[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Ed McGloin
T1: Rubyiat@Aol.com
Date: 10/31/97
Time: 1:47:06 AM
Remote Name: 152.163.207.138
How does one react to such a statement from a man who at one time was the Army Chief of Staff, Assistant NSC director, and JCS chairman. Does one condemn him for his actions and/or his rationalization of these actions. Or perhaps one feels a certain amount of empathy for his reaction to such an absurd situation. As a career army officer I surmise that he felt somewhat confused and disillusioned with the framework of the war he had to fight in. The lack of tangible enemies in the field and the lack of adequate intelligence of who is specifically the enemy might lead any normal person to the reaction exhibited by Powell. The overlay of the importance of comraderie and the loss of friends in battle seems the only unifying experience for soldiers during a war where political aims were never fully understood by many of the combat soldiers during the war. Also after a while the ignorance of many soldiers to the political goals of the war led them to a certain ambivalence to the methods of waging war as well as to an attitude of I don't know what's really going on but I'm coming home in one piece. This leads to an attitude of kill everybody that might be a VC because if I don't the one I miss might be the one who has my number.