New York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1956), p. 227

3  George Danger4ield, The Danmable Question:  A study in Anglo-Irish Relations (Boston:  Little, Brown & Company, 1976), p.161-163.

4  Wibberly, p. 231

5  Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows:  the Guerilla in History (New York:  Doubleday and Company Inc., 1975) p. 276

6  Richard Bennett, The Black and Tans (London:  E. Hulton & Co. LTD) p. 98-99

7    Asprey, p. 278

8    Asprey, p. 278

9  A "retreat forward" is part of a concept of social theory known as drift.  Such a "retreat" occurs when an individual (or aggregate) limits his choices to such an extent that it is easier or perceived to be easier to simply continue with his previous behavior than it is to deviate from the established pattern--even though the individual may be headed on a course which he knows will not be successful.

         

10      Asprey, p. 278

Bibliography

Arnstein, Walter L.  Britain Yesterday and Today:  1830 to Present. Lexington:    D.C. Heath & Company, 1976.

Asprey, Robert B.  War in the Shadows:  the Guerrilla in History.  New York:     Doubleday and Company Inc., 1975.

Bell, J. Bowyer  The Secret Army:  The I.R.A. 1916-1970.  New York:  The John Day Co., 1970.

Bennet, Richard.  The Black and Tans.  London:  E. Hulton & Co., LTD, 195

Bourke, Marcus.  John O'Leary:  A Study in Irish Separatism.  Athens, Ga.:  University of Georgia Press, 1967

Brinton, Crane.  The Anatomy of Revolution.  New York:  Random House, 1965.

Bromage, Mary C.  De Valera and the March of a Nation.  London:  Hutchinson, 1956.

Clausewitz, Carl von.  On War.  Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1976.

Collins, Michael.  The Path to Freedom.  Dublin:  The Talbot Press Limited, 1922.

Dangerfield, George.  The Damnable Ouestion:  A Study in Anglo-Irish

Relations.  Boston:  Little, Brown & Company, 1976.

Gleeson, James.  Bloody Sunday.  London:  The Windmill Press, 1962.

Inglis, Brian.  Roger Casement.  London:  Hodder & Stoughton, 1973.

Mao TseTung.  On Guerrilla Warfare.  New York:  Fredrick A. Praeger, 1962. Translation by S. B. Griffith.

Mao TseTung.  Six Essays on Military Affairs.  Peking:  Foreign Language Press, 1972.

McHugh, Roger.  Dublin 1916.  New York:  New York Hawthorne Books, Inc. 1966.

O'Connor, Frank.  Death in Dublin.  New York:  Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1937

O'Hegarty, P. 5.  A History of Ireland under the Union 1801-1922.  London:  Methyen & Co. LTD., 1952.

Rose, Richard.  Governinq without Consensus:  an Irish Perspective.  Boston:    Beacon Press, 1971.

Wibberly, Leonard Patrick O'Connor.  The Trouble with the Irish (or the English, depending on your point of view).  New York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1956.

War Stories

War Stories

 

A million men in a thousand years could not take this island.

One of the prerequisites of an expedited retrograde of allied forces at the end of the Gulf War was the emplacement of a United Nations force in Iraq and Kuwait.  In 1991, I found myself the senior Marine Officer in the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM).  I was the deputy commander in the southern sector of the DMZ.  The duty consisted of about a week to ten days in the DMZ followed by one or two days of rest in Kuwait City.  The destruction of Kuwait City during the war was significant, but not so remarkable as the speed and visibility of the post war construction and restoration.
 

I was driving to Kuwait City from the DMZ with a vehicle full of officers from other contingents.  After traveling a few miles, I asked the Indian officer seated in the front passenger position where his contingent apartment was.  He said it was near the big crane.   I replied that must be Rumaithiya.  The Russian in the back seat said that he thought it was near Salmiya, and in turn the Polish officer indicated that it was between the Third and Fourth Ring Roads.   The areas we had described were all in the same locale; however, the Indian officer repeated his request to just go to the big crane.  The atmosphere in the vehicle tensed, as it was apparent that our offerings made this officer uncomfortable.  We drove for another fifteen minutes in total silence until the Indian officer realized the temporary nature of his landmark and blurted out, “I hope they didn’t move that crane!”

 As we face the daily challenges of this world, we often become fixed upon very temporal landmarks.  This account examines two warriors that did not need a temporary landmark.  They knew where they were to go, what they were to do, and who sent them.  I will contrast their actions with both personal and historical experience in the secular world.

