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24/02/2005

TWO AMERICANS

Marshall Petain after the French mutinies of 1917, decided on a policy of doing nothing and waiting for 1919, tanks and the Americans. John Edwards in the recent election campaign decided on a policy of doing nothing or very little, to keep a low profile and wait for 2008, but he did speak about two Americas.
I believe he got it wrong there is only one America, but two sorts of Americans live in it.


The first is epitomised by Sgt David Salie, who left videos for his wife Deanna and his children because he had a premonition he would not return from Iraq. He was definitely the best of the best, who believed in his mission and the place of the USA in the world.

Thanks to Joseph Galloway for this:


WASHINGTON - All of America should join me in mourning the death Monday of Sgt. 1st Class David J. Salie. Sgt. Salie was killed on Valentine's Day on a mean street in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, and I'm grieving the loss of my friend along with his wife, Deanna, and their three children.


I met David Salie in 1995 in the town of Mirabalais in Haiti. He was a tall, lanky, three-stripe buck sergeant. His battalion had been sent up from Port au Prince, the capital, to do some patrolling with the Special Forces A Team that I was reporting on.


He sat down on the curb beside me and asked me what I, a civilian of advanced years, was doing in such a place. I explained that I was a reporter who covered military affairs and gave him my name. He had read my book on the Vietnam War, and he did a double take.


We sat and talked for half an hour, waiting for the commanders to get it together for a patrol into the voodoo highlands.


David told me about his jump into Panama with the 82nd Airborne Division. His company was assigned to cover a city street between two intersections that had American checkpoints on them.


A car came through one of the checkpoints, then speeded up. The troops didn't get the word that the soldiers at the checkpoint had cleared it. Someone fired the first shot, David said, then the whole company opened fire on the car.


"I could see the faces of those people in the car as the bullets began ripping it apart," David said. "I was yelling cease fire! Cease fire! But it was too late. The firepower of an entire company shot those people to pieces. They were an older couple, mother and father, rushing their pregnant daughter to the hospital to give birth to a child."


David said he'd thought long and hard after that incident, asking himself if he could continue to serve in the Army. In the end, he decided that the right thing to do was to stay in the Army and work his way up the ranks so he could train soldiers, teaching them how to avoid such costly mistakes.


He was earnest, straightforward and sincere. He remained in our Army for all the right reasons.


Now and then, out of the blue, I would receive an e-mail from Salie as he and his wife and then his kids were transferred from one Army post to another. He rose to buck sergeant, then staff sergeant and most recently sergeant first class.


His last e-mail came around Christmas. He'd lost my address, and his wife, Deanna, or Deedy, scouted around on the Internet and found it for him. He said he was on his way to a year's deployment in Iraq and wanted to let me know that.


David was in B Company, 2nd of the 69th Armor, 3rd Infantry Division. He was 34 years old - an Army brat born in Columbus, Ga., the home of Fort Benning and the home of the infantry. He grew up in Columbus and at posts all over America and the world.


Last Thursday, Feb. 10, David and his unit entered Iraq and headed for Baqouba to relieve another Army unit that had served in combat for a year.


On Monday, Feb. 14, he and others of 2/69 Armor were being given a familiarization ride around the city. David was in the backseat of a Humvee, fourth in line in the small convoy. Someone detonated an IED - an improvised explosive device - just as the fourth Humvee came along. David took the brunt of the explosion and was killed instantly. The sergeant in the front right seat was badly injured, but survived.


His wife told me that David had a premonition of his death, that he told her two months ago he felt that he would not be coming home alive.


Deanna said, "We spent eight and a half beautiful years together. He was and will always be the love of my life. To be honest with you, I don't know how I will live without him. I don't know how to do that. How do you live when the very thing that makes your heart beat and makes you lungs take in air is gone? I don't know how. I wish someone could tell me that."


They had three children, Chyna, 11, Deanna's child from a previous marriage whom David adopted, Luke, 6, and Hunter, 2. David carried a photo of the three of them and said: "That's what I am fighting for."


There will be a memorial service for Sgt. 1st Class David J. Salie at Fort Benning on Tuesday and a funeral in Columbus on Wednesday.


He was the best of the best that our country has to offer. All America should mourn his loss.


---




And the other type the worst of the worst:

Ward Churchill, author "Chickens come home to roost"

Chum Chicken, Chum neck, chum nerve, chum insulting bastard with apologies to a great man Winston Churchill.


He said the theme of his essay and a later book was that the United States has been involved in violating international law and killing innocents and should not be surprised that some people would want to kill Americans -- the "chickens coming home to roost," as his essay is titled.
He argued that the World Trade Center could be considered a legitimate target because it is a symbol of the financial power that allows the United States to flex its military might.
He said if you read his essay, he called the "technicians" in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who actually did not kill any Jews but made it possible for the trains to run on time and for the Holocaust to take place.
It's obvious, Churchill said, that he did not mean to say children, janitors, firefighters and innocent bystanders were part of that group. Instead, he said, he was referring to investment bankers and others who make the killing of innocents by the U.S. military and U.S. policy possible.


Some things are so stupid that they have to be taught and explained by university professors. Ward Churchill earns about $100,000 a year and I bet he invests some of it with the investment bankers he thinks are "little Eichmanns".

No this guy is just scum and an idiot to boot.




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Comments

The contrast here is too astounding to sink in. Thank you for the article on SFC David Salie. :) I'm going to "trackback" from my site.

http://wordpark.com/MILITARY/index.html and

http://wordpark.com/POLITICS/index.html

Kinda wish they were separate articles.

Posted by: chrys | 24/02/2005

I'm the wife of SFC. David J. Salie. Thank you so much for saying such wonderful things about David. They mean so much to me and will mean even more to his babies when they are grown and can't remeber the man their Daddy was. They can look at things like this and realize that I'm not the only one that thinks their Daddy is/was a great man..
Again, Thank You!
Deanna Salie

Posted by: Deanna Salie | 10/03/2005

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