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Politics

The Great American Soldier

March 31, 2010 - 6:00pm

When you look back on your life you sometimes think about things you wish you had done differently or done at all. One of my regrets is that I did not serve in the American military. My Dad served for over 30 years, first starting during World War ll and then staying on because he liked it. I heard great stories...ask me about the bartender in Egypt. But for me, coming of age during the Vietnam War, the world was different. College deferments, marriage, children...it just didn't work. My friends who served during that war laugh when I say I'm sorry I didn't serve. They say I have no idea how lucky I was. Maybe. Still, I think I would have been a better person for the experience.

I've been thinking lately how different today's military has become. There was a time when two countries got mad at each other, dressed in different uniforms, faced each other with swords, guns, artillery, airplanes and duked it out. A winner or loser would emerge until the next battlefield. Our military minds learned and practiced and taught others in the battlefield and in war colleges. Regardless of the nation's flag, most military minds understood the game of war.

Sure, it changed over the years. Mostly because of new weapons. Navies, armies, air forces, each developed new systems that changed the game. Finally nuclear weapons and the cold war seemed to change the whole idea of a shooting war. Folks seemed to understand that the price would be too high and there might not be a winner at all...we'd all lose, no matter the side who fired the first missile. Strangely, we thought that war "as we had known it" was over.

Then came 9/11. While some other countries had experienced terrorist activity...we really had not. We wanted a traditional enemy...line 'em up...shoot 'em. Let God separate the dead. We had even dramatically reduced our intelligence forces, believing they were not critical any longer. The rest, as they say, is history. We found one country that would line-up and fight back. Short work for us. But then military strategy as we had known it completely changed. We had to learn new skills...fast.

Over the last, almost decade now, the American military has been changing again. They don't line up and shoot at another line-up of the enemy. They don't stand over great maps of an area with large arrows indicating how the brigades of soldiers with sweep across and meet up with allies to win the day. There is no practice for landing crafts on well fortified beaches. None of that.

Today our military fight against organized terrorist who wear no uniforms, have no nation behind them, not even a band to march for them. They fight with roadside bombs and women who strap on explosives to kill themselves and dozens who happen to be standing by. They ambush in narrow stone walled streets and then run away to ambush another day. They blend.

This very nontraditional style has cost the lives of thousands of Americans and others. But we're learning. We, too, fight differently. From the first days of "shock and awe" to pilots sitting in a room in middle America remotely flying drones in Afghanistan targeting not hundreds of troops...but perhaps only one combatant. With satellites and drones and finally intelligence on the ground, we are learning how to fight this new enemy.

Make no mistake, we still must have thousands of troops on the ground...risking their lives and sometimes giving their lives. But we are building a new military. We have warrior/heroes who have served six, seven, eight and more, tours of duty in this new kind of war. They have learned much. This new understanding of warfare will serve us well until these terrorists finally understand that the world is not going to give them what they want by their continuing to wage terrible acts of violence.

I wish there would never be another day of war...another life lost in battle. 9/11 showed us that we don't get to make that choice....Thank you to those who so valiantly serve us. I am so very proud of them...I just wish they could be home...doing other great work.

Rick McAllister is CEO and president of the Florida Retail Federation.

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