Coalition fatalities continue to drop, month over month, in Afghanistan. In addition, September 2010 was the first month in which fewer coalition soldiers were killed than in the same month of 2009:
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I stared at that graph for a long while, but couldn’t come up with anything other than this. I’m sure you know it:
“A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war. Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still, there are things worth fighting for”
Does Schwarzkopf go on to elucidate those things? (Also, there’s a rhetorical trick at the end — notice that he shies away from saying there are things worth killing, maiming and orphaning for. (Who could disagree that there are things worth “fighting” for?))
3 comments
October 3, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Charlieford
I stared at that graph for a long while, but couldn’t come up with anything other than this. I’m sure you know it:
“A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war. Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still, there are things worth fighting for”
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
October 3, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Vance Maverick
Does Schwarzkopf go on to elucidate those things? (Also, there’s a rhetorical trick at the end — notice that he shies away from saying there are things worth killing, maiming and orphaning for. (Who could disagree that there are things worth “fighting” for?))
October 4, 2010 at 9:34 am
Charlieford
Yeah, I know. (It’s like Ike’s farewell, giving back with one hand what the other just took away.)
Obviously, since he’s saying there are things worth fighting (wars, presumably) for, he’s saying all that is necessary too.
By posting it, I’m not saying I agree–either abstractly, or, more obviously, in any given instance.
But I guess I do agree, in the abstract.