{"id":8702,"date":"2015-10-12T08:21:27","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T13:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=8702"},"modified":"2015-10-12T08:21:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T13:21:27","slug":"a-soldier-can-never-die-in-vain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/12\/a-soldier-can-never-die-in-vain\/","title":{"rendered":"A Soldier can Never Die in Vain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/10\/cemetery.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-8703\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/10\/cemetery.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"cemetery\" width=\"620\" height=\"373\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Navy Lieutenant Mike Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>Petty Officer Second Class Matt Axelson.<\/p>\n<p>Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz.<\/p>\n<p>These Navy SEALs died in 2005 as part of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navy.mil\/moh\/mpmurphy\/soa.html\">Operation Red Wings<\/a> in Afghanistan. Their sacrifices were meaningful, same as those of any soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine that dies on the fields of unfriendly strife.<\/p>\n<p>These three hallowed men mattered to the battle\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation\/dp\/0316067598?tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20\">lone survivor<\/a>, Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class Marcus Luttrell \u2014 mattered so much that an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cLDLGxxd-NI\">interviewer\u2019s<\/a> suggestion the SEALs deaths were \u201csenseless\u201d prompted Luttrell\u2019s seething response: \u201c[Are you] telling me because we were over there doing what we were told by our country that it was senseless and my guys died for nothing?\u201d Shortly thereafter, Army veteran Jim Gourley penned a provocative\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2014\/01\/15\/yes-marcus-they-did-die-in-vain\/\">essay<\/a> answering Luttrell\u2019s rhetorical question: \u201cYes Marcus. Your friends died in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The phrase <em>in vain<\/em> flies off the page like a bloody shirt up a giant flagpole. Gourley\u2019s core logic is that if the war, battle, or military judgment was wrong, then the soldier\u2019s death was <em>in vain<\/em>. As far as courage is concerned, he notes, \u201chowever honorably a soldier acquits himself, he can die in vain.\u201d His targets are chickenhawk leaders and apathetic America, a \u201ccountry that abandoned its civic duty.\u201d And Gourley finds, \u201cthe sooner we acknowledge [these conclusions], the more lives we might save.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the Remainder at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/10\/a-soldier-can-never-die-in-vain\/?utm_source=WOTR+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=570e052d46-WOTR_Newsletter_8_17_158_15_2015&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_8375be81e9-570e052d46-82918357\">War on the Rocks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Navy Lieutenant Mike Murphy. Petty Officer Second Class Matt Axelson. Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz. These Navy SEALs died in 2005 as part of Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. Their sacrifices were meaningful, same as those of any soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine that dies on the fields of unfriendly strife. These three hallowed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,1247,1860,1911],"tags":[2488,1955,2489,1779,2490,2491,2492,2493,2494,2495,2496,1567],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}