Unsung deeds

When your fellow students gave an audience to Maj. White of the Army Reserve in the Oak Room of the Indiana Memorial Union on Monday night, the polished officer answered those who claim that our efforts in Afghanistan have been futile. Having served countless months there, he was what one might call a credible witness in describing the successes of America's intervention in this exemplary campaign of the War on Terror. In case you missed the event, the urbane major surprised many in attendance by refuting the popular caricature that military morale has waned. Neither the uniformed military nor the Afghan people clamor for such a retreat, Mr. White clarified.\nHe commented on two odd features of the protests by self-styled liberal "progressives." First, he spoke of America's sustained undertaking to build roads, repair clinics, construct schools, dispense ballot papers, frame a constitution, encourage newspapers and generally improve the quality of life for the Afghan people. How is it that this project can be scorned by anyone with a tinge of liberal sentiment, Mr. White wondered. \nNext is the matter of the al-Qaida-Taliban alliance vying to regain power. Why haven't we heard silly assertions that American forces are the problem in Kabul? Foolish critics always raise the "strategy" of aborting the war in Iraq, but if this "quagmire" recommends such a course, why not also from Afghanistan? It is because these critics have chosen to lack the courage -- or perhaps the cowardice -- of their conviction.\nMaj. White spoke astutely of "stability and security operations," the name the Pentagon designates current on-the-ground efforts to prevent state failure by imparting Western values to military and political organizations. At this point in the lecture, I couldn't help but be reminded of the recent book "Imperial Grunts," by Robert Kaplan.\nIn this work, Kaplan tells of Lt. John Turner of Indianapolis. Turner was a D-student in high school who joined the Coast Guard before earning a degree from Purdue and becoming an Army officer. Whatever Turner's fault in choosing Purdue, he more than compensated for it by serving in Mosul, Iraq. Kaplan observed him rise to his knees "from a carpet while sipping tea with a former neighborhood mukhtar, a village leader in Arab countries, and plead softly: 'Sir, I am willing to die for a country that is not my own. So will you resume your position as mukhtar? Brave men must stand forward. Iraq's wealth is not oil but its civilization. Trust me by the projects I bring, not by my words.'"\nFrom this account as well as from Maj. White's, it is evident that it takes a special breed of Americans to volunteer for such an assignment. From the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the sands of Mesopotamia, Americans stand sentry. The men and women of America's Armed Forces straddle the divide between nationalism and internationalism, harboring fidelity both for their nation and their all-important national role to improve the world. Their world-historical influence will continue to be felt as long as the rest of us can keep our nerve.