To begin this examination, we must move from the Desert surrounding the Wadi al Batin in Southwest Asia to the desert plains of Paran about 2 years into the Exodus.  If you're keeping score at home, I'll be using chapters 13 and 14 from Numbers, chapters 5, 6, and 15 from Joshua, chapters 19 and 21 from Revelation, and 1 John 2:17

God told Moses, send out one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to explore Canaan--the land that I am giving to the Israelites.  So at the LORD's command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.  There was one leader from each of 12 tribes on what today we would call a long range patrol of 40 days.  We will focus on two of them:   Caleb from the tribe of Judah, son of Jephunneh; and Hoshea from the tribe of Ephraim, son of Nun.

All 12 returned  and reported that this was truly a land of milk and honey, but ten of the twelve were very concerned because the land was occupied by powerful people, fortified cities, and even giant people.  Then it's written that Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."  Other dynamic translations are more along the lines of  we should attack now for we will surely conquer. 

But ten of the others said it was impossible.  "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."  They were convinced that those in the land were invincible.

Again Caleb stood in opposition to the group and replied, "That dog don't hunt."  Okay, that's a paraphrase.  He said, "do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them."  If you want to translate this from the desert plains of Paran to the page in front of you, it reads God is bigger than the problem that you perceive. 

But still ten of the leaders said it couldn't be done and spread dissent among the Israelites.  In fact, there was such dissent that many  wanted to go back to what they believed was the protection of slavery in Egypt.  They argued that at least they wouldn't be slaughtered and their families plundered.  At least they would be fed.  Only two of these twelve stood ready to execute the will of God.  They were Caleb and Hoshea, and  Moses had another name for Hoshea.  He liked to call him Joshua. 

I'll briefly transition to a time and place a little closer to home:  the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina or boot camp.   This is where I found myself in the early 1980s.   As a series commander, drill instructors would come to me and tell me which recruits were not ready to go on to the next phase of training.  I generally had a couple choices in these matters.  I could treat them like a batter that watched three strikes down the middle of the plate, and say thanks for coming, and send them home.  If I thought they might still be able to become a Marine, I could recycle them back to the start of training.  Several welcomed the ticket home.  Just as many were glad to get another chance.  From a leadership and training perspective, these were fairly routine decisions.  Then came this kid whom I will call Heart.  That wasn't his name, but he had a lot of it.

Heart caught everyone's attention right away.  He was obviously too short l to get in.  This kid appeared to be just over four feet tall when he stood on the yellow footprints with the other newly arrived recruits.   He was, of course, a little taller than what he appeared, but still below the minimum height standard and should have never got past his recruiter's desk.  Even if the recruited fudged the paper work, Heart's height had to be obvious at the medical examination.  But there he was and I didn't have the heart to send him home without giving him a chance.  He struggled through boot camp, but he had the heart of a Marine, and it looked like he would graduate.  Now he was my problem for I surely couldn't send this kid to the infantry.  As an infantry officer I knew what I carried on my back and what my Marines carried.   Having conducted some additional studies on the individual mobility of infantrymen in the Marine Corps and the Army, I tell you that the average weight a Soldier or Marine carries is 118 pounds.  It's more if you go to  a cold weather area, and it continues to grow with our modern, man-portable technology.   Laser designators, global positioning systems, rangefinders, and other equipment is frequently piled on the backs of our front line fighters until they resemble pack mules.    So I talked to the classification people and told them, give him anything but the infantry.  They found one open slot in motor transport, and I said give it to him.  We will make him a truck driver and if he can just see over the steering wheel, he might survive four years in the Marine Corps.  All appeared to be well with Heart until a week before graduation, when the Marine Corps does what it often does and reassigns new Marines based upon the needs of the Marine Corps.    The Marine Corps needed grunts and Heart was assigned to the infantry.  When I told Heart what had happened, he wasn't concerned.  He said that he just wanted to be a Marine and whatever else we assigned him after that was just fine.  He had seen our poster that said, "We never promised you a rose garden" and had bought the whole package.  At least in his mind, all was well. 

