BEN STEIN'S DIARY: Heroic Blackhawks
Stein, BenjaminJ.
ben sTeIn’s dIaRy Heroic Blackhawks by benjamin J. stein THuRsday W hat a Day. I set out from Sandpoint, Idaho, at about 10 in the morning on a medium warm August day. I was...
...I shook hands with several hundred of them and their wives and girlfriends and fiancées...
...Plus, it is agony to get the damned thing signed on...
...But after the speech I offered, the incredibly kind Sergeant Scott Dedelow, a tall, serious-looking, handsome fellow, a movie image of a tough sergeant, took off his CAB and gave it to me, to pin to the Stetson Lt...
...ben steinis a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...God bless them for all eternity...
...Then it passed again...
...You get it for seeing an AK-47 pointed at you and instead of dying or crying, you hit the ground, roll, come up with your M-4, and kill the terrorist...
...What would we have without them...
...Peace and beauty and freedom and plenty to eat...
...I especially loved the addition of Bud to the mix to symbolize blood in Vietnam...
...I wonder why Best Buy cannot make that a bit easier...
...Many of the men also had a badge portraying a bayonet, a grenade, and a wreath...
...I cannot stop thinking that every day, the news on TV has about three hours about the stock market’s moves that day, which are totally meaningless...
...My plane was right on time and off I went to SEA-TAC...
...I know what the badge for complaining is for...
...They truly are our saviors, redeeming our lives with their blood...
...I met a young couple—16 years old each—who plan to be neurologists...
...I wanted to buy an XM radio...
...Really brave...
...Dougherty talks exactly like what Duvall should have talked like...
...I got my plane at SEA-TAC seamlessly, found my rented Cadillac, and headed east...
...Thank God, this country is still producing men who will put their lives on the line for our sorry butts here at home...
...I was headed for the Spokane airport en route to Seattle...
...It was like nothing I had ever seen...
...Cool, calm, confident...
...Then a few short speeches...
...Really, these men and their families are the salt of the earth...
...The most beautiful place on earth and the most beautiful soul on earth...
...It was owned by a Chinese immigrant who kept it spotless...
...Dougherty had already given me, along with Cavalry Spurs made from shell casings of brass...
...Mama Mac’s is one of my favorite places...
...It is a scene of an ideal home...
...Then to McDonald’s in Newport, where I posed for photos with a whole mob of motorcyclists...
...Yet they secured a huge swath of “medicine territory,” as they call it, and helped “the surge” work...
...I signed lots of autographs, posed for photos, and left...
...You get it for really serious close-in fighting, like what one Sgt...
...But every day there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of episodes of extraordinary courage by American fighting men and women and their families and the media totally ignores them...
...What can we say about these men and their ladies...
...Immense hailstones slamming into my rented Cadillac, eliminating visibility, making the road icy...
...Wifey...
...I got very teary as they talked about the men who had been killed, as they honored their wives...
...All of them to remind the men of the different wars the unit had been in, going back to 1833...
...My driver took me to my hotel and I took a short nap...
...Ashes...
...Next stop, a very clean general store and gas station about 20 miles west of Newport, Washington...
...It was REALLY scary...
...Guarded by the Blackhawk Squadron...
...Very reminiscent of my imagination of a mythical small town where a mythical Benjy grew up...
...The sky was dark and I figured on rain...
...I love it...
...You get it for having great big steel testicles...
...But when I got to just west of Coeur d’Alene on Route 90, a torrential hailstorm fell...
...That we owe them our lives, our freedom, our happiness, our everything...
...America has gasoline in its veins...
...They have been rocketed, bombed, shot at on a daily basis...
...Many, if not most, of the men I met had a fascinating hat, a cavalryman’s hat, a Stetson with braid around it, just like what Robert Duvall wore in Apocalypse Now, when he said he loved the smell of napalm in the morning...
...First stop on Route 2, Best Buy...
...Then to Mama Mac’s, a cafe, general store, and gas station in Priest River, a logging town with a lot of problems because of the construction bust...
...Thank God, this country is still producing men who will put their lives on the line for our sorry butts here at home...
...I was really scared...
...No one there could find one for a few minutes...
...They were young, alert, good-looking...
...At least she didn’t die from it...
...I told him, “Colonel, I will never know what that badge is for...
...God bless the 2-1 and all who serve this great nation for all eternity...
...She would be a perfect politician...
...ben sTeIn’s dIaRy Heroic Blackhawks by benjamin J. stein THuRsday W hat a Day...
...Societies that do not pay attention to what is important do not survive...
...ocTobeR 2008 THe aMeRIcan sPecTaToR 65...
...I was so touched that even now, as I write about it a few days later, I am blinded by tears...
...They made a terrifying grog of all different kinds of alcohol, beer, wine, spirits...
...But I made it to the Spokane airport, which for some strange reason is abbreviated GEG...
...I was escorted by 64 THe aMeRIcan sPecTaToR ocTobeR 2008 a super smart young fellow, Captain Damian Gill, XO of the Darkhorse Troop, and my host was the commander of the unit, Lt...
...The officers jumped all over each other to taste the stuff...
...They are just back from 15 grueling months in Iraq, fighting, negotiating with sheikhs, securing peace in Diyala Province...
...At one point in the very long receiving line, Lt...
...My fellow drivers drove well on the slick highway, which for some reason has immense ruts in it...
...It was an impressive evening...
...I went on a sort of silly day trip...
...Both movie-star handsome types and fearless...
...Colonel Marshall K. Dougherty of Texas...
...Then home to my perfect wifey, who was lying on our deck looking out at Lake Pend’ Oreille stretching peacefully out forever...
...Dougherty said he guessed by now I knew what that badge was for...
...Enviable in every way...
...These men and their families are the salt of the earth...
...I slowed to a crawl and prayed...
...Lisa had a sip and said she loved it...
...The online sites and TV have hours about the latest political gossip, which is totally meaningless...
...In a few minutes the hail passed...
...My pal Lisa was the absolutely perfect companion, greeting the men and their ladies kindly, complimenting all the women on their outfits, making everyone at ease...
...Then it started again...
...They looked terrifying, but they were in fact all cops having a weekend ride...
...Without them, there is only darkness and pain...
...In fact, Lt...
...Good luck...
...I thought about how scared I was of that hailstorm, and how tiny a thing that is compared to getting shot at and bombed every day...
...Then I met up with my pal Lisa Agustsson, a huge military supporter, and off we went to McChord Air Force Base, 90 minutes in traffic, to meet the troopers of the Second Squadron—Blackhawks!— First Cavalry Regiment of the Fourth Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division...
...fRIday B ack to sanDpoint...
...This is the Combat Action Badge...
...Bokor of the 2-1 did in hand-to-hand fighting, eliminating about 15 al Qaeda he met when he rounded a corner in a village in Diyala...
...In fact, I kept thinking, “Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted...
Vol. 41 • October 2008 • No. 8
