Supporting Our Troops is Important

Army Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl is in Fond du Lac for a high school reunion.

"I think, at a certain level, we're always going to have to be there," the 1981 Winnebago Lutheran Academy graduate said Thursday morning after speaking to students at WLA. Talks of exit strategies and leaving Iraq are premature, he said. "If we back down, in my opinion, it's the absolute wrong decision," he said before adding that the long-term solution will likely not involve 100,000 U.S. troops but rather a diplomatic partnership and smaller military presence.

I honestly wish the cut and run bunch would actually listen to the people who have been there, are doing the "heavy lifting" so to speak. They know what it's like, and it's not all covered by the MSM. We see the ugliness, but there are other things going on, there is interaction between the troops and the people of Iraq that does not involved guns and blood.

Bleichwehl, who is assigned as the public affairs officer for the First Calvary Division at Fort Hood, Texas, already spent 13 months in Baghdad and is preparing for a second tour there this fall.

Ft. Hood is HUGE! I'm impressed that anyone can find their way around that post. I'm more impressed at all the young men and women who claim it as their "home base". If you'll remember, it was a company from Ft. Hood who found the "spider in the hole". Now, this gentleman is going back to Iraq. Many of our soldiers and Marines choose to return to Iraq because they want to "finish the mission".

"We need your support and we are very grateful for it," Bleichwehl told the student body. "The only way we can lose this war is if we lose the support of the American people." The fight in Iraq is part of a larger battle against terrorism, and for freedom, a conflict that will never be over, he said. "It's going to be a long, hard fight," Bleichwehl said. "This is always going to be a component of our society."

Those who don't believe this is part of the war on terror need to remove their collective heads out from their....the sand. Soldiers hearing the "moonbat speak" coming from many in this country aren't helping to bring the troops home. Those who believe it's time to "bring them home", first, aren't paying attention, and second, are enabling the terrorists by letting them believe we've lost our will. Freedom is worth fighting and dying for! You have to ask yourself, what are you willing to die for. If you believe nothing, then you haven't really looked around yourself to see what many deaths have given you. You don't appreciate the ability to speak freely, to take a trip to the beach, to get an education, to give your family the best of anything and everything. And if you believe that doing a cut and run from Iraq is the right thing to do, well, then, you're just downright selfish. Why shouldn't the Iraqis have the same sort of freedom as we do? Of course, it wouldn't be exactly the same, the culture itself is different, but it would be freedom none the less. Freedom from fear is the greatest freedom I can think of. Freedom isn't free! There is always a high price to pay and we're still paying it 230 years after declaring our independence from tyranny.