TOO FEW GOOD MEN:

Visible Violence (George C. Wilson, March 21, 2003, National Journal)

To climb into today's M-1 tank with Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Miller, 36, a decorated tanker from the first Persian Gulf War, is to understand why Saddam Hussein will be hopelessly outgunned.

"Look through this sight," Miller said to his visitor. The sight magnifies the armored vehicles in the distance to 10 times their size, making them seem close enough to swat. At the same time, a laser beam shoots out to tell the tank commander the target's exact distance. Miller had no such instrument on his M-60 tank in the first Gulf War, when he nevertheless won the Bronze Star for destroying three Iraqi tanks and two armored personnel carriers.

Although 2,500 meters (about a mile and a half) is considered a "comfortable" range for the M-1's main 120-mm gun, Miller said that his upgraded tank could destroy an Iraqi armored vehicle more than two miles away. A computerized system in the tank calculates the effects of the wind and the air temperature for the gunner, helping him to hit the very heart of the enemy vehicle from long distances.

And the big gun is only part of the hell that the M-1 can make. A chain gun can fire 11,000 7.62-mm bullets per minute while that old reliable, the .50-caliber machine gun, can spit out 1,000 rounds of lethal fire. And if Iraq should dare to fly a helicopter over his M-1, Miller can use the big gun to explode a round right in the aircraft's path, thanks to another new high-tech aiming system.

"We're a big armored pillbox," said Miller. "And we have had 12 years of studying the lessons of the last Gulf War." He feels sure that none of the Iraqis who faced U.S. tanks back then will have any stomach for a rematch.

Miller said he felt no pleasure in 1991 destroying Iraqi tanks with men like him inside. "I just felt numb as I was going through it. I just lined up the sights and pressed the trigger," he recalled. Later, when he drove through the Iraqi wreckage and saw the death and destruction he had caused in pressing that trigger, it bothered him, he said. "I did keep seeing some of the faces. I had a difficult time sleeping afterward." And he said that after the war, when he was back home, "I was hypervigilant. My senses were extremely sharp. I was difficult to be around, especially if I saw lots of light, like Fourth of July fireworks."

Miller said he could have left the tank corps after Gulf War I in hopes of relieving some of the postwar stress. "But I thought I should come back and teach young marines what I learned." Miller was to be in one of the first tanks to bump over the big sand berm that marks the dividing line between Kuwait and Iraq. "I'll go without hesitation, because that's the choice I've made in my life. I'm sure if the president says this is important, he knows more than I do. So I'll say, 'Aye, aye,' and go."

NPR was talking last night to some of the protestors who are trying to shut various cities down and one woman giggled about the great signs they had, like: "Smart bombs are dumb". In the background you could hear a speaker referring to: "...Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld...the real axis of evil...". They don't care about the Iraqi people. It's all about their own personal political feelings. Comparing their lack of moral seriousness to the depth of thought these military guys display--willing to follow commands, but hardly blindly--you'd have to say the activists are the soldiers' "fellow citizens" in name only. The latter represent the very best in us. The former are hardly worthy of the nation. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2003 1:34 PM