All was well until the day before graduation.  On this next to the last day of recruit training,  recruits get liberty on base.  That is, they can go where they want to on the Depot without a drill instructor screaming in their ear.  It gives parents, relatives, and friends a chance to visit with someone that will become a Marine the following day.  That afternoon, Heart's senior drill instructor came to my office holding up a bag of Peanut M & Ms and said, "You'll never guess what Heart brought back to the squadbay."   After many years of affinity for my native language, a fairly rigorous writing curriculum in college, and some early success in writing contests and publication; I recognized this immediately as a rhetorical question.  What followed was not.  The DI asked me, "what do we do about it?"  Bringing candy--pogey bait--back to the barracks is a violation of an order.  Recruits are told not to do it.  On the other hand, it falls just a little bit short of being  a general court martial offense.  I told the drill instructor that I would handle it and there is a technical term for what I did that I'll mention later.  I told the DI to have Heart come see me.

Heart reported to me and I told him that after being on Parris Island for three months, he still did not have the discipline to become a Marine and that I was recycling him to the first day of training.  I took him across the grinder and left him with another drill instructor that I knew.  The DI looked at Heart and told him to clean the hut, the hut being the small drill instructor office in the squadbay.  I came back that evening and found him still cleaning the small office.  The drill instructor was also in the office and had removed his DI cover--the Smokey Bear type hat that is the symbol of the drill instructor's authority.  The cover was on the small desk in the office.  Heart saw me and stood at attention, but his eyes betrayed him.  He did not expect to see me again. I then asked him if he wanted to graduate with his original platoon, to which he replied:  YSSSRR!  When translated from recruit into English, this means yes sir.  I looked at the DI cover sitting on the desk and looked back at Heart and said, "smash it." 

 At this point it is appropriate to discuss something called existential risk.  Existential risk simply defined is a risk to your existence.  In ever simpler terms, you might call it danger.  In the training and consulting business, nobody pays you to talk about danger, so we talk about existential risk.  At this point, Heart should have logically examined the danger in the situation, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, he was jumping past me in mid-air with his fist raised over his head.   He slammed his fist down on that old gray government desk and every drawer rattled.  The DI had pulled his cover off the desk a fraction of a second before Heart's fist came down.  Heart looked up at the DI wondering if he had misperceived the existential risk, then looked at me.  I just said, go graduate.   He was out the door and headed back to his platoon before the DI could say a word.  Actually, it was a few minutes before the DI could say anything because his jaw was in his chest, his heart in his stomach, his eyes were as wide as baseballs, and he was clutching his DI cover like a teddy bear.  I said that there was a technical term for the manner in which I handled this.  That term is hazing.  It is unlawful to haze recruits aboard the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, but in this case it was the drill instructor on the receiving end.  From time to time they deserve a dose of their own medicine.

Heart had only three months invested in becoming a Marine, but did not hesitate even when he should have perceived some danger.  The nation of Israel stood on the verge of entering the Promised Land, and they lost their nerve.  This was a nation that had been delivered from slavery in Egypt by miracle after miracle, had crossed a parted Red Sea, and had seen that same sea engulf the Pharaoh's army.  This was a nation that should have known nothing could stand in their way, but they were not ready to execute the will of God.  Did God lead them into the Promised Land?  Not then.  He recycled them, not for three months or three years, but for another 38 years.

 The significance of forty years is that the warriors of the generation that lost its nerve were pretty much gone.  Their sons had taken their place.  There were still a couple of old timers left:  Caleb and Joshua.  Joshua was now leading his people and he stood ready to execute the will of the Lord.  Now forty years later, Joshua is ready to lead his nation into the land that God promised.

There was one minor obstacle.  It was the Jordan River.  On any given day, this river isn't much to speak of, but at flood stage, it presents a challenge even to modern military engineering.  Joshua was not concerned.  He was told to lead with the Ark of the Covenant and as the Ark was carried into the river, the waters stopped and walled up behind the Ark.  Joshua led his armies across the Jordan River on dry land. 

Now the Israelites are camped on the plains of Jericho and Joshua is walking the perimeter of the camp.  He is probably thinking about how he will attack the fortified city of Jericho.  Perhaps he's thinking that he will attack from the north with two tribes worth of warriors.  This would be the supporting attack, designed to fix the enemy on their northern wall.  With the sun at their backs, he will envelope with four tribes from the east, while sending one tribe each to the south and west to deny egress.  With a reserve of four tribes he will exploit the first weakness he finds and destroy the city.  As Joshua continues his trek around his camp, he encounters a man with a sword drawn.  And like a good military man he  challenges him.  Today, we would say HALT!  Who goes there!  Joshua asked something similar:  Are you for us or for our enemies?

