The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war

Told by their commanders that the war would be over in a few weeks, the Allied troops who entered the Korean Penninsula in the beginning of 1950 didn't even bother to bring their summer uniforms. 3 years and 55,000 American deaths later, a cease-fire was declared July 27, 1953 which divided the country at the 38th parallel. As far as wins and losses go, we called this one a "tie" and sent the majority of our troops back stateside. However, we never left the region entirely. To this day thousands of US troops receive combat duty pay for patrolling the DMZ between North and South Korea.

This afternoon Congress voted overwhelmingly to set a firm deadline for withdrawing troops in Iraq. Like Korea and World War I, the Bush Administration and US military brass over-promised and under-delivered on their promise of swift victory to the American people. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The rumors of WMD's turned out to be false and US troops weren't exactly greeted as the great liberators.

Bush should've seen the writing on the wall after the mid-term elections of 2006. The Republicans and his entire Administration knew that this day of reckoning was bound to happen. At this point it doesn't matter whether or not the troop surge in the Triangle of Death is going to work. Unlike the invasion of Normandy, this surge is not going to be the act that changes the war in our favor. The battle as we know it, is already over.

Like Korea, the best we can hope for at this point is a "tie" while we spend another couple of decades of patrolling the safe areas of Iraq from hostile insurgencies. There's a good chance that our grandchildren will pulling guard duty on the Tigris River because our leaders today did such a piss-poor job planning a war that the only way to end it was for Congress to cut off funding. Hopefully our elected officials will take time to remember the "forgotten" wars of the 20th century before burdening this nation with the heart-ache and emotional turmoil of a war that is already stacked against us.