Home! Sweet home!, or how I figured out what is really going on:
As the tools of warfare grow ever more potent and complex, man’s role in wielding these tools calls for ever greater responsibilities and skills. And as the threat to the security of our homes continues to grow in scope and magnitude, there are mounting physical and mental demands on us, the men who are depended upon to contain and meet that threat.
Men and governments have long lived with the painful problem of choice. It takes those with courage to make hard choices and to have the willingness to choose resolutely between good and evil, redemption and damnation, joy and sorrow, to insure the final result. The final outcome is determined by us, the benevolent, informed, and intelligent decision makers. Choices must be made; dies must be cast.
We are the men who stand on alert, day and night, both in the air and on the ground, ready for a decisive counterattack should an aggressor dare to strike. Our main reward lies in the conviction that we are in the forefront of Freedom’s struggle for survival and that we are among the very few who stand between war and peace, between victory and defeat.
We must impress upon ourselves the need for extreme watchfulness. The enemy may come in many forms— he may come individually, or he may come in strength, he may even come in the uniform of our own troops. But however he comes, we must be prepared to stop him. Trust no one, whatever his uniform or rank, unless he is known to you personally. If in doubt, shoot first and ask questions later. It is acceptable to take a few casualties through accident, than to lose our freedom and entire home through carelessness. Our families and our country are depending on us. We will not let them down.
We are an armored fist thrusting skyward a spray of blood red lightening as a warning to all to respect our might, and a sprig of peaceful laurel to symbolize our mission. That mission is the final, irrevocable abolition of threat through vigilance, through strength, and through the unshakable conviction that we, all of us, will live in freedom only if we learn the lessons the tragic past has tried to teach us.
We will clench our freedom with a white-knuckled death grip, willing to strike, with the unforgiving and relentless force of God, anyone with the audacity to challenge our resolve.
