Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
If there isn't a war on terror, then what exactly are our boys dying for? by Con Coughlin
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The two British soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan on Thursday died fighting for their country against a deadly and determined foe. Gereshk, the area in central Helmand where they were engaged in a night-time operation against enemy forces, is a stronghold of the Taliban, the hardline Islamist movement that is trying to overthrow the democratically elected government.
The British Army has been at war with the Taliban for more than seven years, since the latter provided a safe haven from which Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network planned the September 11 attacks against the US. Yesterday's deaths brings the total number of British fatalities to 141. Add to that the 178 British service personnel who have been killed during our six-year involvement in Iraq, and the scale of the country's commitment to fighting Islamist militants is not inconsiderable.
And yet David Miliband, our Foreign Secretary, would have us believe that we are not a nation at war, but one that is simply trying to disrupt a number of disparate terror groups. For this reason, Mr Miliband has taken exception to the use of the term "war on terror" to describe the military campaign in which young British men and women are risking their lives on an almost daily basis.
"Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology," Mr Miliband claimed in an article published in The Guardian, his newspaper of choice when it comes to making public pronouncements. "The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common." Continued here...
