Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the upcoming US commander in Iraq, knows the price of war intimately.
"His son Anthony, then a 26-year-old cavalry lieutenant leading an armoured platoon in the city, had been injured in a rocket attack that almost severed his left arm…Military doctors were forced to amputate…"
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Tagged Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, US Army
“’It’s too soon to say we have failed,’ he said. ‘We can’t keep talking about it as if it’s a disaster or a failure.’ …Abizaid said there was reason to believe…the situation in Iraq would ultimately stabilise. He said extremists in the region, including Osama bin Laden and al Qaida, had yet to go ‘mainstream’."
In Vietnam, generals saying things like this were not backed up by the troops. Abizaid is.
The 2:32 heroic music to the new Army recruiting video keeps running through my head and I keep returning for another hit of its booming drums and stacatto brass from the Youtube link at Black Five. The opening shot of a platoon with a billowing cavalry guidon leads to men in camo with automatic rifles slung across their chest armor against a backdrop of diving Apache gunships.
I love the subliminal message, that while some contend the Army is broken, as the narrative says, "there is nothing on this green earth that is stronger than the US Army."
More on the new slogan, Army Strong, which replaces Army of One. Although some are already ridiculing the Hulk Smash grammar and theme, it looks like a winner to me. A great wartime recruiting tool, and a valuable information warfare direct response to the armed doubters of the world.
UPDATE Blackfive seems to have dropped its link to the vid, so here’s the one at YouTube–at least until Google decides it’s too bellicose. More likely to be permanent is the link at Army Times which needs Windows Media.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 