This last week, it made me sick, to watch the 15 British seamen and marines "Party" with their Iranian captors in Tehran. I can understand soldiers "breaking" but did they have to look so enthusiastic. I also wondered why they didn't fight before they were captured. Not having been in those circumstances myself I resisted the urge to "vent" on this blog. Then today Dean Barnett has written a column in which he quotes some one who does have the right to criticise the behavior of these British seaman and marines. He quotes Jack Jocobs a military analyst on MSNBC. Barnett writes:
Jacobs won the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Vietnam. According to his Medal of Honor citation, Jacobs received the Medal “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”
With his company under intense enemy fire and the command group having suffered heavy casualties, “Capt. Jacobs assumed command of the allied company, ordered a withdrawal from the exposed position and established a defensive perimeter. Despite profuse bleeding from head wounds which impaired his vision, Capt. Jacobs, with complete disregard for his safety, returned under intense fire to evacuate a seriously wounded advisor to the safety of a wooded area where he administered lifesaving first aid. He then returned through heavy automatic weapons fire to evacuate the wounded company commander. Capt. Jacobs made repeated trips across the fire-swept open rice paddies evacuating wounded and their weapons. On 3 separate occasions, Capt. Jacobs contacted and drove off Viet Cong squads who were searching for allied wounded and weapons, single-handedly killing 3 and wounding several others. His gallant actions and extraordinary heroism saved the lives of 1 U.S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers.”
I had the pleasure of meeting Captain Jacobs for a few minutes about a year ago. He’s a small man, and you don’t look at him and instantly think “war hero.” It’s precisely for this reason that his valor is so poignant. For a nation to be great and its military to be great, it needs ordinary men to do extraordinary things. It also needs ordinary men who are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices.
Jack Jacobs watched the English press conference where the soldiers’ Captain declared that “fighting back was simply not an option.” Like me, Jacobs was horrified. Because of his military experience, Jacobs was personally outraged as well.
Asked by an MSNBC hostess for his feelings about the released soldiers and their press conference, Jacobs inveighed on-air, “That was the most disgusting, disreputable, dishonorable performance I can remember in more than 40 years of my relationship with the military service. I think every man every woman, who wears the uniform or has ever worn the uniform of his country, no matter what country it is, ought to be disgusted by this…Words can’t express my disgust.”
To some, the returning British soldiers may be heroes. If we have so defined heroism down, woe be unto us all.
AS a young kid rowing up, my dad was a member of Kiwanis. Well, the Kiwanis would sponsor professional wrestling matches at the Coos Bay, Oregon Nation Guard Armory. Before the matches started I would roam the halls of the armory reading the posters and looking as the pictures all related to military history and codes of conduct. I loved the pictures but I can still remember a group of posters that illustrated the obligations of every U. S. soldier captured by the enemy; "Name. rank and serial number" was all the information you could give the enemy and you had an obligation to try and escape if captured. Years later when I was in the United States Army I was taught the same code of conduct. While in Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, in Virginia we were taken down to Fort AP Hill near Fredricksberg for field training to prepare us for Vietnam. At one point we were dropped off in the woods after dark and in full field pack were to hike 10 miles across a Wooded area to another location. In between there were hostile forces who's job it was to capture us. Well I was captured and taken to a mock up of a Vietnamese village and was interrogated. I gave my, name, rank and serial number. I was thrown to the ground repeatedly to get me to talk. When I refused they covered me from head to toe on the outside of my uniform with axle grease. They also put it on my face and hands.Of course I knew it was a training exercise and they couldn't kill me or really injure me but I refused to give them any information other than what the code allowed. After midnight I was finally released so I could continue the cross country exercise. I was never able to get that axle grease out of that uniform even after repeated laundering. I spent the rest of the night with axle grease on me and I can still remember the smell to this day. Again, I understand my experience was training and the Brits experience was "for real" but did they have to give up so quick and look so enthusiastic in the Iranian's propaganda shows. Where is the "stiff upper lip" of the British in World War II. It would brake Winston Churchill's heart if he were still alive!
(To read the rest of Dean Barnet's column click on the title above for a link)
