Tag Archives: the war in Iraq

Invisible Enemies: Life on the Front Lines of a Modern Vietnam

It isn’t a secret that military veterans tend to be conservative and vote Republican. In fact, Gallup reports that veterans are more likely to be Republican than are those of comparable ages who are not veterans. The reason I mention this is because Brian Welch’s memoir takes readers through Army boot camp to Iraq for two deployments, and Welch is brutally honest with his conservative views—a fresh perspective that most who serve in the U.S. military share but is missing from many films about war where the focus is usually on heroism, debauchery or the horrors of war. In fact, most films seem to be more concerned with political correctness than reality. But Term of Service (click link to visit Amazon and buy this book) avoids Hollywood hype and serves us combat as it really is.

Term of Service Cover

When we first meet the author in boot camp, he’s eager to fight for his country, but that eagerness fades when confronted by an elusive enemy that is seldom seen. For instance, unseen insurgents planting roadside bombs; invisible snipers shooting from a distance, or terrorists who become human bombs that infiltrate our lines and blow themselves up among U.S. Troops. The type of combat our troops faced in World War I, World War II and Korea seems to be a thing of the past. Instead of armies clashing with armies, today our troops often fight an invisible enemy.

This modern form of warfare grinds our troops down just like it did to combat vets in Vietnam where I fought decades earlier.  I think Welch’s honesty is refreshing, and anyone who wants to experience the tension of combat—the endless waiting not knowing what will happen next—and what it does to most of the troops, should read this book. War takes boys, runs them through the blades of a blender and when they come out, they are often cut and bruised physically and mentally.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His second novel is the award winning love story and suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he didn’t do while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

Promo Image with Cover Awards

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The Noble Nightmare: Part 2/3

Foreign Policy Magazine lists The Worst of the Worst and says, “There are at least 40 dictators around the world today, and approximately 1.9 billion people live under the grip of the 23 autocrats on this list alone.”

The Foreign Policy piece is worth reading because it reveals how some of these dictators were seen as freedom fighters until they won their revolution. Foreign Policy says, “Although all dictators are bad in their own way, there’s one insidious aspect of despotism that is most infuriating and galling to me: the disturbing frequency with which many despots, as in Kyrgyzstan, began their careers as erstwhile freedom fighters who were supposed to have liberated their people. ”

I think it is hypocrisy for any Americans to support the war in Iraq based on moral grounds without supporting wars against all of the other brutal, autocratic, and oppressive regimes across the globe. To do that, the U.S. would have to mobilize as it did to fight Japan, Italy and Germany in World War II by enacting the draft and raising a military force of more than sixteen million to fight a global war of this scale.

In fact, the use of nuclear weapons might also be an option to end this war as it did in World War II when two nuclear bombs were dropped on cities in Japan killing almost 200,000 innocent civilians including children.

Then after that global war on oppressive regimes,—that is if it was successful—to maintain the peace, the United States would have to occupy all of those countries by keeping a military presence as we have in Japan, Germany and South Korea. The last question would be, if the United States did do this and fought wars in these countries that have a population of about 1.9 billion people, how would the United States guarantee that a dictator would never rule these people again?

The answer is simple: The U.S. would have to rule over these countries no matter how the people felt and to achieve this, order would be maintained by a permanent U.S. military force.

Continued on February 26, 2013 in The Noble Nightmare: Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy, a suspense thriller. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Follow”.