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."
The Gruesome Battle of Sagrajas: Muslims Worship Allah Atop 2,400 Decapitated Christian Heads
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Painting of a knight helping Alfonso at Sagrajas, by Spanish painter, CL Ribera (Carlos Luís), 1845.
Raymond Ibrahim : Today in history, a battle that radical Muslims of the ISIS variety
all but venerate took place between Muslims and Christians in Spain, or
al-Andalus.
Context: in 1085, Alfonso VI of Leon-Castile captured the Muslim city
of Toledo, thereby formally initiating the Reconquista. Great was the
lamentation among Muslims and great the rejoicing among Christians. The
Muslim emirs of al-Andalus—notorious for their disunity, dissipated
lifestyles, and disinterest in jihad—had to act fast, for “the arrogance
of the Christian dogs,” to quote one Muslim, had “waxed so great.”
So they called on their fanatical coreligionists in North Africa, the
Almorivades, a sect devoted to waging jihad and enforcing sharia.
Their elderly leader was Yusuf bin Tashfin, “a wise and shrewd man,” who
had “passed the greater part of his life in his native deserts; exposed
to hunger and privation, he had no taste for the life of pleasure.”
Dressed all in black with a veil covering everything but the zeal in his
eyes, the 76-year-old sheikh accepted the invitation and entered
al-Andalus.
The Moorish emirs quickly “acknowledged his sway, hoping that he
would stop the victorious course of the infidel, and thus open, for the
prosecution of jihad, those gates which they had hitherto kept
criminally locked,” thereby “propping up the tottering edifice of Islam,
and humbling the pride of the insolent Christian.”
By October 1086, a vast coalition of thousands of Almorivades and
Andalusians, under Yusuf’s command, found themselves facing King Alfonso
and his knights at Sagrajas, near Badajoz. (Although exact numbers are
unclear, the Muslim army outnumbered the Christian one by roughly three
to one.) According to a Muslim chronicler,
When the two armies were in the presence of each other,
Yusuf wrote to Alfonso offering him one of the three [conditions]
prescribed by the law; namely, Islam, tribute, or death…. At the
receipt of this letter, the infidel was highly indignant; he flew into a
most violent passion, and returned an answer indicative of the
miserable state [of his mind].
On October 23, 1086, the Christians finally charged the frontlines of
the Muslim army, where Yusuf had placed the Andalusian emirs, while he
and his African warriors held the rear. The battle soon “became fiercer
than ever, and the furnaces of war burned with additional violence;
death exercised its fury.” As expected, it was not long before the
Moorish frontline began to crumble and retreat before the Christians who
“repeated their attacks with increasing fury.”
