I'm With Staff Sergeant

It is no secret at this point that a Muslim terrorist organization named Boko Haram kidnapped 239 girls on April 14th. This was done for two reasons: the first to protest their attendance of a school where they were receiving education in something other than the Qu’ran. And the real reason: to gain funding through two methods, the sale of these girls, and access to more funding through terrorist networks once they have officially been branded a terrorist organization by the US.

What does this have to do with Ol’ Staff Sergeant (SSG)? SSG makes a good point, and that is that nothing we say in the U.S. or more specifically on our Facebook pages, matters. Sorry, Miss Hathaway. Hashtags don’t matter. Reposts don’t matter. And a trending topic doesn’t matter. Even if the American and Western governments poured money into Nigeria, it wouldn’t save these girls. Unless. of course we did the unthinkable, which would be to use our intelligence networks to buy these women back, but that is a short-term solution which would only encourage kidnappings in the future.

We certainly can’t trust their own army to bring these women home, especially if they behave anything like the Ugandan army did in 1996 with the Aboke girls. If you want to know more about that check out Jane Bussman’s book, “A Journey to the Dark Heart of Nameless Unspeakable Evil,” or another title specifically concerning the incident, “Aboke Girls.” Simple summary: 139 were kidnapped. A nun working at the school, from which they were kidnapped, went after them and negotiated the release of 109. The Ugandan army later made an attempt to retrieve the other 30. They came home with 1. Why do I bring that up? Other than to show the difference in the power of a nun and an army, was to show that words don’t mean shit. Lots of words mean the same amount, but doing something, physically going out and doing something, matters.

This was my issue with the entire Kony 2012 deal. It was a video designed to spread awareness. There was a young man Jacob, in the video, who I had the opportunity to meet, when I visited Gulu, Uganda. No one brought him home. Our well wishes didn’t rescue him from the clutches of Joseph Kony, he did. He escaped by his own force of will.

To a population that loves to donate money, but hates to get off their asses and actually sacrifice, were now asking for action. Someone needed to do something, not them, of course, but someone--those people that fix things. The end result was just under 100 special forces operators were deployed to that region of the world to train an army that has been known for its corruption and participation in the human rights violations that they were being trained to prevent. Again, check out Jane’s book.

Are these complex issues? Yes. Very. But in the end, what people wanted, was for us to put boots on the ground and to take care of the bad guys in a way that the Western World could stomach.

That is where we hit a wall. We want justice, but we don’t want to act in a manner that forces us to question morality and the thin gray line separating good from evil. Hollywood drew that line so crystal-clearly. How could we deviate from it? This is the same Hollywood that is supporting these child molesters. The same Americans screaming for action and #bringbackourgirls, would be the same ones spitting on our returning service members for fighting a war against the children that make up the African militias. Because they see our 15-year-old children’s faces in the faces of those 15-year-olds, who are hardened veterans with over five years of jungle war-fighting experience.

This isn’t an easy issue. It isn’t clean, and unless someone who is willing to face some decidedly harsh criticism for how they solve this problem, steps up to the plate, these girls are never going to be seen again, at least not in the condition that they were in when they left the school. Do I have a solution for this problem? Not a PC one. Am I asking for silence, to just stop talking about it? No. I am asking that we truly identify our goals and what we are willing to do to accomplish them, not waste our time and energy thinking that by spreading awareness we are actually accomplishing something.

** Orginally posted on "This Ain't Hell" May 11, 2014

#bokoharam #bringbackourgirls #hashtag