Worldview Item of the Day
President Bush announced today that Navy SEAL Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor will be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor as a result of his actions in Ramadi on 29 September 2006.
Monsoor represents an enigma in the current conflict in Iraq: a man who willingly sacrificed himself for his fellow SEALs in a conflict reviled by the political left, misrepresented in the media, and only tepidly supported by the American public. I contend, however, that Monsoor represents something far more fundamental about Americans than even most Americans understand.
Monsoor proved that Americans are willing to die for what they believe in, whether that is preserving the lives of their fellows or finishing the mission that they have been asked to finish. Monsoor proves that Americans do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
As I recently noted, war is an ugly business that reveals the worst about humanity. Ironically, it also sometimes reveals the best as well. In this war hyperactively thrust in our faces by a never ending media cycle, that revealing lens has been focused on all of us. If that lens reveals the inhumanity, then it also reveals Monsoor and the potential all of us possess.
In Monoor’s sacrifice, I find the hope that we may just have the courage and the determination to see what we have started in Iraq through to its completion. He proved the will is there. Do the rest of us have the same?
This is a great post.
Wade