We stood on the shoulders of Giants

And now Giants stand upon ours.
When I first entered the service, Many members of the greatest generation were still in uniform. Not only did we have veterans of Vietnam, we had a few still from WW2 and Korea. My first section Sgt was a veteran of the Pacific, one of our line platoon sergeants was a Korean war vet, and our weapons platoon sergeant was a WW2 vet as well. It seemed that over half of the senior NCOs were Vietnam vets, you could not throw a shoe with out hitting one. These were men who had seen war at its worst, and men at their finest, and lived to tell about it to those of us who would listen and learn. They were giants among men. They were our leaders.
As time wore on, these men, one by one, retired. My generation had a few skirmishes. We brought Noriega to justice, and freed Grenada. By the time we faced our first real test, Desert Storm, only a small hand full of Vietnam vets remained. We, a largely untested Army faced off against a brutal regime hardened by years of fighting. We were ready even if we had our doubts, and carried the day on the field of battle. True victory was not to be though, George H.W. Bush called off the fight only four days into the war, and though we won, the job was far from over, and we knew it.
Another generation of soldiers has taken the field. They have risen to the challenge of another attack upon our soil and have beaten the beast at every turn. Can we compare these young men to the greatest generation? We certainly can. While the war in Afghanistan has not had the great tank battles of WW2, nor the fierce fighting of Korea, it has been down and dirty combat against a determined foe. One who seeks victory as much as we do, one driven by ideology more so then the armies of Mussolini and Hitler. The muslim fanatics today will die in battle just as gladly as did the army of Tojo.
Today I had lunch with a friend, a veteran of Vietnam. Today was the 44th anniversary of his capture by the NVA. He spent a year as a POW before being freed by a Navy river patrol. We went to a hibachi grill, and is custom, we were seated with another group. That group was Army officers, and shock of shocks, they were from my old unit the 977th MP Company. We spent nearly two hours there as my friend swapped war stories with this group of young veterans. it was humbling to sit with them and listen as my friend recounted stories of Vietnam, and they told of the fighting in Afghanistan. I reflected on that a lot through the rest of the day, and tonight I write about it. Two great generations separated by a span of only a few years. Dale retired just after I joined the military, and I ended my career just as these men began theirs.
If you tune in History channel, or the Military channel, they are filled with stories from Vietnam, WW2, Iraq and Afghanistan. Little is told of the era known as the cold war, nor of those of us who served during that time. We did not fight great battles, but we were not cowards nor men of small deeds. We faced the greatest enemy America has ever faced across the Fulda gap, and we did not blink. We were to a man volunteers, none of my generation was drafted. We carried a rifle derided as the Mighty Mattel. Our chariots of battle were little more then aluminum cans on tracks, and our main battle tank was said to be only as good as a Soviet T-54/55 and inferior to the T-64, T-72 or T-80. Our over head cover was an ancient plane known as the lead sled, yet we stood in the gap ready to fight. ready to die, determined to win. We were the best trained, best equipped army the world had ever seen. We were told our enemy was better trained, and better equipped. They were not. They knew it too, that is why we won with out a fight.
The mind of our enemy today is a game changer. Whereas the generals of the USSR saw death as a losing proposition, islamists see it as victory. They wrongly believe they will get 72 virgins when they get to hell, and so they fight against our soldiers today.
In Vietnam we often lost hundreds of men in a day. In WW2 that number could be thousands,and no one clamored for us to surrender. Today, if a commander loses ten men in a battle, his career will be over. Our mindset too has changed. Yet still we are determined to win.
Today Giants stand upon our shoulders. We have built for them a firm foundation. They will win.