Reply #14: Disgracing the honor of the Marine Corps

[markses]

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." - Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson here uses a rhetorical device known as "climax" or "gradatio," which involves listing items in increaing importance, where the last item would be the most important. Thus, we could characterize Jefferson's arrangement as follows:

1) Our lives (important)
2) Our fortunes (more important)
3) Our sacred honor (most important)

Lonsberry's perverse argument reverses this arrangement, to wit:

"It is better for a B-52 to flatten an Iraqi neighborhood than it is for one United States Marine to die."

Here, the lives of Marines take on a deeper importance than the sacred honor of those Marines, the Marine Corps and the United States more generally. The simpering and honorless call of the "nuke 'em til they glow" conservatives goes something like this:

And for the support of this operation, with a firm reliance on the protection of invisible technology, we individually pledge to defend Fortunes, and most importantly Lives (sacred Honor be damned).

The Marine tradition of Bellau Wood, Peleilu, the Chosin Resevoir, Hue City and Khe Sanh is disgraced by such nonsense. I am not, saying, of course, that Marines shouldn't rely, to some extent, on technology, artillery, or air support. But the argument put forth by Lonsberry is quite different. It assumes that the Marines couldn't take the city, and that they should be merely garbage men for the Air Force. More importantly, it argues that the Marines should dishonor themselves by being party to a slaughter out of general cowardice. Lonsberry will argue that "peacenik Lefties" have never gotten over their Vietnam syndrome. In fact, the case is just the opposite: The nuke 'em til they glow crowd are the ones who cannot stomach even one casualty - and will engage in wholesale murder to avoid even one death. In doing so, Lonsberry disgraces the Marine Corps, and disgraces the sacred honor of these United States.