These two stories here and here (from the NY Times and the WaPo) are very revealing about how our guys fight in the most difficult circumstances. One Marine commander says: "It’s their Super Bowl. Fallujah is the place to go if you want to kill Americans." The one from the Post is especially gripping, describing a Marine rescue mission to get their guys out. They were surprised, surrounded, but got our guys, and fought their way out. In another spot in Fallujah, in combat that lasted 14 hours, we killed more than one hundred insurgents on Tuesday, only two Marines were shot, their injuries not life-threatening. A Colonel says: "We don’t want to rubblize the city. That will give the enemy more places to hide." Fallujah is a wasps’ nest, they are more organized than we thought, they’re Baathists and foreign terrorists, coming at us in coordinated attacks, fifty to one hundred bad guys coming at us at a time. The Marines are ready, willing and able. They have learned a lot about urban combat and they are putting it to use. The commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment says of their rescue operation: "This is a story about heroes. It shows the tenacity of the Marines and their fierce loyalty to each other. They were absolutely unwilling to leave their brother Marines behind." These are teenagers in the cannon’s mouth. All this goes on why the politicians are talking. This bravery makes such talks possible. Do you think this is Mogadishu or Vietnam? Think again. I offer this to our boys (from
Coriolanus): "Before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. Daeth, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie, Which being advanced, declines; and then men die."