What Price Glory?

A Stodghill Says So blog:
Some would say this is a bittersweet story. Few could say it is a happy one.
My old Army outfit, the 4th Infantry Division, has pretty much completed its return from a 15-month tour in Iraq, the third it has made to that war torn country. As one 200-member unit from the 1st Brigade Combat Team stood at attention on a Fort Hood, Texas field, family members waited nearby to greet husbands, sons, brothers and sweethearts.
Then came the command: "Sgt. Rosa! Rejoin your formation!"
To do so he needed the help of a friend who assisted him from a wheelchair. Sergeant Luis Rosa-Valentin had returned to the States earlier than his friends. Or part of him had. He left both legs and part of his left arm behind in Iraq. He had lost his hearing and his vision was impaired. The Army fitted him with artificial limbs but they couldn't make him hear again or do much to make him see a little better.
When he awoke from a coma in a Maryland hospital more than a year ago he made one thing clear: He wanted to be there when his unit returned home. The Army flew him to Fort Hood for the occasion.
You don't hear too much about the Sgt. Rosas. People don't want to know about things like that. They'd rather hear the bands play and see the flags wave. In every war and every country it has been that way down through the ages.
A reporter for the Killleen Daily Herald, Amanda Kim Stairett, wrote about Staff Sgt. Rosa. Bob Babcock, who has supplied details of the Ivy Division's three trips to Iraq several times each week, passed it along. The networks and the news channels and the wire services apparently didn't feel it was worth repeating. Not surprising since it doesn't do much for the average person's image of war. Hard to find the part about glory in this account. Difficult for those who weren't there, but like to say what "we" did, to pick out something to boast about.
Sergeant Rosa will never stand on his own two feet again. He will never pick something up with both hands. He will never hear the sound of music. His wife and children will be a blur when he looks at them. Many return from every war like that.
An old song says it all, "Johnny, we hardly knew ya." Some call it unpatriotic.

Dear Dick,
I hope for the day that war is not even considered as a soluition to differences of nations and peoples.

I do not think it will be a leader that show the way of this, it will be the people that do. Not just the USA, but the world people. I may not see much of it, but maybe I will see the beginnings.

The ripples from your gentle heart have bounced along the river of these message boards. You may not think you have done anything, but you have done much, spirit, knowledge, love ang kindness-wise. I love you, Dick Stodghill!

Love,
Betty

Dick, as you know, I wrote a book about another infantryman from the same war you and the other soldiers of the 4th fought in a bit over 60 years ago. I'm afraid he was just a dogface from the 3rd Division, though. People called him a hero, but he was no more so than you, Fleming, Eddie Wolfe, or Sergeant Luis Rosa-Valentin. Those of you who have been there know there is nothing "glorious" about it. There is a line near the end of Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance, supposedly written by another retired veteran of that same war, a fictional character, who was "writing his memoirs." The character's name was "Pug" Henry. I haven't had my copy of that book since I loaned it to my father back in 1981, or I would look up his full name. I will never forget that line: "Either war is finished, or we are." The character was writing about the importance of honoring veterans, no matter whether we believed in their particular war or not. Maybe Betty is right about the world's people. For sure, she is right about you.

Thanks for another inspiring blog.

Ann

I can only echo what these two lovely ladies have written here, Dick. Another great post, even if it is sad.

"War is Hell," and yet many still want to go there. Once one sees the "Hell" of war, they change their minds. There has been too much glorification of war and less about the destructive aspects.
Dick's post makes the point. The results of war, especially the lives of those who suffer, are not as newsworthy.

Thanks for all the kind words. One of my most vivid memories of WWII actually came in the months after it ended when I was an MP in Northern Germany. While making routine patrols by Jeep in the town of Nordenham I often saw a former German soldier being wheeled around the streets by a young woman. He was a basket man, no arms, no legs and blind. He always had a twisted smile on his face. I never failed to wonder why the doctors hadn't done the kind thing and let him die rather than sending him home in that condition.

Dick, that's a great blog, and I completely agree. We have been somehow convinced folks that people will "lose sight of the mission" if we stand back and acknowledge the very personal cost that our soldiers and their families are paying. That is BS, in my humble opinion. I don't think that we are ready to help those with psychological wounds when they return either. Shame on us, I say.

The Robertson family motto is Virtuitis gloria mercy (Glory is the reward of valour). Valour, or in the American speling, valor demands an enormous cost.