Respecting the dead
One of the things the anti-War movement does is obsess on the war dead. They say they do it out of respect but, their protests notwithstanding, their antics always look remarkably as if they’re pushing bodies in front of the American public so as to advance their agenda that war, any war, is evil. As in: “See how evil war is. People die.”
It seems to me that true respect for those who have died in Iraq is to appreciate the sacrifice that these men and women were willing to make so that those of us comfortably ensconced on the home front can continue to live our lives of safety, freedom and comfort. I don’t see these men and women as lambs to the slaughter. I see them as adults who willingly gave of themselves for the benefit of the rest of us.
Why I’m I restating my principles on this subject, since they’re familiar to anyone who has read this blog for a while? Because Dr. Rusty Shackleford, at the Jawa Report, asked people to do so out of respect to Ginger Gilbert, the widow of Maj. Troy Gilbert. And if the latter’s name sounds familiar to you, it’s because it was he whose body was shown being desecrated in the most recent Al Qaeda production. The problem is that the MSM, in conjunction with the activist anti-War crowd, has glommed onto the video as yet another entry in their “lambs to the slaughter” scenario. But that’s not how Maj. Gilbert’s friends, family and colleagues see the video. Instead, for them, the video should be seen so that those of in the comfortable American home-front bubble can “see just what it was that Troy was fighting in Iraq.”
Ginger Gilbert is especially incensed at the way in which her husband’s death is being used by the anti-War crowd:
“When media chooses to use Troy’s plane crash as a political catalyst to generate anti-war sentiment, it only serves to degrade the moral integrity my husband possessed and the morale of those still selflessly serving,” Gilbert said at news conference at Glendale’s Falcon Dunes Golf Course, across from Luke.
“Every time the press lends credibility and significance to terrorist propaganda clearly designed to erode public support or questions the validity of our brave soldiers’ selfless acts of service and the war itself,” she added, “it only serves to damage our country from within its own borders and embolden those who would do us harm.”
In other words, Mrs. Gilbert sees her husband, not as a pathetic, infantile victim of Al Qaeda, but as a victim of the anti-War crowd’s relentless denigration of the service our armed forces render to America.
UPDATE: Confederate Yankee has compiled a list of news outlets that have ignored Mrs. Gilbert’s statements.
