Also featured in this morning’s sermon by yours truly was this sad story from the Toledo Blade:
Editor’s note: Seldom in the modern history of The Blade’s Readers’ Forum have we received as many letters on a single subject as we did on Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s dust-up with the U.S. Marine Corps reservists from Michigan. As a result, we’re devoting today’s entire op-ed page to the controversy. The anti-Carty letters far outweighed those in the mayor’s favor. Here’s a sample:
As the proud parents of a Purple Heart veteran of the Iraq War, we were dismayed and disgraced by Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s decision to send a company of Marines packing, rather than allowing them to use an old, largely deserted downtown building for training. Even more troubling is his inability to acknowledge his mistake.
Carty, here’s a bulletin for you: America is at war. Maybe you’re not willing to make the slightest sacrifice for that effort but these young men and women are each prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. We should be welcoming the opportunity to prepare them for just the sort of combat that is occurring in Iraq.
Our son was wounded during just such an episode of urban warfare – going door to door to root out insurgents. Others in their unit, the ill-fated Lima Company based in Columbus, were not even so “fortunate” – 26 of the 160 who were deployed never returned.
We’re fortunate as Toledoans and Americans that since 9/11 we have not had to experience the terror in the streets that is commonplace in Iraq. Allowing our Marines to train in our streets should induce comfort, not fear.
Jim and Diana Burkhardt
Ashbrook Drive
Also, check out the picture and the many stories here.
Update: sill more painful reading here.
As a veteran, I cannot begin to tell you how angry this sort of thing makes me. Treason. Betrayal.
Kind of a side issue, but have you noticed that in recent months the news media has ceased toting up the death count of American military personnel in Iraq ? It is interesting to speculate on the “why”. Could it be that with President Bush as a lame-duck office-holder, there’s no profit in continuing to beat him up ? At no time during the Iraq war was it ever pointed out that more Americans died from murder and auto accidents in the U.S. The deaths of those in the U.S. had no political value to the media, but the deaths of Americans in Iraq had immense value to the media in their furious determination to beat up on Bush.
I’ve a friend and former shipmate in Toledo. I can imagine the rant he unleashed on reading this in his paper. I won’t disgrace this blog with my rendition of the likely dialogue.
Jeff
An interesting counter-point on the same page at the Toledo Blade:
“I’m a U.S. military member currently serving in Iraq and I fully support Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s decision to not let the Marines use downtown Toledo as a training ground. Being active duty for six years now, I’ve been through enough training to know that there are more than enough M.O.U.T. (military operations on urban terrain) villages across the United States and overseas that are actually on military installations so we – the military – do not have to disrupt people’s daily lives to train.”
The Marine Corps has vast financial resources at the ready- and should be able to afford an urban training area that isn’t in somebody’s backyard. Just because the Mayor of Toledo is looking out for the rights of his citizens over the desires of the Marine Corps’ generals doesn’t make him unpatriotic – it makes him a good mayor! A traitor? I don’t think so. I think American military personnel should think on how members of the military are treated in other countries (I’m thinking especially of the UK) and be grateful.
Could this country win a war that really threatened our existance? I fear that Mayor Finkbeiner is just a symptom of how rotten the soul of the US has become.
My father, just turned 87, is a member of the “Greatest Generation” who saved this country the last time it was threatened. Finkbeiner and his ilk are not fit to lick the boots of those who assured their freedom to whine…
#5, I’m beginning to see what you mean about people taking advantage of their “freedom to whine”.
Posturing a-hole. Good luck in your next election.
I think the best thing about freedom of speech is that you get to see precisely where everyone stands, like this creep.
Even creeps have rights……..unfortunately.
Let all get real here. The Marines need to train in real life conditions. By real life conditions I am taking about the next war or conflict. The Marines need to be ready to fight in US cities. They must be ready to remove hostels who might take over a part of a city.
As one whose has worked for many years in making things for the Marines, I can tell you they do not have a lot of money. The idea that they can just build a simulated city is something beyond belief.
There might have been a communications problem but if I saw Marines in battle gear on my street, I would be worried about why they were there not that they were there.
Its interesting to observe, that across the country, in Berkeley and now Toledo, that its the U. S. Marine Corps that is being targeted by ‘we know who.’
The Marines have been very successful in their pacification operations in Iraq, just as they were starting to be until being derailed in South Vietnam. But that derailment is a different story.
The Marines also unabashedly emphasize duty, honor, country and manliness in their recruiting and traditions.
Discussion of duty, honor, country and manliness among the effete of our country usually results in nervous giggles and self-defensive dersion. The effete have to scoff at things that they cannot or will not support/emulate.
While it is feasible to practice urban warfare within the confines of a military reservation, there may come a day when our enemies decide to engage in warfare in one of our cities. Practice in a real urban environment today will preclude uneccessary personnel casualties and destruction of property tomorrow. I think that the Marine Corps aims in Toledo are far-sighted.
