Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
There’s an old saying about history: It’s written by the winners. Judging from the posturing and remarks of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan of Turkey, he must either believe they have already won, or are
so close as to confidently begin rewriting history even before
the United States and Europe formally surrender.Here is the article to which I am referring:
ERDOGAN CALLS CHRISTIAN BYZANTIUM “A DARK CHAPTER” IN HISTORY Istanbul, May 30, 2013
Pravoslavie.ru The prime minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the time
of Christian emperors in Byzantium “a dark chapter” in history. In
Erdogan’s view, in the fifteenth century, after invasion of
Constantinople by Muslims, began “the time of enlightenment,” reports Kath.net.The speech of the conservative Turkish prime minister was made during
the laying of the foundation of the new road bridge over the Bosphorus
in Istanbul that took place on May 29–the anniversary of Ottoman
invasion of the Byzantine empire 1453. “We are continuing to write the history today,” said Erdogan during the ceremony. The Turkish authorities have celebrated the anniversary of the victory over Byzantium by a series of festivities.
___________ President Obama would likely be the last to disagree with Erdogan’s
declaration (they are great friends and allies, you know), but hardly
any of the Western leaders seem to exhibit even the slightest curiosity
about the Byzantine Roman Empire, let alone any historical awareness of
this vibrant Christian empire which endured for over a thousand years.
Nor do they seem inclined to look at Islam in terms of its historical
continuity being extended into our own day.
If they did, they might be surprised to learn of the steady march of Christian martyrs under the Ottoman Muslim domination, including numerous Orthodox Christian patriarchs.
They might also be surprised to learn how in every territory where
Islam has conquered, the result has been consistently the same:
institutionalized persecution and subjugation of non-Muslims. What Erdogan proudly refers to as “the time of enlightenment” was
actually a very dark chapter for millions of Christians, persecuted and
downtrodden as second-class citizens through the dhimma system. (It was
also not-so-enlightened for the Muslims themselves, with the Ottoman
Empire of the nineteenth century earning from its contemporaries the apt
title of “Sick Old Man of Europe.”)
In point of historical fact, Byzantium was the “enlightened” state, innovating (to take but a few examples) hospital-based
medical care, philanthropic care for the poor, and a Church-inspired
and led ethos of charity and social activism. The beloved Orthodox
Christian Saint Basil the Great was an instrumental figure in this
movement, as was the “golden-tongued” Archbishop John Chrysostom of
Constantinople. Both (among many others) incarnated the Christian ideal
of care for the sick and the poor, and spread that ideal to the wider
Byzantine society.
All this was destroyed and swept away with the Turkish Muslim victory over Byzantium.In direct contrast, the Turkish Muslims instituted a brutal religious
apartheid, imposing tyranny over the conquered Christians, under which
all the classic forms of the seventh century Pact of Omar
and the Dhimma contract were manifest: Christians had to wear drab,
distinctive clothing, give way to Muslims on the street, could not build
new churches nor repair existing ones. Crosses were broken off of the
remaining churches which were not destroyed or turned into mosques.
Their whole way of life was a perpetual state of humiliating decay and
enforced subservience. The precept of “collective punishment”
meant that if even one Christian disobeyed the terms of the dhimma
contract, all would be held responsible, leading to frequent pogroms by
the Muslims against the Greeks, often just on the basis of rumors (as seen today in Egypt and other Islamic countries). Islamic law undergirds Islamic culture, and is thus directly responsible for what is commonly called the Armenian Genocide,
which was not merely a single event in 1915 in which 1.5 million
Armenian Christians were killed by Turkish Muslims, but which spanned
from the anti-Christian pogroms of 1894 to the destruction of the
ancient Christian city of Smyrna in 1922, and reverberated up through
the anti-Christian riots in Istanbul of 1955. During this whole period,
an estimated 3.5 million Orthodox Christian Greeks, Armenians and
Syrians were killed, or died of starvation and sickness during forced
marches. The Christian population of Istanbul was nearly exterminated
during the twentieth century, from over 100,000 in 1920 to approximately
only 2,000 today. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, many of whose
predecessors were put to death under Ottoman rule, bravely suffers and
struggles on, in spite of the deplorable persecution which surrounds him
on every side.
To this day, the Turkish government refuses to accept responsibility
for its historically documented genocide against the Christians. And, as
seen in Erdogan’s chest-thumping remarks, the Turkish Muslims remain
obstinately proud of their brutal history, from the centuries of war
against Constantinople until its fall in 1453, its centuries of cruel
domination of native Christian populations, and its continuation of this
supremacist mindset into the present day.
Erdogan and Turkey celebrate the Fall of Constantinople, and the West
congratulates them. “We are continuing to write history today,” says
Erdogan, and write it — or re-write it — they do, under the somnambulant
gaze of craven Western leaders too ignorant, or too fearful, to
challenge Islam’s claim to moral superiority, historical righteousness
and eventual world domination. By their policies, posture and
pronouncements, Western European nations, and the United States, are
conceding the future to a rapidly re-Islamicizing Turkey, and are aiding
in Islam’s stated goal of a new, global caliphate determined to conquer us, just as it conquered Constantinople 560 years ago.
Every Turkish celebration of 29 May 1453 is a gauntlet flung down in
challenge to the West. Each such event which goes unanswered and
unchallenged by the West is another nail in the coffin of Christian
culture, human rights, and free people everywhere. There are thus many
reasons to repudiate Erdogan’s historical revisionism.
