I heard about the assassination in Syria several days ago. When I heard about it I had a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and closure. It has taken me a while to get my head around how and why the news affected me that way.
Being an 80’s Marine all of these events had a tremendous impact on my day to day life and activities. Watching the fall of the Shah, the Regime Change in Iran, and the capture of the US Embassy in Tehran all had a tremendous impact on my formative years. You see in High School I had several Iranian students in my class, when the Shah fell they had no contact with their families, no knowledge of their whereabouts or safety. When I was an ROTC student, the university allowed two student groups to conduct rallies. One in support of the hostages in Tehran, the other (as you might imagine) was more on the “code pink” side of things with flag burnings etc. Needless to say, the powers that be pretty much locked the ROTC students in the Military Science building for the duration of the demonstrations. Of course, Carter’s disastrous rescue operation occurred at about the same time.
Later, when the Beruit barracks bombing occured I was with the MARDET at Fort Bliss. As a group the entire command was livid and we had no place to release that energy. My career path took me into the Air Wing with no way to directly impact those who took the lives of my fellow Marines in such a cowardly fashion. I recently read in the Reagan Diaries that while there was evidence of those responsible, there was never enough to trigger a response. Knowing my frustration all these years, I can only imagine what was experienced by those at much higher levels of leadership.
It has taken nearly 25 yrs but this particular @$$hole has finally paid the price.
You can put this in the category, “No better friend, no worse enemy”.
To absent friends.
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.478929&w=425&h=350&fv=docId%3D%26playerMode%3Dsimple%26hl%3Den] from hallsofmontezumashoresoftripoli.blogspot.com posted with vodpod
UPDATE: Well I can’t get this little video to work. Get thee on over to here to see the video. It is a reminder of what we are up against here.