There should have been a bigger crowd Sunday as the Military
Order of the Purple Heart unveiled a memorial to those who lost
their lives in combat. In the midst of the sylvan beauty of
Staten Island's Greenbelt, at the Pouch Boys Scout Camp, the
group of medal honorees raised the flag and saluted, pledging
their allegiance under God.
A reporter from the Staten Island Advance and I were the only
representatives of the press present. Why was I not surprised?
Military events don't rank high in this city unless there are
protesters picketing them.
Before the ceremony began, the veterans were joking about the few
Marines present. A young man raised his hand to identify himself
as one, and I observed that he walked with a slight limp. Most of
the men there were Vietnam veterans, and I assumed that this
young man had served in Iraq. Corporal Jamel Daniels confirmed
this, and when I asked him if he had injured his leg in battle,
he smiled and tapped on his left thigh, which resounded loudly.
A Queens husband and father of a 6-year-old boy, Corporal Daniels
lost his leg in Aliskandaryah, Iraq, and spent 16 months in
Walter Reed Hospital. At the event, he was representing the
Wounded Warrior Project (woundedwarriorproject.org), whose
mission is to raise public awareness and enlist the public's aid
for the needs of severely injured servicemen and -women.
In Washington, he said, there are plenty of support services for
the wounded. The USO is very active and provided plenty of
entertainment while he was recuperating and undergoing physical
therapy. In New York, however, he said such resources are much
harder to find and he is very grateful for organizations like the
Military Order of the Purple Heart. The two of us also found that
we had something in common: We've both met Vice President Cheney
and like him.
While still in a wheelchair, Corporal Daniels was one of the
three soldiers flanking Mr. Cheney this April on the field at the
home opener of the Washington Nationals, played against the Mets.
He said the vice president was very friendly and asked Corporal
Daniels all about the incident that led to his severe injuries.
"Then he went to throw out the first pitch and the crowd
booed. That was so cold," Corporal Daniels said, shaking his
head sadly.
Then our conversation turned to the news and he told me,
"The media is not telling it like it is over there."
Unfortunately, this disconnect from journalistic integrity has
been ongoing since the 1960s.
I had been invited to the memorial unveiling by Joe DiGiovanni of
the Fr. Vincent Capodanno Chapter of the Military Order of the
Purple Heart, whom I'd met in 2003 when the traveling Vietnam
Wall memorial came to South Beach. He and the other veterans I
met that day all agreed that our military did not lose the war in
Vietnam. We lost it in America.
The same anti-military factions are at it again, trying to spin
our victories into defeat by slandering our forces. Our current
enemies are waging the same propaganda war that worked so
successfully when the Vietcong utilized it.
The egregiously biased coverage has now been extended to the
Israeli-Lebanon conflict.Thanks to a blogger at
littlegreenfootballs.com, Reuters has admitted that one of its
photographs was doctored so as to make an Israeli airstrike on
Lebanon appear more devastating. The same photographer who
supplied that photo also supplied footage at Qana, the alleged
site of a massacre. How do you explain a building collapsing
seven hours after it was first struck?
Never again, my eye.
All my life, I've heard that phrase, "Never again,"
uttered by Jewish people as a vow that another Holocaust will not
happen. Well, it is happening, and if this is so obvious to a
Puerto Rican Roman-Catholic, why can't the self-loathing
anti-American, anti-Israel crowd recognize such a simple fact of
life? The king of the self-loathers, Richard Cohen, wrote in a
recent Washington Post column that Israel itself was a mistake,
and yet he still has a job.
Meanwhile, Israeli men, women, and children are hiding in bomb
shelters, which, by the way, begs the question: Why are bomb
shelters standard in new Israeli housing? Isn't that a major clue
that Jews are being killed just because they are Jews? Sound
familiar?
War is hell, but sometimes it is necessary in the face of evil.
But it is the warrior that pays the price for our freedom, and it
was a privilege to share this moment with them and an honor to
meet Corporal Daniels. Thank God for their service.