Jim Lacey on the Military on National Review Online: "On a recent trip to Iraq I was with a small group of civilians and officers when truck loads of care packages for the soldiers were being unloaded. The boxes were opened for the soldiers to grab what they wanted. Earlier, one of the officers mentioned that he needed to get some razors from the Post Exchange. One of the civilians in our group spotted a shaving kit in a box, grabbed it, and handed it to the officer in need of razors saying, “This will save you a trip.” Without a pause the officer threw the kit back in the box and replied, “That stuff was sent over for the troops to use, not me.” The civilian mentioned that the officer was also a soldier serving in Iraq and no one would begrudge him the kit. The officer did his best to explain and then finally said, “That is not how it works. Just watch.”
So we stood off to the side and watched. Over the next half hour, while a couple of hundred soldiers took what they wanted from the boxes about two dozen Army and Marine officers came over and looked to see what was in the boxes. Every one of them left empty handed. It was as clear a testament as I could personally imagine that they had internalized the idea that the needs of the soldiers came before their own."
No comments:
Post a Comment