I suggest that we hear what Erdogan has been saying and remember it at the next natural disaster that happens to Turkey. There have been multiple strong earthquakes there in my memory and the US has been the acknowledged lead rescue nation every time (mainly military led).
Perhaps the next one won’t have quite that fast of a response. (After all, out current President desires the US to be one of equals, not a leader thus a policy of diminishing our military!)
To #16: Disagree. The fact that the US is usually the first major disaster relief force on the scene in Turkey is a positive for us.
Those whose lives we save, those we feed and shelter, and comfort, know that it is the United States of America who cares for them (the Turkish Govt has limited resources and their rescue people should not be disparaged. It is their leaders who are batshit crazy).
One of the greatest American victories in So. Vietnam came in the form of American medics, AMA volunteer doctors, and health supplies from the American people because they benefited the SVN people without asking for anything in return.
I spent an evening in Bac Lieu, with a Dr. Smilkstein, an AMA volunteer for 6 months in Nam. He was one of our greatest representatives of America, as were the hundreds of other AMA/health group volunteers who served there, usually unheralded by the leftist newsmedia, but much appreciated by those they helped.
The Communists could never match this program and were forced to kill foreign doctors and nurses, esp. those captured in and around Hue City during Tet.
My friend, Mike Benge (USAID) was captured during TET while getting his workers to safety when the NVA attacked in the Central Highlands. He spent a year in Tiger Cages and as a prisoner in Cambodia and on the Ho Chi Minh Trail before arriving in Hanoi.
Two foreign doctors/nurses and several other American civilian POWS/Military POWS, were allowed to die on the HCMT because the VC/NVA refused to give them proper medical and nutritional care.
Mike’s mission, after coming home in the Spring, 1973, has been to remind the American people of what these great people did and the sacrifices they made to aid a people they had never met before.
Whenever an American aid/rescue task force arrives on the scene (remember the Tsunami that hit Indonesa? We put a carrier task force there that helped save thousands of lives), the victims of a catastrophe know that the good guys in white hats have arrived, and that they are in good hands. The Indonesians will never forget what we did.
Let our best and most skilled aid the people of Turkey when necessary. One day Erdogan and his Islamists will be gone but the memories of the life-saving Americans will be preserved in stories for generations.