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And now a word from General McAuliffe

After a particularly bad press conference, the beleaguered Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, walked away from the podium shaking his head in wonderment at the questions he had received from the solidly defeatist press. “ I wish there was something I could tell these people to help them understand”. He said to no one in particular.

High above in the cosmos, his voice was heard by the pantheon of heroes on Mount Olympus. Zeus and Apollo took pity on the mortal Donald Rumsfeld in his struggle. “What shall we do to help him"? Said Athena, twirling the curls of her jet-black hair. “How do we communicate with these "Americans", they wont react to us like the Greeks did”. She looked out of the corner of her eye at Zeus in a seductively playful way.

Zeus just smiled, as Apollo instantly sensed what he was up to “ Let’s send them one of their own, maybe they will respond to one of their own heroes rather than one of us”!; and with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, Zeus’ thoughts came into being within the mortals temporal universe.

As the Washington press corps began to filter out of the White House Press Room, the elderly Helen gathering her stadium cushions and putting them in the “Big Brown Bag” clutch along with her knitting was the first to notice the temporal disruption emanating from the podium.

“What’s that smell"?, “Hey, Sonny, do you smell that? It smells like Ozone”.

As she turned and faced the now unoccupied darkened podium, the lights began to flicker, and a vapor began to form in the shape of two spectres.

The Press Corp began to shuffle back into the room to witness this spectral vision taking shape.

As the first spectre began to take recognizable form, it belted out in deep bass tones, the words:

"Ladies and gentleman of the Press, at the request of the Gods Zeus and Apollo, I present General Anthony McAuliffe for a briefing on today’s military action”

As the spectal announcer finished his introduction and faded away, General McAuliffe came into sharp resolution from what was once a hanging cloud of vapor. He stood proudly with his hands clasped behind his back and with a nod, acknowledged the now completely befuddled press.

“What is this, some kinda Joke?” Said Helen, tossing her hands up in display (along with her knitting )into the air. The General glared at her and grasped the podium with both hands and shouted down at the gnome-like-elder-presswoman and said:

“ Do I look like “a joke” to you lady?” You don’t think I have better things to do with my time in the infinite than come back here and talk to you pansy-assed idiots?”

The other specter returned, briefly whispering into the Generals ear, he acknowledged it with a mumbled “uh-huh, ok, I got it...” .

With his eyes darting from side to side like a schoolboy caught in an indiscretion, the General then asked for forgiveness,

“ I’m sorry ladies and gentleman, I want to apologize for my somewhat brisk manner, you caught me on a bad day.”

The now hurriedly re-assembled White House Press Corp, Ignoring the more obvious and self evident story of a trans-dimensional spirit appearing in the form of a Great War Hero taking corporeal form in the White House Press Room, decided instead to take up its daily agenda against the Administration, hoping that General McAuliffe would provide lots of talking points in their self appointed war against the Bush Administration.

The hands of the press flew up at the chance to talk to the long dead General. It's not every day a reporter gets to talk to someone who has crossed into the infinite,but rather than ask the General about life in the hereafter and its implications on 10,000 years of religious dogma, they stayed with the task at hand, the denouncement of the presidents proxy, Donald Rumsfeld.

“ You there...” Said the General, pointing to one grey headed horsefaced reporter.

He stood, straighted his tie for the Camera and said,

"David Thusandsuch - NBC News. Sir, What is your opinion of the news out of Iraq?"

The General dug into the podium with both hands and vented out,

Well David, If you would have told me in 1944 that the US Army would progress to the point where it could invade a country the size and population of California and occupy it in less than three weeks and after a year suffer only 1300 casualties with a wounded survival rate of 94%, I would have said you were out of your mind. I have all the faith in the world of the American Fighting man, but I doubt very much you could take over the city of Chicago with such light losses, much less an entire foriegn country, its capitol and 35 million of its inhabitants.

Sir-David-of-NBC then shot back his reply at the General, “ Sir I’m not sure you are aware of this on your side of the infinte but yesterday, 22 soldiers were killed in an unprotected mess tent in Mosul, does that change your opinion of the situation”?

“ A Man - fired A Mortar -at A Mess tent, Son. That doesn’t sound like war winning strategy and tactics. Any monkey can fire a mortar.” “What you misunderstand is this, The target of these people is not the men in the mess tent, the target is you and I sorry to say, they are hitting their target fairly regularly”. They want to break your will to fight, and you are giving that to them, Son. You might as well be handing these animals the shells they fire at our men. As long as they hold out hope that we will fold up our “unprotected tents” and go home, they will keep lobbing rockets at our men.

