MaxedOutMama
Friday, May 27, 2005
We Will Remember Paul R. Smith
His citation for the Medal of Honor
You have to read the narrative. This man was a hero. If you read the narrative, you will see that our guys were losing. Sgt 1st Class Paul Ray Smith made sure they didn't. The enemy force was at least 100. They were climbing the walls, in the towers or close to getting there, and firing within the compound. Knowing that his unit could lose - that it looked like they were losing, he turned that around:
BlackFive on why he blogs:
They want to tell their tale of deluded young rightist conventional fools who were too stupid to run to Canada when they could have. They don't want to tell the tale of a Wall Street trader who enlists. They don't want to tell the tale of the thousands of heroes in our armed forces. They winced at admitting that the Iraqis actually wanted to vote. The story that they wanted to tell, you see, was that the Iraqis really didn't want their own government, that Saddam Hussein was the best dictator he could be given the backwardness of the Iraqi population. They don't want to tell the tale of the thousands of Iraqis who are getting killed for the terrible sin of trying to form their own government. It might (gasp) fill in the gaps in their narrative in a way they can't tolerate.
All these tales they don't want to tell have a common meaning. It is time to admit that the national media largely does hate the military. They are its enemy. They will never, ever be those sitting on the curb and clapping. That is up to us. Don't forget this Memorial Day p it is only we who will keep it.
And to put you in the mood, see the Carnival of the Liberated (link to Dean's World), a collection of posts by Iraqi and Afghan bloggers. Kurdo writes of the Saddam underwear photos:
You have to read the narrative. This man was a hero. If you read the narrative, you will see that our guys were losing. Sgt 1st Class Paul Ray Smith made sure they didn't. The enemy force was at least 100. They were climbing the walls, in the towers or close to getting there, and firing within the compound. Knowing that his unit could lose - that it looked like they were losing, he turned that around:
Sgt. 1st Class Smith ordered one of his Soldiers to back the damaged APC back into the courtyard after the wounded men had been evacuated. Knowing the APC ’s .50-Cal. machinegun was the largest weapon between the enemy and the friendly position, Sgt. 1st Class Smith immediately assumed the track commander’s position behind the weapon, and told a soldier who accompanied him to “feed me ammunition whenever you hear the gun get quiet.” Sgt. 1st Class Smith fired on the advancing enemy from the unprotected position atop the APC and expended at least three boxes of ammunition before being mortally wounded by enemy fire. The enemy attack was defeated. Sgt. 1st Class Smith’s actions saved the lives of at least 100 Soldiers, caused the failure of a deliberate enemy attack hours after 1st Brigade seized the Baghdad Airport, and resulted in an estimated 20-50 enemy soldiers killed. His actions inspired his platoon, his Company, the 11th Engineer Battalion and Task Force 2-7 Infantry.Heroes. They still exist. Strategy Revolutions:
Sgt. 1st Class Smith’s actions to lead Soldiers in direct contact with a numerically superior enemy--to personally engage the enemy with a fragmentation grenade, AT-4, and individual weapon, to ultimately assume the track commander’s position to fire the .50-Cal. machinegun through at least three boxes of ammunition before being mortally wounded--demonstrates conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty. His actions prevented a penetration in the Task Force 2-7 sector, defended the aid station, mortars, and scouts, and allowed the evacuation of Soldiers wounded by indirect enemy fire.
I think that a hero is an ordinary person that does something extraordinary at a critical time. No hero ever sacrificed himself for an ideal. Heroes do what they do for those around them....But do we? Do we clap any more? I went to Google News and searched for Paul R. Smith, Medal of Honor. A lousy 2 pages. I can't even bring myself to google Jennifer Wilbanks. I know what I would find. In that lousy two pages, one of the articles is this one at Miami Herald.com (a Philadelphia Inquirer article). What it talks about is not heroism, but the fact that (gasp) there are projects in the works to celebrate heroes in our armed forces:
I can tell you that most real heroes don't brag and walk around with all their medals glinting in the sun....
Like what Will Rodgers said, "Not everyone can be a hero; someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."
"The market is primed, because there has been a generational upsurge in the culture," said J. Patrick McGrail, professor of communications and theater arts at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa.A rightist, conventional generation? How dare you, you fool, you maven of theater arts. Is it any wonder that we have no respect for this generation of journalists? Is it any wonder that we read the words of Linda Foley and want to spit? Could it be that people looked at the Pentagon in flames and the large, smoking hole in New York City and saw an act of war? Could it be that there are still some Americans willing to risk their lives to fight that war?
"It's the older people, who were against the Vietnam War, that oppose this one. The young don't have the same antipathy. The people going over there are 18, 19, 20 - this is their war. They are a rightist, conventional generation, they've been asked to go, and that's OK with them."
