This article is from the July issue of Townhall Magazine. To subscribe to twelve issues of Townhall Magazine and receive a free copy of Craig Shirley’s Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign that Started it All, click here.
The four-star general momentarily opened his bloodshot eyes, looked at the five others in the secure conference room as they prepared coffees or grabbed bottled water or soda, and just as quickly closed them. During his thirty-two year career wearing the uniform of the United States Army, he could not remember a time when his eyelids were so heavy, nor his mind so troubled. Everything had gone so tragically bad so quickly that assigning blame was now a useless exercise to be carried out by future historians. Survival was all that mattered.
The general had never considered himself a political animal. He was a professional soldier whose only job was to safeguard the sovereignty of the United States and the welfare of her people. With each passing day, that sacred responsibility slipped further from his control as predicted, but mostly ignored forces, now unleashed their evil upon the homeland.
Being more pragmatic than political, the general paid very close attention when, back in 2007, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut had stressed that the 2008 presidential election was “the most important of my lifetime.” The senator articulated that opinion for one reason and one reason only: terrorism.
The general respected Lieberman. He felt the senator truly did seem to be a politician willing to put country before party. And for that, the general knew, Lieberman had paid a heavy political price as the far-left of the democrat party savaged him. They savaged him when he supported the war in Iraq and they especially savaged him when he endorsed Republican Senator John McCain over liberal Barack Obama.
As a war-fighter and a career military officer, the general knew that sometimes things were as simple and as straightforward as they seemed. Experience did matter in the world and lessons ignored were often