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By Mike Cuenca | April 16, 2003
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I come from a long line of "ground-pounders." There were Cuencas with
most of the initial Spanish invasions of the Americas. My
great-great-grandfather Cuenca emigrated from Mexico to serve in the
Mexican colonial army in the Philippines. My great-grandfather Aguilar
died of starvation during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in
World War II. My father fought the Japanese as a guerrilla resistance
fighter and became a citizen by serving in the U.S. Navy. And my
stepfather is a former U.S. Army officer who earned his combat
infantryman's badge in Vietnam. Consequently, my sympathies are always
with the "grunts."
No matter how much modern air power helps "shorten" wars, one fact
remains: Someone must still walk in and secure the ground. Our
president has given us a new Belfast, Beirut or Grozny. For the
foreseeable future, a great many Americans will have to guard and
patrol an occupied country, where they will be vulnerable to attack at
all times. Our soldiers, sailors and Marines on the ground (and flying
above it) will be tossed into this meat grinder to pay the ultimate
price. It is for them -- and all other casualties of war -- that we
must stand against this and all wars.
Most Americans, even the majority of veterans, have no face-to-face
combat experience. Those, then, who condemn peace activists are no more
legitimate than the cowardly chicken hawks who gave us this war.
Standing against violence and mayhem, in contrast, is always legitimate
-- and significantly more moral.
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Originally published by the Lawrence Journal-World.
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