Heroes And Cowards

Corporal Thomas Saba was buried in the Moravian Cemetery on Staten Island last Friday. One of seven Marines killed when their helicopter was shot down in Iraq on February 7, Saba, 30, enlisted in the spring of 2002 in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. He extended his five-year tour by five months so that he could go with his squadron to Iraq.

It is absolutely amazing how America can continue to produce heroes such as Saba while electing cowardly politicians who mock their sacrifices.

Rep. John Murtha, who once suggested we redeploy our troops to Japan, and other congressional defeatists must be jubilant over the passage of that ridiculous House resolution rebuking the president's request for more troops. Meanwhile Saba was laid to rest with full military honors near the grave of another American hero, Army Sergeant Yevgenly Ryndychin, 24, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, Iraq, on December 6.

The last Marine funeral I attended was for Adam Ogbu, a 19-year-old Nigerian-American who was my son's best friend. Young Ogbu died while on a Special Forces training run in Texas. He was in perfect health, and the cause of his death was never fully investigated. This was in 2000, and I mention this because the mainstream press is constantly bombarding us with the number of military casualties, and it is clear that the reports are meant to incite anger about the Iraqi war. How refreshing it would be if partisan politics could be set aside and reporters put news in the proper perspective without bias.

The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?

A neighbor of mine, Harry Colon, was 19 when he was killed in Vietnam. He had been drafted, and many of those protesting against that war have admitted that it was fear of conscription that was behind much of their anti-war activity. It is so pathetic now (while we have this valiant volunteer military) to watch these hoary relics of the 1960s trying to recapture the relevance of that period. Only a few veteran protesters of that era have the integrity to distinguish between these two conflicts.

The noted Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff wrote in an April 3, 2003, column headlined "Why I Am Not Marching": "I participated in many demonstrations against the Vietnam War. … But I could not participate in the demonstrations against the war on Iraq." He had learned of Saddam's atrocities again the Iraqi people and said, "If people want to talk about containing [Saddam Hussein] and don't want to go in forcefully and remove him, how do they propose doing something about the horrors he is inflicting on his people who live in such fear of him?" That's a question these protesters fail to address.

Perhaps the most touching reappraisal of an anti-war position was penned by Pat Conroy, author of "The Great Santini," who wrote, "An Honest Confession of an American Coward." He admitted being a draft dodger and an antiwar demonstrator to an old college teammate, Al Kroboth, whom he was interviewing for a book he was writing. Mr. Kroboth had been a POW and Mr. Conroy learned the details of his experience. Mr. Kroboth endured unspeakable pain while being tortured by his captors, yet he was saved by the extraordinary camaraderie among his fellow prisoners. As Mr. Conroy was demonstrating against Nixon and the Christmas bombings in Hanoi, the POWs were holding hands and singing "God Bless America" under the full fury of the bombs. It was those bombs that ultimately led to the release of the POWs.

After that night in Mr. Kroboth's New Jersey home, Pat Conroy researched the history of world totalitarianism during what he calls "the unspeakable century we just left behind." He concluded about our country: "I knew then in my bones but lacked the courage to act on: America is good enough to die for even when she is wrong."

The "bring 'em home" Democrat majority and the 17 Republican turncoats who voted for that resolution apparently disagree.