"In a war that few take note of, they soldier on" by Kevin Cullen | Globe Columnist, March 05, 2013
Army Staff Sergeant Greg Pizzute left his wife and three daughters the other day and boarded a plane that took him to a god forsaken part of Afghanistan, hard by the Pakistan border. The Tangi Valley is where he will spend the next nine months, his third combat tour in five years.
He is not complaining, because he is a soldier, a leader of men, and this is what he does. But this war has gone on so long, at so much cost, and with so few Americans invested in it, that Greg Pizzute’s story needs to be told if only that we all pause and put aside our petty distractions and remember that we have consigned a generation of brave and honorable young people to war without end....
Whose we?
“The Taliban are so different from Al Qaeda,” he said. “They are much more respected where we’re going, so much part of the social fabric. The Iraqis didn’t like Al Qaeda because they saw them for what they are. The Taliban, in Afghanistan, have been fighting, in one form or another, for 2,000 years and they’ve never been defeated. The Taliban have much more influence over villagers, through intimidation or outright violence, or just the ability to influence people who have no access to the Internet or the outside world by claiming that Americans are horrible people. You go into a village and think you have a rapport with the elders, and the next day you’re blown up.”
Related: Occupation Iraq: Divide and Conquer
Yeah, the Iraqis did see "Al-CIA-Duh" for what it is.
Pizzute’s antidote to the Taliban is not complicated.
“I treat people the way I want to be treated,” he said. “With respect. I will respect their traditions and values, their culture. I just want the same in return.”
He is under no illusions. On this tour, which is supposed to be one of the last of this interminable war, he needs to worry as much about his avowed allies as his avowed enemies. Green on blue, they call it, when a member of the Afghan national police or army turn on their American trainers.
“We just need to keep an eye open,” Pizzute said. “Most of the Afghans in the police and army are great guys. They want the same thing as we do. We want them to do well. We want them to take responsibility for the security of their own country. For me, it’s important that we complete this mission, and leave the Afghan people with a well-trained, competent army and police force. I don’t want all my brothers who have died in combat over the last 12 years to have died for nothing.”
I asked him if he ever tallied up the numbers. The brothers who have died or lost a limb overseas or part of their mind back home.
“I don’t keep a list,” he said. “Those guys are in my heart, but they’re not in my head because I can’t think like that when I’m in a combat situation. That wouldn’t be fair to the guys in my squad. I remember one of my commanders said to me, after we got hit by an IED in Iraq, ‘You have 24 hours to be upset, and then you’re going back out.’ The best way to honor my brothers who died or got hurt is to keep my guys safe and complete the mission.”
At any given time in the last decade less than one percent of Americans served in the military, a decade of perpetual war. When is the last time you thought about the war, or the sacrifice that comes with it?
Well, I've been blogging for almost seven years and it looks like it will never be coming to an end until they shut me off, come get me, or I expire. So my answer is I have thought about it nearly every damn day even if I haven't blogged about it.
The only reason I know all this is that Greg Pizzute is my nephew. I have skin in this game. I cradled him in my arms when he was a few months old. I took him on the swan boats in the Public Garden when he was a little boy and I’ll never forget his smile when his aunt — my wife — let him sit on one of the “Make Way for Ducklings’’ statues. I worried for him in his wayward teens, and I marvel at him now, because he is everything you would want in a young man. He is a loving husband, a wonderful father. And yet he is at his core a soldier, a leader of men, and I will think of him and his squad every day for the next nine months.
I would ask that you do also. There is no doubt that those who fought fascism in the 1940s were the greatest generation.
That's interesting because I've seen Ollie Stone's "Untold History of the United States," and learned a few things (although Oliver does buy into the entire Jewish narrative regarding the Holoevent and government 9/11, although perhaps he just wanted to avoid that last battle after JFK; did make some comments that might indicate doubts, such as the "stunning collapses" of the WTC towers). He lampoon's the war media's portrayal of such things, reminding us of the years of carpet bombing of mainland Europe while under German control, and the utter destruction of Dresden; the madness of Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris; the annihilation of Japan after it was clearly beaten -- culminating in the single most monstrous war criminal acts of all history: the dropping of nuclear bombs on an already destroyed by napalm and other incendiary weapons Japan. The behavior of AmeriKan government in the final years of the Good War (the war that most threatened international banking cartels and the Jew World Order) reads as an abysmal atrocity.
But all that is forgotten in the propaganda prism of the AmeriKan war pre$$.
But these kids today, what we ask them to do, for short money and little thanks, they are pretty great themselves. We honor them by remembering that, and remembering them....
--more--"
If they would only stop spreading lies -- especially this guy who was handed an FBI script regarding the bust of Bulger and turned it into a book, as well as his invective during the Boston Marathon bombing -- maybe I would care more, and I do think carrying on this whole empire built on lies is a waste of good people all around, as well as making priority number one good, decent health care for all the vets we've poisoned with depleted uranium munitions and (that kind is okay if it makes tanks nearly invincible. What's a warped fetus in compari$on, huh? You can go get an abortion, right?
I don't want to argue anymore, I just want you to recognize what it is that I am getting on my morning news rack, dear citizen of the world.
