Dann Todd's 'Dain Bramage'^**

Just A Little Slow

I never was very quick to pick up on some things. In boot camp, I didn't understand why the DIs wouldn't let us drink out of the drinking fountain. It never occurred to me that it was part of the process, their process, of changing us from being civilians into being Marines. There are all sorts of 'smart' in the world and sometimes that just isn't me.

I recall another time when I was with a fellow Marine when I just didn't get it. I'm not going to identify him any more than that as it has been some time since this happened. And if his wife can forgive him, then who am I to mess up his reputation.

A group of us had been out celebrating and I took him home. As I helped him to the door, (yup, it was that sort of celebration) I heard his wife start in on him. She was pissed because he hadn't bothered to let her know where he was going. I figured out shortly thereafter why he hadn't told her.

Well, they got to yapping back and forth at one another. And at some point the hair on the back of my neck just stood right up. You have probably watched those nature shows about predators like sharks and wolves. Predators get that 'look' right before they bite. I saw the look.

He swung on his wife. And missed. I grabbed him from behind and put him on the floor. It was the only time that night when I did the right thing.

I got him calmed down and, silly me, I let him up. He was behaving rationally and he seemed to be back to being the guy I thought I knew. So after a few minutes, he's walking me out the front door. As I left I heard his wife asking me not to go.

I just didn't get it. Out the door I went. The lock on the door clicked shut. And then he started screaming for his wife. I had no way back in.

Fortunately, she had ducked out the back door as I was walking out the front door. I stayed long enough for the base police to arrive and do what had to be done.

Why tell this story after so many years have gone by? Because what I didn't understand then is still an important lesson today.

There are some folks that will do awful things behind closed doors. They put on a nice face while in public where everyone can see them. But let the spotlight of public interest point another way and a totally different person will appear.

That is precisely how it is with our campaigns in the Middle East. The one thing that the Jihadists want more than anything else is to have our attention be focused elsewhere. They know what sort of world they want to live in. They know the tactics they want to use to create precisely that sort of world.

But they cannot get away with it if we are watching. They cannot continue enforcing their narrow interpretation of the Islamic faith when the attention of the western world is on them. They cannot continue to stone teenaged girls into returning to a burning building so that no one will see them without their burqas. They cannot continue beheading those that seek a more open and democratic means of governance.

We need not be perfect....Lord knows that I was far from it years ago, and I'm not any closer today....to prevent a human catastrophe. We need not be able to prevent every single human catastrophe before we move to stop one such catastrophe.

We do need to understand that our active interest is desperately needed if we are to win the larger contest that is being waged with the sort of people that believe terrorism is a legitimate diplomatic tool and that the violent oppression of large populations is an acceptable form of governance.

by Dann 

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