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Christian Living

bootsontheground 07/02/08

Moment of Truth

Lately I've been engrossed in Michael Yon's book, Moment of Truth in Iraq. Yon is a blogger and former special ops soldier who has spent more than two years on the ground in Iraq reporting on the war. He's an incredible wordsmith - able to tell the story of the war in vivid pictures of perseverance, courage and hope. He doesn't sugar-coat it, though. You get the feeling from his book that he understands the institutional stupidity that comes part-and-parcel with any large bureaucracy - especially the military. But it's not political either, Yon simply tells it like it is.

[W]e made huge mistakes early on and now we pump blood and gold into the desert to pay for those blunders.The magnitude of true injustices was magnified line by line, hair by hair, by a frenzied media. But it wasn't the media's fault; the media did not flatten Fallujah or rape and torture the prisoners. We did that all by ourselves.

When we devastated Fallujah, Al Qaeda grew like a tumor...but their welcome grows cold.

As we ineptly tried to rebuild, Al Qaeda destroyed. Finally, those few who were paying very close attention could feel it...a barely perceptible change in the atmosphere that signals big change could come. But to make the change we had to change. Remarkably, we did.

The book is a refreshing read that made me cringe at some parts as he described our military blunders, then made me want to cheer at the great reversal that came as our warriors adapted to the changing battlefield and overcame the adversaries of peace.

One particularly powerful point made in the book is that we could not, and cannot achieve ultimate victory without occupying the MORAL high ground on the battlefield - showing true character to the Iraqis and encouraging them to emulate it. This is the essence of leadership, and a point that applies to most every aspect of life.

Lack of restraint nearly cost us the war during the first couple years. Leadership, Character and restraint are why we are winning the war in Iraq--now.

Another point that struck home with me - that American culture, and thereby American troops - are ingrained with a "Can do" attitude that sets us apart from many other cultures. I've seen this a lot as I've traveled with CBN to places like Burma, Lebanon and Haiti - that when problems arise, many cultures see them as barriers - making the job impossible. But Americans tend to see them as challenges to be overcome. Yon writes:

The belief that problems are to be solved, by us, now. When I listened to Iraqis in civil affairs meetings inventorying the obstacles, giving detailed and passionate speeches about why certain goals were impossible, I often heard a tired lament. "You can do these things because America is rich. You put a man on the moon!" Which made me think, "I know a 22-year-old buck sergeant who never went to college and who's guarding the door who could figure out a lot of these problems if his commander told him to."

And here's the home run:

...our material advantages [in America are] the result not the cause of our abilities and character.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who would like to understand the war in Iraq. And thanks to Michael Yon for sacrificing over two years of his life to tell this story.

--
Chuck Holton
www.livefire.us

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