17 years ago today I was in my first serious combat.
I was 20.
All day I’ve been thinking about them walking into that ambush.
About laying in a ditch as tracers crisscrossed overhead until the tanks came.
7 years ago 👇
Then I saw this article about how Josh Hawley is a hypocritical fraud on Iraq, no surprise.
In the article it quotes a young Joshua making fun of the movie Jarhead. Calling the Marine, the one who served and went to the war, a whiner. Mocking the dangers of war, and the authors experience.
And I remembered.
Months before Josh safely blogged his complaints I too wrote about Iraq...from the Sunni Triangle.
I wrote about watching people die & firefights & kids getting hurt. And as young Josh would say I “whine about the danger of combat...and then the boredom.”
And that’s the thing, while I was still in Iraq I got comments and hate e-mails from patriotic chicken-hawks like Josh.
(read the column to see how insane that is)
They said I was weak. And shouldn’t be there. And was a disgrace. All written from the safety of home of course.
Guys like Josh Hawley are absolute frauds. They play tough, about war, about Antifa, or “cancel culture.” But they’ve never been in a real fight, a real struggle, in their lives.
They’ve never held an artery closed, or walked a picket line, or struggled to make ends meet.
Josh is the opposite of the Marines I saw walk into an ambush 17 years ago.
He’s the opposite of the freedom fighters who marched w/ MLK & continue to fight today.
The opposite of workers on picket lines who put their livelihood on the line to stand up to corporate power.
While the Hawleys mocked from the sideline I volunteered for a second tour in Iraq rather than let my Marines go back without me.
The Local 618 Teamsters on the picket line today are tired, but they’ll be back tmrw.
And that’s why we’re ultimately going to win & Josh will lose.
Because we’re tougher.
Because we fight for something.
Because we, at our core, believe in something.
Because we have witnessed courage & strength & sacrifice in a way he is incapable of seeing.
At that will make all of our struggles worth it. 🧵
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In 2010/11 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted their 12th “Five Year Plan.”
(The most infamous of these 5 year plans was Mao Zedongs “Great Leap Forward” that resulted in the starvation of 30-55 million people.)
The Communist Plan directed government officials & state owned businesses to “leapfrog” agriculture growth through state supported “mergers and acquisitions.”
It wasn’t a fight to liberate a city. It was a fight over a rock.
The Japanese Army wanted it. They fortified it. We took it.
In 36 days around 7,000 Americans were killed.
The flag raising(s) at Mt. Suribachi is our iconic moment.
There's been discussion about a Trump surrogate & former political appointee who dismissed 3/4 of vets w/ PTSD as liars, says he "sucked it up" & referred to sharing feelings as "beta."
Let me tell you about a time in Fallujah, Iraq that I think about a lot.
Thread 👇
After an ambush two of our guys were medevaced. One had been shot in the stomach. The other had been shot in the head.
They were in serious condition, but alive.
Several hours later, word got back to our platoon that, somewhere along the medevac, one of the guys had died.
One of his best friends in the platoon started to cry.