And what was the reply of the man with the drawn sword?

The man with the drawn sword replied, I AM THE COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF GOD!

Now there is an officer with some seniority.  Who is the commander of the Army of God?  I believe that you find your answer in Revelation 19:11.

11            I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.12            His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.
13            He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.
14            The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.
15            Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
16            On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

At one point in history, Martin Luther led an effort to remove two books from the New Testament.  One of them was Revelation.  He believed that it was just too hard to understand.  These verses seem pretty straight forward.  The commander of the Army of God is Jesus Christ.  Joshua fell on his face before him and took off his sandals because he was on Holy Ground.

Is this just a cameo appearance by Jesus in the Old Testament?  I don't think so.  The commander of the Army of God was there to deliver the battle plans to Joshua.  Now these plans would be a little unorthodox in today's military strategy.   What was Joshua told to do?  March around the wall of Jericho for six days behind the Ark of the Covenant without so much as a single battle cry.  Then on the seventh day, on the seventh time around the walls, on the long blast of the rams horn--all the people would shout and attack the city!

Did Joshua go back to his people and say, you're not going to believe this crazy plan?  No!  Joshua was ready to go into the Promised Land forty years ago and he conveyed the orders of his Commander as if they were his own.  Joshua's men marched silently behind the Ark of the Covenant for 6 days, then circled the city seven times on the seventh day and at the long blast of the Ram's horn they shouted.  The people were led by a warrior who was ready to follow the will of God, and the walls came tumbling down. The city and everyone in it was destroyed, except for Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house.  They were spared because she had hidden and given safe egress to the Israelite spies that were sent earlier.

You might think that's pretty much the story of the Israelites claiming the land that God had promised.  That's not exactly the case.  There were some ensuing battles and I will focus on those in support of the second warrior that I promised to address.    Remember Caleb, who 40 years earlier stood with Joshua in telling Moses and the leaders of the other tribes that they should go into the Promised Land.  This is the same Caleb who had been a slave in Egypt.  This was a Caleb who was probably about 85 years old.  This is the same Caleb, who from the tribe of Judah could have his choice of the Promised Land.  Caleb chose  a stretch of land extending up to the hill country called Hebron, and it was occupied by a people that induced fear into the Israelites forty years earlier.

I'm certain that none of Caleb's contemporaries would have faulted him for selecting a territory already subdued, or at least one less hostile.  Nobody doubted his mettle.  He had fought in every battle and today would have surely had a chest full of medals, but Caleb would have none of it.  He was going to take the land that he believed God had promised to his people, and in the fifteenth chapter of Joshua we know that he did just that.   Those warriors of the people feared by so many perished or fled as Caleb's army advanced into the land.

After the Israelites have claimed all of their land, I can visualize Joshua and Caleb sitting in the Promised Land Officers Club, probably with a glass of wine to go along with their daily ration of milk and honey.  They sit alone and the younger officers occupy another part of the officers club.  They are alone because their conversation is boring.  They just sit there shaking their heads and saying to each other, "you know, we should have been here 40 years ago."  While this scene has no scriptural basis; the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua do tell us that Caleb followed the Lord in a certain way.  He followed wholeheartedly.  Caleb saw the same things that the others had seen forty years earlier, but his only concern was on doing the will of God.  He was not focused on what were perceived as obstacles.  He was concerned with doing what he was told to do.

Again, I want to transition to a time much closer to the present day.  For some younger readers, this too will seem like ancient history, but to every Marine, it is a time etched forever into our tradition.  During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Commander had boasted that a million men in a thousand years still could not take the island atoll of Tarawa.  On 20 November 1943, United States Marines set out to prove him wrong.  Tarawa was the bloodiest battle of the war for Americans with 1500 Marine casualties on the first day of the assault.  Of the thousands of Japanese that defended the island, fewer than 200 were alive at the end of 23 November 1943. 

