As America goes to the polls today, it is essential that we see that there are two sides to our military efforts.

The first is that we are bringing freedom to so many; that we are helping two nations to rebuild; that our men and women are doing more than just repairing infrastructure; that they are rebuilding lives while constructing relationships.

The Truth About Iraq is a website dedicated to getting this aspect of our military effort out:

• 80,000 Iraqi children are alive today because the Coalition Forces took Saddam Hussein from power.
• Polls show 75% of Iraqis want a democracy.
• 51% of Iraqis say their country is going in the right direction.

But there is much more than statistics. There are the pictures that you won’t see on television. The pictures that you won’t see in newspapers or magazines. The pictures that illustrate the true untold story of Iraq and Afghanistan. The victory in winning the hearts of two peoples. The pictures that portray the true heart of the American soldier.

Pictures of Iraq You Won’t See in Main Stream Media:

This is Chief Wiggles who did so much in bringing planeloads of toys to children in Iraq. There are more pictures on his site.

 

One of the many pictures of anti-terrorism deomonstrations in Healing Iraq’s photo blogs.

 

One of the softer photos among many military shots in a post at FreeRepublic.

 

A picture from the blogosphere, this one from Dean’s World.

 

Just one of the more than 250 pictures from the 101st Airborne gallary.

 

One of the many pictures collected by Glenn Beck.

 

Joe’s Military Picture Pages has literally thousands of pics.

 

News Radio WBTM collected some nice pictures.

 

Over 140 pictures are available at this site, and every single one is a feel-good pic.

 

A soldier arm wrestles with kids, just one the over 4,500 images available from Stryker Brigade News Photo Gallery.

 

An Iraqi man gives a female soldier a flower. This and 92 others are on the Rock 103 (Memphis radio) website.

 

This is from the afore-mentioned Truth About Iraq

But that is just one side of our military. The other is the side painted to look ugly by the Left and liberal media. It is the part of a soldier that led to decades of anti-military movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. It is the part that makes idiots mouth phrases like “war never solves anything”.

This is best illustrated by a poem from Russ Vaughn, a paratrooper who was inspired by a post by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman on BlackFive. Russ sent his poem to several bloggers, and I was priviledged to be among them:

The Sheepdogs

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”

Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Simple and elequent, it reminds us why we are in this fight.

Now remember that our military was degraded and demorlized when Bush took the helm. Yet when we were attacked our Dogs of War rose to the challenge and achieved the impossible: they routed the Taliban from the stoney strongholds and secret caves, achieving in months what the Russians could not do in years, and freeing a nation of oppressed people.

Free elections have already taken place. What Leftist would have admitted that this would be possible on that fateful day of 9/11?

Then remember the predictions of the Left as we took down a tyrant in Iraq:

• We would meet the Republican Guard who would fight tooth-and-nail.
• There would be house-to-house fighting in the streets of Baghdad the likes of which have not been seen since WWII.
• The oil fields would be ignited creating an environmental disaster of meteroric proportions.
• We would find massive stockpiles of WMD because the administration would ensure it — even if they had to plant them there.

None of this happened. Our pride in our soldiers as they raced across the desert was immense, but the liberal media has undone that pride and succeeded in dividing our nation again.

Knowing what we know today, who do you trust to command our troops, both as they give aid and as they kill wolves? A man that restored pride, or a man who spent his entire career trying to destroy our military might?