"Popular culture is emphasizing a different angle than the press," said screenwriter Owen West, a trader with Goldman Sachs who served with the Marines in Iraq. Because of press coverage, he noted, a victim and a villain - Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England - are "far and away the most famous soldiers to emerge from Iraq."Exactly. Exactly. The article ends:
In contrast, he said, "The coverage of our sole Medal of Honor winner, Sgt. First Class Paul Smith, who sacrificed his life in a hellacious firefight, burned out in two days."
McGrail, of Susquehanna University, thinks the public is ready for war as entertainment because it already feels connected to the subject.If we are connected with the subject, it is not because of the media. It is because we know those who go and mourn those who do not come back. It is not the journalists who are telling the tale of this war - it is the milbloggers and by word of mouth that we get our news. We are not ready for war as entertainment - we are more than ready to honor those we should honor. We owe them.
"The first Gulf War was a masterpiece of military message control and people didn't know anything about what was going on. Now, we have embedded journalists and a lot of news coming at us all the time, so people feel they are intimately familiar with the topic."
BlackFive on why he blogs:
I had been reading Stephen Den Beste, Bill Whittle, Frank J.'s IMAO, and Misha for awhile at that point.You must read Blackfive's tale. It begins:
I started Blackfive and decided to write about Mat and other Americans like him - people that Newsweek would never tell you about.
Memorial Day is like any other day when you're in an Army at War.It tells the tale of the ambush and Major Schram's engagement of it to protect the convoy. And then, after the tale of Major Schram's death and his funeral, it continues:
On Memorial Day, May 26th, 2003 at approximately 7:00AM, Major Mathew E. Schram was leading a resupply convoy in Western Iraq near the Syrian border. Major Schram was the Support Operations Officer for the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (out of Ft. Carson, Colorado). He had responsibility for organizing the logistical arm of the regiment - ensuring that the Cavalrymen never ran out of food, fuel or ammo.
The one part that I left out of this post is that Major Schram's convoy was followed by a car with a Newsweek reporter in it. Once the action began, the reporter and his driver turned and got the hell out of there. If it wasn't for Mat's charge up into the ambushers, they never would have made it out of there alive.No, they didn't. They don't want to confront the tale of a man such as Major Schram, a soldier and an officer who didn't have to be out there with the convoy but who was, because he thought he should be. He bothers them. They will include him as a death statistic. They will not tell the tale of his life, what he thought, what he stood for, and how and why he died. They will not tell a tale of honor and duty.
Newsweek never ran a story about my good friend, Mat.
They want to tell their tale of deluded young rightist conventional fools who were too stupid to run to Canada when they could have. They don't want to tell the tale of a Wall Street trader who enlists. They don't want to tell the tale of the thousands of heroes in our armed forces. They winced at admitting that the Iraqis actually wanted to vote. The story that they wanted to tell, you see, was that the Iraqis really didn't want their own government, that Saddam Hussein was the best dictator he could be given the backwardness of the Iraqi population. They don't want to tell the tale of the thousands of Iraqis who are getting killed for the terrible sin of trying to form their own government. It might (gasp) fill in the gaps in their narrative in a way they can't tolerate.
All these tales they don't want to tell have a common meaning. It is time to admit that the national media largely does hate the military. They are its enemy. They will never, ever be those sitting on the curb and clapping. That is up to us. Don't forget this Memorial Day p it is only we who will keep it.
And to put you in the mood, see the Carnival of the Liberated (link to Dean's World), a collection of posts by Iraqi and Afghan bloggers. Kurdo writes of the Saddam underwear photos:
The greatest photo of the year. I don't care if they sue this newspaper or not, I don't care if this is against Geneva Convictions."For All His Victims To live in peace for ever." Not a bad memorial epitaph for Major Schram and Sgt 1st Class Paul R. Smith, but it is not one our press will ever report. I leave you with Dean Esmay's post on Hacks And Boneheads:
I personally was scared from Saddam even in my dreams. I have seen this guy in my dreams and I have started to shiver. To see this man (Sa'ed Al-Ra'es) (Mr. President) as he used to call himself like that in a pair of Iraqi underwear, is the strongest message for all his victims that it is time to live in peace for ever.
Here's a thought for shallow, whining, self-serving, self-loathing cynics like Dan: A press corps that is more obsessed with the far less than 1% of our armed forces who commit serious crimes, while spending almost no time at all on stories of the heroism, friendship with Afghans and Iraqis, valor, and honor that members of our armed forces exhibit every single day, is a press corps that thoroughly deserves to be called out as nasty, shallow, ignorant, defeatist--and incredibly unpatriotic.Yes, that is what we really think. Dean is speaking for me and for many people, who do intend to remember what this Memorial Day is all about and who will be sitting on the curb and clapping.
