George Orwell noted that: "To abjure violence is a luxury which a delicate few enjoy only because others stand ready
to do violence in their behalf." So, U.S. Marines in World War II died on Iwo Jima so that pacifists could sing Kumbaya
in safety.
Chinese philosopher-general Sun Tzu, two millennia earlier, instructed us that the object of war is peace -- on the
victor's terms. Peace is not an outcome or an objective. It's just a state or condition, and a temporary one at that.
A quarter-century ago, historian Will Durant calculated that the world had known the absence of war in only 268
of the last 3,421 years. That ratio has declined even further since. Moreover, peace, in and of itself, is an insufficient
condition. A goldfish in a bowl knows peace. Defeated and enslaved peoples may know peace. Americans, going back
to our birth as a nation in the caldron of the Revolutionary War, desire peace but require freedom and justice.
We do not worship peace at any price.
Proudly serving,
M3
