Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sent The Weekly Standard an email commenting on a recent video depicting what appears to be four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban terrorists. The email reads as follows [emphases added]:
I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.
All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?
The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.
As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.
Not in this country, but I have been through war when I was 11 years old (Nicaraguan revolution), when I was 12 years old (Initial Nicaraguan Contra War), and when I was 15 years old (Nicaraguan Military Service and Iran/Contra conflict). I hate Politics for the loss of many of my friends and family and I hate weapons for it as well. I saw and experienced first hand what many here would consider an atrocity or better said; the Devil's work. I , as a child had a gun inside my throat at one point or another and can tell you that I gladly did what those Marines did to the corps of those that knowingly committed atrocities as well. As of today, my son is in the Army, he served in Iraq, is now going back to Texas to get ready to go where his next orders will send him and he knew what war did mentally to people as I explained to him many times over and over, and I say: "AMEN!" to that quote!
