Procrustes Stretched
"intuition and imagination and intelligence"
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- #41
Wow! 8 neg rep hits in a row AND a drive by post. Sorry you've been triggered so badlyNo Ballz Walz is a coward and all but a deserter. Per his own unit and commanding officer. Claiming to be on combat he was never close to. Claiming a rank he didn't have. Now you Dems love people running from military service. It'd be funny if you people weren't so predictable.
What it means to be ‘at war’
A disappointing aspect of the flap over Gov. Tim Walz’s description of his military service is the failure of the media, including The Post, to explain what it means to “carry weapons of war at war.” This reflects a broader public failure to distinguish “war” from combat operations and to understand that the enemy gets a vote.
When I taught two generations of military officers at National Defense University and Air University, we studied the national security strategies issued by various presidents. Neither strategy documents nor joint doctrine uses the imprecise and misleading term “combat zone.”
What qualifies as a combat zone, after all? Did Northern Virginia on Sept. 10, 2001? Honolulu on Dec. 6, 1941? No, but those regions became combat zones the following days. What about the evening of 9/11? The men and women who patrolled the Potomac and Hudson by land, sea and air did not know if they were still in a combat zone, but they most assuredly carried weapons of war at war.
Despite the unfortunate American tendency to think of war in terms of “over there” and to assume that we will determine if and when combat operations take place, the armed forces after 9/11 did not share that illusion. They were (and still are, I hope) prepared for possible terrorist attacks, whether in the homeland or overseas. The base to which Mr. Walz deployed did not, as it turned out, become a “combat zone.” Other U.S. military bases did.
Whatever one’s political views, using imprecise terminology and sloppy language to discuss U.S. national security hurts us all.
Edwina S. Campbell, Sonoma, Calif.
The writer is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and the author of multiple books about diplomacy.