After the battle, the Marine Generals were asked if the assault were worthwhile.  To a man,  they said no.  Tarawa did not have the strategic significance of the other islands in the Pacific campaign and should have been bypassed.  They were forced to follow the poorly thought out orders of their seniors in Washington.  Tarawa was not just heavily defended; it was also protected by a barrier reef that kept the amphibious tractors from reaching the beach.  Wave after wave of Marines were exposed to gunfire with no hope of cover as they waded in these last few hundred yards of ocean.  Many of the follow-on waves found a sea of bodies and of blood as they continued their attack.  These Marines continued forward, not because they were recapturing American soil and not because this small island atoll was essential to the Pacific Campaign.  Other islands were bypassed without hindrance to the Island Hoping Campaign.  There was no good reason to attack Tarawa.  The island defended so well that a million men in a thousand years could not take it could have been bypassed, except that the Marines were told to take it.  The Marines had no good reason to fight and die in taking this island.  They simply did as they were told.

The Israelites had every good reason to enter the Promised Land when they first arrived on the plains of Paran.  They had personally witnessed God's miracles in support of their exodus from Egypt.   Of the hundreds of thousands of Israelites, only Caleb and Joshua had the warrior's heart that was ready to do the will of God.  This brings us once again to the question of existential risk.  When we bring this question down to the personal level, it simply asks one thing.  Where is the safest place that you can be?
 

There is only one answer to this basic question.  The safest place that you can be is in the will of God.  His will may send you across the street to witness to a neighbor, or it may send you all the way across town to spread the good news.  The will of God may even send you half-way around the world to bear arms or to bear witness, but the safest place you can be is in the will of God.

At this point, some of you might be convinced that I was a few bricks short when I left the Marine Corps.  There are some places God may tell you to go where there is real physical danger.  In some of those places, people shoot at you.  Let me put this definition of safety in the context of eternity by looking at Revelation 21:8.

            But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

But the cowardly!  What kind of deal is that?  This perspective shoots a lot of holes in a plan that is centered on accepting Jesus as savior, then going to lock yourself in your room until you die and go to heaven or get raptured.  God expects us to do more than seek our own salvation.  He expects us to do His will and not be deceived by the things of this world.  Much like the warriors of the secular world, we must recognize our fears and overcome them.  Many seek cover behind the argument that their faith is a personal thing, but we are called to make it very interpersonal.  We are called to be over-comers.  We are called to follow God wholeheartedly and find eternal safety in His will.


 
            The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

I John 2:17 (NIV)

Are we going to war in Libya?

Is the talk of the day really about attacking Libya?

It seems to be.

The thinking is that if the U.S. were to impose or lead a coalition to impose a no-fly zone in the country ruled with an iron hand by Moammar Gadhafi for decades, it must first be preceded by an air campaign to knock out command and control capability and the ability to retaliate against enforcers of the no-fly zone.  To simply attempt to impose a no-fly zone without this preparatory step is to offer the Libyan Air Force a chance to engage in a more even fight.

Where did these no-fly zone requests come from?

Somewhat anonymous requests offered up by random, or perhaps more accurately by media hungry individuals among the rebels, seem to be generating action in our nation’s capital.

But to what extreme is the United States willing to respond?

To whom would we be responding?

What criteria do we have to make this decision?

Would we not be initiating an act of war that is not directly tied to a recent provocation?  In the 1980’s I was aboard the USS Saipan as we joined other US warships to cross the line of death in the Gulf of Sidra and thumb our collective noses at Gadhafi in hopes of provoking him into attacking any part of the US Fleet just so we would have a good reason to wipe his administration off the map.  But what are we responding to in 2011?

Granted, the world would probably be a better place without mush-for-brains Gadhafi in it.  Yes, in another context, I would use a more descriptive term than mush, but do we once again put our troops in harm’s way to remove this idiot?

What is in our national interest?  Today, that phrase is sometimes interchangeable with the word oil.  The interesting thing is that many don’t even bat an eye anymore that we would spill American blood to stabilize the price at the pump.

For over sixty years, we have wrestled with the question:  Are we the world’s policemen?

We have yet to develop a coherent policy to guide us through this recurring quagmire.  When do we exert the military might of this once peaceful nation and when do we let things run their course?

If American armed forces are called, they will respond with professionalism and selflessness.  Every U.S. commander is ready to lead his unit into battle but is also prayerful that those who issue the call to arms are judicious with our most precious military asset—our service men and women.  We as the American Electorate need to be more vocal with our leaders as to when we are willing to spill the blood of these men and women.

This is a call for our land of the free and home of the brave to pause, pray, and listen to the Almighty before we jump in just because we can.

It may be the right thing to do.  It may be the humanitarian thing to do.  It may be best for our national interest, but let’s wrestle with that question before we commit to battle.

Battlefield orders for Christians...