Posted on 02/08/2007 8:33:55 AM PST by Sopater
So, which of these 2 soldiers is your hero?
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr. P-I COLUMNIST
This is the story of two soldiers with a common bond -- the mess that is Iraq.
The first soldier, born in Tacoma, put on a military uniform after enlisting out of high school. The 24-year-old was living the bachelor life until the day he walked into the Taco Bell near Fort Lewis and locked eyes with a woman working there. She became his wife.
The second soldier isn't married. Nearing 30, he made his way to the same Tacoma-area Army base, hundreds of miles from where he grew up. As a boy, he grew accustomed to uniforms -- first as Cub Scout and Boy Scout, later as an Eagle Scout. He had a hunch he might one day end up in a military uniform.
The first soldier is the kind of guy you meet at a bar and strike up an easy conversation with. He likes soccer -- he played as a kid -- and enjoys finding solutions to problems. His mother proudly tells one reporter, "He could meet a rock and make a friend."
The second soldier has a bookish mien, speaks in full paragraphs and quotes civil rights icons. After high school, he went to a university and graduated near the top. Senior military officials sensed he had what it took to be an officer.
These two soldiers have told people they believe in the importance of fighting for one's country.
They've talked about values they hold dear: patriotism and honor and duty.
Both have anguished over the implosion of Iraq.
But as soldiers they've long known -- or damn well should have known -- that an imperfect military machine works because men and women sign up to follow orders. They are contracted to abide by the rules. You break these rules -- even if you question, as I do, those at the top who are now enforcing them -- and you face the consequences. Period.
The first soldier got his boots dirty overseas, including in Iraq. He re-enlisted after a tour. Presented with a chance for a stateside post, he said no thanks. He would much rather be in Iraq doing what he can to help. He recently asked his family to send clothes and shoes for Iraqi kids.
The second soldier has no war scuffs from Baghdad. He hasn't been there and doesn't want to go. The bloodshed sickens him. He questions the meaning of it all.
The first has pondered, too. He could never be blind to the mounting toll of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. He told loved ones that he doesn't believe in the war but does believe in his fellow soldiers who've been fighting -- and helping -- in Iraq. To leave them would be like abandoning ship: "My friends are in Iraq. They are my soldiers. I will be with them."
The second doesn't see himself as a pacifist or against all wars, just this one. It is illegal and immoral. This is what he believes. Instead of leading the soldiers who trained with him, he turned his back on them as they deployed. He finds comfort in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: "One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
These two faced powerful questions of conscience about Iraq, but their paths diverged.
The first heeded the call to duty, went off to war and died Jan. 27 when a roadside bomb exploded near Baghdad.
The second shirked his duty, avoided the battlefield and now makes the rounds on the lecture hall circuit.
Sgt. Mickel David Garrigus, who leaves behind a widow, Natasha, and year-old son, is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is a bona fide hero to us all.
Lt. Ehren Watada, whose court-martial in Tacoma ended in a mistrial Wednesday, wants to choose which battle he gets to fight while criticizing the war.
That doesn't make him a hero to all -- only to those who believe there is power and honor in breaking the rules as one sees fit.
YES: 24.3% NO: 72.6% Not Sure: 3.1%
Number of Votes: 3519
Watada is the kind of officer that during annual training had his MILES gear set off so he'd be taken 'elsewhere' while the real work was done.
Watada a Hero?
Hardly.
He'd be lucky to be kicked in the butt by the boots of real heroes.
Do you think Lt. Ehren Watada is a hero?
24.4% Yes
72.5% No
3.1% Not sure
Total Votes: 3705
Was this pussy an ROTC guy? If so, is he paying us back for his education?
Watada is the kind of officer that guys in Vietnam would salute in public, so everybody and I mean EVERYBODY could see he was an officer.
Just because Congress did not have the balls to do their job and declare war doesn't justify Watada failing to do his.
I already FReeped this one.
I've been curious about this. I don't think so, because I have heard that he enlisted after we invaded Iraq, but I don't understand why he enlisted.
Yes.
Come to think of it, yes.
Do you think Lt. Ehren Watada is a hero?
24.5% Yes
72.3% No
3.2% Not sure
Total Votes: 3829
Done.
They phrased the question backwards. You don't ask if the coward is a hero. You ask if he is a coward. There is nothing heroic about someone who puts his own safety ahead of his duty.
Stopped reading after this..... "quotes civil rights icons" No doubt who the non-hero was. Bless the family of the young soldier who died.
I still think he should be taken out and shot for desertion.
In the eighteenth century, declarations of war were made ONLY when fighting an aggressive war. Since aggressive war is now illegal, no one in the world declares war.
Congress has the POWER to declare war. It does not have the obligation to declare war.
Do you think Lt. Ehren Watada is a hero?
25.2%
Yes
71.5%
No
3.4%
Not sure
Total Votes: 4618
Watada is a traitor, no less deserving of disdain than Taliban Johnny.
The officer is a yellow-bellied chicken $h!t. The soldier set the standard for honor.
A good quality of officers is leading from the front, not from a desk thousands of miles away from where his troops are dying.
Wilson and Roosevelt received declarations in response to acts of aggression (or at least in the case of Lusitania, under the premises of an act of aggression.) Even if Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack, the consequences of their non-compliance with the UN resolutions would not have prevented or inhibited a declaration...indeed, their firing on our aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones would have, IMHO, been adequate justification.
"Congress has the POWER to declare war. It does not have the obligation to declare war."
True enough....but likewise, we are in a state of war. Calling upon Congress to formally declare as much would have been psychologically better for the nation and, dispensed with a lot of the political quibling that has limited our ability to fight it properly.
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