Memo from Iraq: Freedom doesn't
come from a shelf at Wal-Mart or Winn-Dixie.
My South Mississippi home, it's time for a reality check. Freedom - where do we
get it? From a shelf in Wal-Mart?
No? Maybe at Winn-Dixie? Haven't seen it there. No, freedom comes
from the men and women, past, present and future, who put our lives on the line
to protect it and fight for it.
Freedom
has a cost, folks. Sometimes we have to go and do unpopular things, such as
kick Saddam's butt. It is something that needed to be done since the first Gulf
War.
Don't
shrug off weapons of mass destruction because they are small. A caller said
that one little sarin container is no big deal. Wrong. One little canister of
sarin in Biloxi - put into the air ducts of a casino or the Coast Coliseum when
it is packed - could kill most of the people and the rest would pray for death.
There is more here or moved to Syria, and we will find it.
Freedom's
greatest price tag is human life, and we never know when payment will be
demanded. As I was coming out of the chow hall one day a mortar hit a
barricade, landed on our side, and one soldier was fatally wounded. As a medic,
I tried in vain to save her, but I could not. So don't disrespect her, her
family, myself or my family and friends.
I
am here, and I am telling you like it is. It is not like Vietnam. We will
prevail because failure is not an option.
Have
fun sitting in your recliners and hating President Bush and enjoying the
freedom to have your criticism of him printed in a letter to the editor,
because if Saddam was your president, your whole family would be tortured and
killed.
SGT.
RONALD GEBHART
From Mosul
ronald.gebhart@us.army.mil
While I definitely need feedback from readers of this site, Sgt. Gebhart deserves it far more. His email address appears under his name. Write to him! DebV