Sooo, Mayor of Toledo, what are you going to do if the ‘bad boys come?’ Let’s say, a die-hard group 30 to 50 well-armed and well-trained islamic fanatics who intend to die while turning one of our cities into an urban battle ground? By they way, well-armed could mean just one fully-automatic weapon and three hundred rounds of ammunition per man, about one 100 electric and fuzed caps, a knowledge of where the ingredients for improvised explosives are commercially stored and radios for coordination. ‘T’aint much MaGee,’ but in an urban setting it could take three to six battalions to ‘root them out.’
#4–Sorry, but the “not in my backyard” crud doesn’t wash. Who’s backyard do you propose they do it in? Oh, they should build a simulated city and train somewhere where the rest of us aren’t offended, bothered, inconvienced and most of all reminded that there is really a war on and Americans are being wounded and dying. We seem to want to forget that there are Muslim extremists all over the world who want to destroy American society. Also, the notion that the Marines in general and the Marine Reserves in particular have unlimited resources in nonsense. In reading some of the posted articles, it appears the Mayor’s staff did a poor job and the whole screw up is probably their fault, but who is it they work for? I am sick and tired of fat politicians, TV execs. etc., etc., etc. doing these kind of things and then being apoligized to/for. Semper Fi.
I hope this jerk is hounded from office and his political career is permanently derailed. I can’t begin to express the utter contempt I feel towards such weasles as this mayor and the bolshie commissioners in Berkeley.
hey, David, isn’t there an entire town that was evacuated in the 1980’s due to the EPA finding high levels of dioxin in the soil? Why not use that as a training ground? Or areas that have been abandoned as a result of economic downturns? There have to be some areas like that around.
By the way, the website said that the mayor has survived one recall petition already, and as such is immune from another for 12 months after the first. So he can’t be hounded from office, but I doubt if he would win another term.
#14 Jim–I hope you’re kidding about the dioxin thing. I wouldn’t want to expose Marines, or anybody else, to high levels of dioxin. Abandoned urban areas would be fine with me, though. To be frank, I suspect having an Urban Warfare drill in downtown Toledo, or downtown anywhere, is not a great idea. (When I was in the USMC we had Urban warfare mock-towns at both Quantico and Camp Lejeune, and the real thing in Beirut). What I was upset about is the on-going attitude in this country that the military is bad and they shouldn’t be seen or heard in “my backyard”. My personal problem is that even though I am now too old to jump through windows and kick in doors, if they came to my town for training, I’d want to join in!
[i] My personal problem is that even though I am now too old to jump through windows and kick in doors, if they came to my town for training, I’d want to join in! [/i]
Same here, and I’d want to take my son along as well.
#12, As a member of the British Territorial Army, I can assure you that American military spending is gigantic. And I’ve trained in an urban environment without having to do it in Glasgow city centre. There’s a definite problem with American society in that often individuals let their patriotism and desire to help the troops blind them as to what is happening. This situation isn’t about a ragtag group of commandos who need to find a place to train. It’s about looking at two parties in America whose interests need to be weighed against each other. As for the fear of “where else can they do it?”- Have you seen America recently? It’s huge.
Cyprian,
As I understand it, the Marines thought they had received permission to hold the training exercise in Toledo. They were not informed otherwise until they had arrived and were getting off the bus. The commander is reported to have said “Why couldn’t you have let us know of the change before we made the four-hour trip?” — a fair question.
#10 Scott – We would send in the Marines to remove [i] hostiles [/i] trying to take over a city, not [i] hostels, [/i] which the local zoning board could remove. This is an example of a homophone, which appropriately is also the name of Mr Robinson’s long-distance carrier.
Well jim, I do suppose that is a bit rough. It’s the sort of inconvenience that characterises military life, though.
#19, well done for a post that both insults a person for their spelling abilities [i] and [/i] is homophobic!
I would think a few companies of Marines conducting live fire training in downtown Toledo would actually improve the area. Might raise property values as well. I mean, if they start knocking down houses, that puts them out, what, about $20 per building? C’mon guys, have you ever BEEN to Toledo?? You know it’s not good when CLEVELANDERS are making jokes about your city..
St.C.–First, please see what I had to say in #15. Second, I know how big America is. That is not the issue for me. The issue is Marines are putting their butts on the line for the people in Toledo, but they don’t want to provide a place for training because of the Mayor’s political inclination–decidedly left wing. Also, units have budgets. I have been both on active duty and in the reserves. In both cases, you have to budget well in advance to go to a distant place for training. In the reserves, it is much harder to get those dollars unless you are in an activation cycle. But, the real issue really has nothing to do with technical budgeting matters. It has to do with people like the Mayor of Toledo who thinks he can have a free lunch. He can enjoy the fruits of a free society, which is proteced by the US military, but thumb his nose at the very people that make his idiocy possible. In the US he has the right to be an assh–e if he wants to, but the rest of us don’t have to like it, or put up with it. Fortunately I live in the South which has a long history of supporting the military. Something like this in South Carolina would bring down a public official in about 15 minutes. Semper Fi!