In War, Bad Things Happen...

Bad things even happen to good people. And sometimes it's hard to tell who the good people are. As a matter of fact, ever since President Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the good people have been harder to spot, because the enemy no longer wears a uniform.

So now we come to the problem of a squad of Marines, who supposedly slaughtered 25 people in Haditha, including women and children, in cold blood. The official report says the people were killed while the Marines were returning fire after one of their vehicles was blown up. An Iraqi Human Rights Group, claims that the Marines were unprovoked and did it in retaliation, because one of the members of the squad was killed when the vehicle blew up. Now the news media is saying that this is the greatest atrocity of the war. The military is investigating, commanders have been relieved and of course the squad is under investigation for the heinous crime they committed. It's a scandal! No one, of course, seems to be allowing any room for the idea that the original report that the Marines gave after the incident is true, and that the human rights group might be lying. I'm not saying that they are, but with many trying to tarnish the US image in Iraq and trying to make "the occupation" look bad, why can't we believe that this group might have their own agenda.

Unless you've actually been in a war, you can't even begin to imagine what it's like. Oh yeah, you've seen it on television, and there are lots of movies out there, but it's only for an hour or two, and you were not really there. Think about it for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks and months without end. There is no safe place in Iraq. For as long as you are in the country, you can be attacked and killed at any time, regardless of whether you're on duty or not. I'm still not saying the Marines did anything wrong, but could you blame anyone under these conditions, if they went a little crazy? And I'm not saying they did.

In war, bad things happen. They always have. What's different, I believe, is that today we have a lot of people who don't know anything about war, or even know someone who does. The Gulf War was over quickly, Vietnam is a history lesson, and the Korean War and World War II are distant memories. Bad things have always happened in wartime that no one wants to talk about. Why we are so eager today to discredit our troops trying to do a job they didn't ask for, under deplorable conditions, I don't know. What I do know is that this type of story only makes people wonder, if this story is true, could it have happened elsewher? And if not elsewhere, why not everywhere? And what kind of people could have done this?

I don't think we'll ever know the truth about this incident. For some reason, people want to believe it's true. If the military says it's not, people will scream, "Cover up!" And if it is true, I feel sorry for the Marines involved, because no matter what anybody else does to them, they're already having to live with what they have done.