Two of my favorite authors of international intrigue are the Brad Thor and the late Vince Flynn. In their respective novels about CIA operatives their main characters are literally killing machines for the state in the manner of 007 James Bond. The characters are Flynn's Mitch Rapp and Thor's Scott Horvath and it's their job(s) to assassinate really bad guys. For Rapp he's constantly having run-ins with the pantywaist Congressmen who don't think it's evil to kill our enemies. Flynn, by the way, was President George W. Bush's favorite author and the two met a few times before Flynn's death from prostate cancer a few years back. Bush even asked him where he got his information since it was so close to reality. Thor has the same issue when he submits manuscripts to be approved, he'll often get calls from his sources saying he was way too close to the truth and has to alter his copy so as not to pass on top-secret information Brad had figured out from the limited intel he gets from his contacts. And when my wife and I read these non-stop-action novels our reaction is always the same, "Sure hope we actually have guys/gals like this in the field, and furthermore, I hope we have dozens of them. It's the real agents like these two fictional characters who put their lives on the line every day so we can sleep better at night and live our lives. These people operate in a world where, as the old Johnny Rivers hit Secret Agent Man said, "Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow."
So it is with our U. S. Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALS and Air Force Special Operations who perform ultra-top secret missions that could easily end in disaster and all could be killed or captured and tortured. Yet they do it willingly, honorably and usually with little fanfare and successfully. And may I point out, voluntarily. They are ordered to do our "dirty" work going up against very bad people who have automatic weapons and worse. And when they do their job it can sometimes get sloppy and ugly. But these brave patriots keep going and doing the getting rid of a lot of bad people who get to meet Allah and their 72 virgins. When Viet Nam got hot and heavy a assignment was about a year and few every went back under orders. Two of the gentlemen I know who did three tours there volunteered to go back. Such is not the case today. Four or five deployments to those "garden spots" is the norm and many have gone back seven to nine times. This is terrible on so many levels it's hard to count. But among them are the separation from spouse and children in many cases that takes its toll. When dad/hubby (usually) is deployed there is the vacancy in the family missing big events and worrying about his safety, then when he returns home the euphoria of reuniting is overshadowed by the possibility of PTSD and the knowledge that he's going back in another 18 months in many cases. And the worry is only exacerbated when he's in the aforementioned special forces. It one thing to worry about your service member when they're in the supposedly safe "Green Zone" but quite another when that serviceman is outside that zone hunting down the bad guys. We ask--or order--these folks to put their lives on the line and go up against the most evil people on the planet. They have to make life-or-death decisions in less times than it takes to blink your eyes. There's little time to think, they have to react. And what thanks do they get from the political hacks in Congress and at the Pentagon sitting back in the USA in their air conditioned offices? These wonderful people like the JAG (Judge Advocate General's Corps, a-k-a military attorneys) officers who have probably never set foot on a battlefield or known the gut-wrenching terror of having bullets whistle past their heads, look at a particular incident or mission and analyze it to death. Similar to the movie Sully about the airline pilot responsible for landing a mortally wounded airplane on the Hudson River. The movie portrays the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as trying to prove that Captain Sullenberger had enough power to return to the airport since the computer simulators said the left engine still had enough thrust to get the job done or another nearby field in New Jersey. The simulators, it turns out, got 17 runs at it before a successful landing was achieved. Sully didn't have 17 shots at it, he had one and about 280-seconds to get it right nor did the computer simulators take into account the 35 or 40 seconds of ananization time. When that was added, the simulators "crashed" near both airports and Sully and his co-pilot were exonerated.
That brings us to the case of Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, Navy SEAL who had a sterling military record and is highly decorated. Suddenly, months after what was his seventh (as I recall) deployment Chief Gallagher is accused by a couple of the men under his command of jumping on an enemy combatant stabbing him to death. The "suits" at the Pentagon smelled "blood in the water" and went after Gallagher with a vengeance. They put this genuine American hero through two years of hell with outrageous charges and spent months behind bars separated from his family again. When the prosecution's case began to fall apart like a Russian appliance, Chief Gallagher was found not-guilty on all but one miniscule little charge of having his picture taken with the corpse and probably will do no more prison time getting credit for "time served." Of course his career as a SEAL is over because the very fibers of whose being for these organizations is secrecy and stealth means we don't want a "famous" SEAL back in operation. But he should be able to go on about his Naval career honorably. NOT SO FAST! The embarrassed JAG officers and bureaucratic dingbats at the Pentagon could lose face here even though they got slapped in that face. Chief Gallagher has been further humiliated by being demoted a notch in rank! How pathetic and disgusting. As our friend retired Army Major Tyler Merritt--cofounder of Nine Line Apparel--who served with Gallagher in Afghanistan and has stood by the family throughout the ordeal tells Fox and Friends (us here on AM Savannah) that second-guessing the killing of an enemy combatant in a combat zone with someone who has such a sterling record as Gallagher is incorrigible.
The tragedy is that Gallagher isn't the only example of political correctness runamuck at the Pentagon. Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Chessani (who is married to a lady from Savannah) was drummed out of the service for an incident by a group of his Marines of which he was totally unaware at the time. He and his family here had to spend most of their funds defending him. LTC Chessani was also a highly-decorated officer with a sterling record and on fast track for general--Commandant material. LTC Allen West likewise drummed out of the Army for getting a bit rough extracting intelligence from an enemy combatant--no matter that the intel he got probably saved several hundred troops under his command. An Army sergeant on Hannity last week just recently got out of Fort Leavenworth after six years behind bars for firing his service weapon killing an enemy combatant who tried to wrestle the gun away from him. Another Army lieutenant has been at Leavenworth almost that long now for ordering the killing of two (what turned out to be) enemy combatants approaching his platoon on motorcycles. Only a few days before two enemy combatants on motorcycles had killed several members of another platoon nearby, but no matter, the Pentagon hacks claimed he didn't actually "know" these two were the enemy--they might have been peaceful villagers. I suppose it would have taken several members of this platoon would have had to have been killed or wounded before they could open fire! What kind of logic or combat tactics is that? One thing for sure, 'taint good for morale!
How much longer are we going to have to put up with this garbage? Thank God we have a president to honors and understands the military. We need to get back to the business of WINNING wars which we haven't done since World War II. And you win wars by obliterating the enemy and there will be collateral damage and you don't wait for them to shoot first before firing back. Let's get that young lieutenant out of Leavenworth and giving Chief Gallagher his well-deserved rank back and start honoring these American heroes for protecting us instead of humiliating and financially ruining them!