Futility, The World’s Policeman, etc …

One person marked upon what he regarded as the futility of the fireman’s sacrifice. Iraq, of course, was hardly futile. Saddam will never regain power and his sons are dead. But I would like to say something about futility.

I took a course in History of American Naval Power back in the early 1980s. This was in Texas, so the students wanted to use the Alamo as an example of bravery but our instructor disagreed strongly. He thought a better model was the ABCD squadron which sailed out of Australia after Pearl Harbor.

As legend has it, before sailing a young officer offered a toast to their victory and return. An admiral responded, “Son, if you think you are coming home alive you are the only one here who does.”

They went anyway. All ships were lost, and there were few survivors.

They stood at Thermopylae as well, where a few hundred held off hundreds of thousands. I’m told there is a sign there which translates:

Go tell the Spartans,
Stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.


Book Plug: Gates of Fire. And the last pages denote a type of courage that might be greater still, and we have even more need of.

Our civilization will stand while we still have such men. It will fall when we can no longer find enough of them. You don’t find many in Europe these days; they just don’t grow up that way anymore. In all of Western Civilization, there are only a few backward benighted places where it is still common to produce such men. Most of them speak English and they come disproportionately from rural areas of America, England, Canada, and Australia. They are joined by a few other brave bands, usually those who have more experience with not being free. We thank each and every one.

The following poem I quote from memory. It was in a book by Michael Flynn and I haven’t found a contact for him to obtain permission.

Where you at Thermopylae when Persia crossed the Sea?
Did you place your bones between your homes and the spears of the Enemy?
Or did you stand before Chalon, with old foes by your side,
And with sword and shield refuse to yield and stem the Hunnish tide?

Did you ply a boat to Dunkirk?
Did you drive a Taxi to the Marne’s grim banks and never charge a fare?
Did you roll down rocks at Morgaten?
Did you die at Manzikert?
Did you shout back “NUTS!” in the frigid German air?


If you were no strutting conqueror,
But fought for hearth and home.
If you warded the defenseless,
And shielded them from harm.
If you swooped in for the rescue,
If you ground a tyrant down.


Then accept the thanks of the world’s poor ranks;
You’ve EARNED your plot of ground.

==== I love that one ====

Concerning the World’s Policeman:

I come back to the article with this quote: “Our duty in this area is like our obligation to show charity. We have no power to help everyone and no right to help no one.”

I was ambivalent about the Kosovo war because although I thought it was morally right I didn't believe our strategic national interests were in play. I prefer that we use armed force when it is both in our interests and the morally right thing to do (like Iraq).

=====================
Side Note:

One commenter wanted a larger typeface. Blogspot uses ‘normal’ size so this means you can change to a larger font size yourself. On IE, View/Text Size/Larger (or Largest) will increase the font size.