I grew up in a military family. People ask me all the time if I was in the military and I look them in the eye and say, “The first 18 years of my life.”
I’m not fussing, but I will say growing up in the 1970s, my view of the world was very different from my civilian friends in Clay County, Mississippi.
Daddy was in Field Maintenance in the U.S. Air Force, his specialty was hydraulics and pneudraulics on multi-engine aircraft.
We had a globe in our kitchen and we would point to places on it and ask Daddy if he had ever been there. Sometimes he would say yes, sometimes he would simply say, “I’ve flown over it.”
A day of reckoning
The United States of America, Israel and President Donald Trump struck Iran on Saturday of last week. And they struck hard.
I was 19 when the Iranians took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Jimmy Carter was president and worked so hard for peace in the Middle East.
But some people in this world, this country and even this town don’t want peace, they want to make demands, spit on people literally and figuratively and shake Facebook fists at us. There are also those who shake real fists, wave swords and AK-47s and have a blood-thirsty desire to wish others beheaded.
I once worked in the oil fields of South Texas and saw bad boys get their butts whipped by “badder” boys on a regular basis. Most of them had it coming and seemed to demand an attitude adjustment”
So it has been with Iran for 47 years.
I will go ahead and add, so has it been in America with liberal ideology.
I certainly don’t agree with everything President Donald Trump says but I do agree with two points he made in his announcement of strike against Iran on Saturday.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted "Death to America" and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and innocent people in many, many countries,” President Trump said, adding. “It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer.”
My grandfather - Floyd Ingram No. 1 - was not much of a church-going man but he had true religious beliefs. One of his sayings was “There is going to be a reckoning day.”
War Children
American children have never known war.
I’m not saying young men and women have never gone off to war, died or been maimed, and returned home to grieving family.
I am saying we’ve never had bombs repeatedly and methodically dropped on us.
That is why the 911 attack galvanized this country. A terror group from the Middle East decided they were willing to do anything to seize an airplane, fly it into the largest building in New York and kill as many Americans as possible.
This is the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” And we live free from the fear of bombs and terror because of the brave who leave home to make sure the fight is not seen by women and children in this great country.
As you watch the bombs fall on Iran, please realize women and children can and do die in war.
We must never let hate of beliefs, culture or other human beings determine our goals or our attitudes about war.
What Next?
The strike on Iran exceeded all expectations and appears to be hitting its three objectives of:
• Toppling Iran’s leadership by the very type of violence and form of regime change they so often touted.
• Reducing the military, terrorist proxies and that country’s nuclear program to rubble.
• Giving the Iranian people a chance to change their culture of hate and once again rejoin the world community.
But I don’t own a crystal ball and don’t know what is going to happen next. Who knows what Russia, China or North Korea might decide to do tomorrow?
One of the first rules of combat is the best laid plans do not survive first contact with the enemy. Good leadership adapts and makes changes as the situation requires.
And this is one of the true strengths of our American military.
We live under freedom and are comfortable in making choices. We believe good ideas come from educated and well-trained individuals and listen to those around us. We rely on truth and the faith it gives us to trust men, machines and the mission.
This is more than an opportunity for Iran, it is a chance to show the Middle East and the world, that this country - my country - can lead its friends to a brighter and better future for us all.
Floyd Ingram prays daily for his family, military men and women and the leaders of this great country. Call him at 662-562-4414 if you do too.