Once upon a time in a very cold place called Europe, my men and I were in a very bad situation. We were surrounded on all sides by an enemy who wanted to kill every last one of us. They had to, they could not survive if we stayed where we were. They came to me one night to ask for our surrender, they were ready and willing to give us good terms. My men were cold, with no food and no ammo and no hope of re-supply.

We could have given up. We could have surrendered. Lots of boys would have survived that horrible time had I done that. But what you don’t understand yet is that that We couldn’t surrender. If the lives of all those men who had died up to that time was to mean anything at all, we had to stand and fight. I did not want everything we did to have been in vain. All those men we lost on the road up from Normandy would have been for nothing had we surrendered at Bastone. The Enemy would have driven on to Antwerp, split the allies and the world would have been very different indeed. What you don’t yet understand, Son, is that sometimes the lives of the few now can save the lives of the many later.

I know what fear is and I know what fear can do to men. It can turn even the bravest men to Jello. In Korea, the enemy began to become 10 foot tall giants in the minds of our men who had been undersupplied and badly placed into a battlefield as Washington and the world were surprised by the dirty little backwoods North Koreans. I got up to the front as quick as I could to find out the true situation. What I found were men who ran for cover at the first round of artillery, even when the round was a wide ranging shot, the effect was to slow our lines, causing even more men to be killed by snipers. During one such artillery attack, after laying in a trench beside a road at the top of a berm, and looking at a group of good soldiers as they started to lose their will. I decided to do something about it.

“What did you do?” Questioned Sir-David-of-NBC.

“I stood up and walked to the middle of the road and took a leak, in front of full view of my troops and the enemy spotters. The artillery continued, but it was clear that the enemy could not range their weapons properly” I yelled out to the troops “ These bastards cant hit a damn thing, now get up off your asses and get moving”.

And they did!

You people talk about the resolve of the “insurgents” but you never talk about the resolve of the people who have come across the globe for no other purpose than to free other men from tyranny. By your actions you have done more to empower the enemy than any of the madmen that have been fighting us. You shower then in glory when you should be shaming them by their actions.

Sir-David-of-NBC decided to try to trip up the General with the tried and true trick of the none too subtle use of the "race card",

“General, when you talk about “the enemy”, are you referring to Islam?”

He let out a hiss and shook his head. “Son, The enemies that our country has been fighting has always been the same, even when the enemy was our brothers in the confederacy”. “ The Enemy” is the enemy of mankind. “The Enemy” is any person or power who believes that one man is the property of another. “The Enemy” is any person or power who seeks to destroy instead of build, imprison rather than embrace, Starve rather than feed. “ The Enemy” from my time wore different uniforms and came from a different places than yours, but they were the same. "The Enemy" you fight today are no different than the men who met me with the demands of surrender in a farmhouse in Bastone. The men who marched a generation into camps and killed them en masse are still here today. The difference is, in my day, we were appalled and disgusted. In your day, so long as its not Americans doing it, you ignore it. Pol Pot kills 7 million people, you said nothing, Rwanda, Iraq, Darfur the list goes on and yet, because America is not the force that caused it, you excuse it. Frankly, some of you even defend it.

Son, if you and yours in this room continue to give these people the mantle of legitimacy, then the men under my command who died back there in Bastone will have died in vain. The war against the enemy of mankind didn’t end in Berlin or Tokyo or Seoul, that war goes on today. That war is being fought by men and women every bit as brave as the men who I served with in the past.

Son, I want you to understand this, so listen up and listen good. Our men and women aren’t dying over there because the enemy is effectively fighting a war. Our men and women are dying because we wish to be humane. Does anyone in this room believe that we could not kill lots and lots of insurgents by dropping bombs from 10,000 feet? Does anyone not also believe that we would also end up killings many civilians as well by accident, yet our deaths would be extremely small?

It’s up to you Dave, you can do what you want but at some point you are going to have to ask yourself whos side you are on? There is no neutrality in the face of evil. You are either part of the force stopping it or part of the force that allows it.

People are going to die in this war until someone says “ I surrender”. If you are ready to surrender, I suggest you do so, for the rest of us, I have just one word for you:

Nuts!

And while the last consonant hung in the air, the General began to dissipate from solid back to a vapor again.

The room sat silent, and wondered at what they had just seen.

“Wow. After that guy, Rumsfeld seems like pussycat…” said Helen as she tucked her knitting under her arm, waddling away to the sound of a half filled hip flask splashing her a cadence count.

The windows of the press room rattled with far off unseasonable yet unexplainable thunder.

Posted @ December 22, 2004 11:26 AM | Current Events

Posted by: DDO at December 22, 2004 05:33 PM

Posted by: mistercalm at December 27, 2004 06:21 AM