August 17, 2005
Orlando, Florida
A message from Ronbo the Freedom Fighter:
My fellow citizens of the American Republic!
In the long hot endless summer of 2005 Americans have reached the low point in their support of the current war against Islamofascism. If he were alive today, Thomas Paine, the Great Patriot of the American Revolution would be writing today as he did on December 23, 1776:
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated..."
What is the reason for this widespread defeatism sweeping the nation? I must have missed the news about the defeat of American army after American army since this conflict began. I was surely on vacation and missed the news about the thousands of American P.O.W.s captured by a superior military force and held captive in horrible conditions and dying like flies of disease. I don't recall hearing that the largest city in the United States was under occupation by foreign soldiers whose first order of business it was to seize the property and persons of those supporting our government.
Of course, none of the above happened during this contemporary war as it did happen in the course of early part of the Revolutionary War, thus our ancestors' defeatism could be understood; a betting man of the era would have placed his wager on the victory of King George and Royal Army, which had won battle after battle against a Revolutionary Army that was reduced that winter to a small fraction of its summer numbers with few supplies, and rank upon rank half frozen nearly naked soldiers whose bleeding feet could easily be tracked thru the snow of New Jersey by the scouts of a well equipped Royal Army that needed only one more defeat of George Washington's tiny army to win that war.
Yet even though the vast majority of Americans had very likely concluded that the Revolutionary War and Independence a lost cause in the hearts and minds of those few Americans where it the issue of defeat or victory really mattered -- The Revolutionary Army of George Washington -- Final defeat was not accepted and the Army rallied itself for one last do or die effort that defeated some of the 18th century's finest professional soldiers at Trenton in daring night attack in the dead of winter, and by doing so put the fire of revolutionary zeal back in the belly of the civilian Patriots and politicians who decided to stay the course.
So it was then in 1776. So it is today in 2005.
The issue of defeat or victory in this conflict is in the hands of our soldiers (By "Army" and "soldiers" I mean entire USA Armed Forces establishment: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.) The thin red line of heroes who cannot understand why the American Public is in such a defeatist mode because from their point of view they have won battle after battle against a wily, intelligent and ruthless enemy; indeed it is the enemy who has had two of his countries invaded and occupied by a superior military machine; it is the enemy who sits in humilation and chains in American maximum security prisons; it is the enemy who lives in constant fear in dozens of countries in dread of the midnight raid by the Special Forces or the FBI, and it is the enemy whose leaders hide in caves in Pakistan afraid of the daylight and the whispering death that could fall from the heavens at any moment by robot missile.
The truth is that America is on the offensive in the War on Terrorism, and it is the enemy who has to worry about where and when the next large American attack will take place in the heartland of his homeland, he can only fight a hit and run terrorist campaign while our miltary establishment can take and hold his countries as long as necessary to ensure victory.
Thus the soldiers see no logical reason for defeatism on the part of the American Public, as victory after victory drives an increasingly irrational enemy ever deeper into the bottomless pit of defeat, and yet, after all these victories, the soldiers hear only the endless drumbeat of the pathetic anti-war propaganda of the Mainstream Media, the far Left Academia, and the Leftist radical politicians of the Democratic Party who seem to be seeking an American defeat out of the jaws of victory.Hence the Army on the field of battle and on the eve of another attack ponders these important questions:
"Why do they not acknowledge our many victories?
"Why are the politicians, media and public silent about our many heroes?"
"Do they even care about us back home?"
The Army of the United States of America -- whose motto is, "Duty, Honor, Country" will continue to fight, bleed and die in the defense of the Republic until the last Old Glory flag is ripped by an enemy from the dead cold hands of the last dead American soldier, but the Army wonders if the American People supports its own military establishment in its Days of Trial?
These are once again "the times that try men's souls" and the dark cold days of the "winter soldiers" in which another small resolute band of brothers and sisters fight yet another form of tyranny over the mind of man on the field of battle and only ask for the support and prayers of their fellow Countrymen.
