Victory At All Costs

To the Editor:

I whole heartedly support Stan Rajczewski, Jr’s, and Pat Callery’s (WWII 101st Airborne Division) letters of January 19, 2007. We get only the bad news from Associated Press (AP) stories, network and some cable shows about our Middle East terrorist enemies, which include Iraq’s “battle” in the war on terrorism.

In Mona Charon’s column of January 27, 2007, she iterates President Bush’s state of the union “key paragraph” (her words):

This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we’re in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. Let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory.

She goes on to write about a talk in 1940 by England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill who said to his countrymen:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. …I can answer in one word: Victory — victory at all costs, victory, in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

[Ms Charon] writes, “Both Britain and the US had reason to believe their survival and the survival of Western Civilization were at stake in the struggle. Americans justifiably do not see the Iraq war in those terms.”

I disagree here in my humble opinion to say some Americans do see the Iraq battle as it will affect Western Civilization for years to come, with the chance for victory and peace and not retreat as of the most importance.

Our veterans are passing away and I’m sure they want victory in the battle for Iraq. Let us honor them all. Those who served then, in service and on the home front, Tom Brokaw called the “Greatest Generation.”

Richard G. Siebert

73 Butterfield Road, Newtown                                 January 30, 2007