This morning’s Wall Street Journal article, “Hasan’s Army Unit Ships Out” proves what many of us have known: When you are in the presence of the overwhelming majority of men and women in the US military, it is most fitting, to use the words that formed the title of Michael Durrant’s book, for you are among “A Company of Heroes.” And events in recent days prove that a large part of that company is made up of Army Reservists.
Ana Campoy’s story on A3 of the Wall Street Journal, December 5-6, showed the courage, the tenacity, the deep-down, spirit, and even God-honoring vision of the 467th Medical Detachment, who left for Afghanistan yesterday (December 4th, 2009). What caught my eye was this line:
”Several reservists volunteered to replace their dead and wounded comrades, so the unit, the first reservist mental-health workers to deploy to Afghanistan, left at full strength.”
What a credit to their nation! What an honor they have brought upon themselves and the US Army Reserves! Yes, I am a part of the larger Army Reserve community that is applauding Kara and Dick Hurtig, husband and wife who both volunteered to fill the gap. I am screaming “Hu-ah!” deep in my heart as I read about First Lt. Susan Nieman, a “44 year-old psychiatric nurse from Vancouver” who received a call from the unit and responded, “I fell like it’s an honor to serve.”
As she leaves her job, and others with her, and heads for the theater of operation in a rugged, lawless, mountainous, nests of terrorists, murderers and criminals, to serve God and Country, to protect our freedoms, and to stop a treacherous and diabolical enemy bent on our destruction, every American owes this one particular unit a debt of gratitude and prayers of thanksgiving.
The madman who masqueraded as an American, an Army officer and as a medical doctor, seething with a demonic-like, radical Islamic hate, the ancient hatred of the ages now revived, and in some sense a tragic if not dangerously accurate living metaphor to describe our often invisible Hell-bent opponent, could not stop the human spirit of those who survived his savage rage. He only stirred up the nobility and passion of good Americans. And that is, in my view, the hope we have in winning this war.