Subject: Letter Home
Dear Dad,
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia):
A French army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought
we (Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war
in
Iraq. He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count on
thesupport of France.
I told him that it didn't surprise me. Since wehad cometo
France'srescuein World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the
ColdWar,their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface [again] at
some point
inthe near future anyway.
I also told him that is why France is a third-rate military power with a
socialist economy and a bunch of pansies for soldiers. I additionally
toldhim that America, being a nation of deeds and action, not words,
would
dowhatever it had to do, and France's support, if it ever came, was only
forshow anyway.
Just like in ALL NATO exercises, the US would shoulder 85% of
the burden, and provide 85% of the support, as evidenced by the fact
that this French officer was shopping in the American PX, and not the
other
wayaround. He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if
he
would like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger King and
whip his ass in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade East, thus
demonstrating that even the smallest American had more fight in him than
the average Frenchman.
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Dad, tell Mom I love her,
Your loving daughter,
Mary Beth Johnson LtCol., USMC
Robert Houston
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is
worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing
to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a
miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by
the exertions of better men than himself.<A
HREF="http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/John_Stuart_Mill/";>John Stuart
Mill</A> (1806 - 1873)
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