ASIA!

THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS

“You courage in soldiering on, despite having huge rocks added to your rucksacks in the form of grievous wounds and injuries, is simply extraordinary."

General David Petraeus to disabled veterans at this year's Support Our Troops weekend

 

Influential British-born American writer once wrote in a popular pamphlet advocating US independence from Great Britain,

" These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman..."

It may not be one and all that agree with going to war in Iraq, but it takes a tyrant not to  be moved by the courage of soldiers who answered the call of duty to fight in war they neither started nor advocated, and returned wounded, maimed or disabled by the process. It may come with the territory but the truth is that these men are threatened in their workplaces in ways  most of us will never experience or understand.

In a report from the Daily Mail was the story of Jeffrey Adams, a platoon leader with the Army National Guard. He lost his left leg when it was blown off uring a mission in southern Baghdad in 2005. Since then he went from being a Louisiana boy who had never seen snow to becoming certified as a ski instructor, and was at the Support Our Troops ski weekend, with other disabled servicemen who had arrived on the slopes of New York's Wyndham Mountain.

Calling them "kindred spirits in the cause of defending democracy" as General Petraeus put it may be overstating matters a little, even if patriotism and defence of an ideal have been the banner under which the US military operated under especially the Bush adminstration, but it is still worth remembering the sacrifice and courage as the good general did in his letter to the veterans.

“You courage in soldiering on, despite having huge rocks added to your rucksacks in the form of grievous wounds and injuries, is simply extraordinary.

“And your ability to face down adversity is an example and an inspiration to all of us who wear the uniform. You have refused to surrender in circumstances that many would have felt they could not bear.

“In that refusal, you have demonstrated the truth of Gandhi’s famous observation that: “strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

“That will is what defines each of you."