American Heroes

WASHINGTON — This year’s State of the Union address has been parsed, analyzed, applauded (80 times), celebrated and derided. The rhetoric has been described as “visionary” and “myopic.” The president’s promises and…

I came to Mexico in mid-December thinking I’d report on the drug violence taking place across the country. Since then, the only violence I’ve had to report was in Tucson, Ariz., two weeks ago when a lone gunman killed six and gravely wounded more than a dozen more of his fellow Arizonans.

Here in Sonora state, Mexico, there has been some drug-related news – Mexican marines apprehended two smugglers a few miles from where I’m staying, along with over a ton of marijuana. There have been a few deaths attributed to the wars between the drug cartels, but in this Mexican state the size of North Dakota, there has not been a violent crime involving a “Gringo” since 2006. The coastal region around Guaymas and San Carlos is home to thousands of American retirees, and feels a little like Scottsdale, Arizona with an ocean view.

The point here is that when you hear the news of violence in Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter, you must ask yourself what context you have for that location. For example, I lived in Washington, D.C. for ten years. If I hear of a one-hour delay on the freeway due to an accident, I think it must have been a good day. On the other hand, a one-hour delay getting through my current hometown of Beckley, W. Va., means there must have been a serious tragedy involving a farm tractor and a cattle truck. I come to these separate conclusions because I have lived in both places and understand the news in the context of what is ordinary for them.

But if you haven’t been outside the U.S., and especially to Mexico lately, you have no context in which to place the recent violence. So in the absence of “ordinary,” whatever news you read from Mexico seems to you like it must be ordinary, which is clearly wrong.

People continue to live their lives south of the border, working and going to school, going to church, falling in love. All the normal things that happen where you live. The people here think Tucson is a death trap after last week.

I’ve spent nearly two of the last three years outside the U.S., traveling around the world to more than 25 countries. And I can tell you, it’s not as bad as it seems out here. So if you were thinking about renewing your passport for spring break, go ahead. As long as you don’t plan on getting into the business of drug smuggling, you’ll find Mexico to be a safe, friendly place full of fun and adventure.

And since most people will listen to fear over reason, you can be sure the beaches here won’t be crowded for some time to come.

WASHINGTON — When the world tunes in for the State of the Union address next week, viewers will be treated to a dramatic improvement in the background scenery. Thanks to American voters, House Speaker John Boehner’s…

It was the summer of 1986 – my first overseas trip ever. There were 15 in our church group, and we’d just landed in Haiti for a week-long mission trip. Our guide was a man named Virgil Suttles, a long-term missionary who had served in Haiti for several years and spoke fluent Creole.

My first impression as we stepped off the plane into a curtain of humidity was the smell. Trash, diesel fuel, and oppressive heat combined to assault my nostrils with an unforgettable aroma which to this day makes me think adventure. I was 16 years old, and from that first moment, I was hooked on international travel.

We’d read the travel warnings. Only months before, the Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier known as “Baby Doc” had been ousted from power in a violent coup. The son of Haiti’s previous dictator, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Jean Claude’s brutality was only exceeded by his extravagant lifestyle, funded by the citizens of the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.

The cleansing was still in progress.On the way to our hotel, we drove through a chanting mob and glimpsed a horrific sight – a man being stoned in the street. Apparently he was a former member of the brutal secret police known as the “Tontons macoutes.”

During the course of that trip, I was introduced to a people living in a state of privation almost too severe to comprehend.

In the more than two decades since, the world has poured more than $1 billion per year into the country of Haiti in the form of foreign aid. When I returned there only months before the devastating earthquake of 2010, I was shocked to discover even worse poverty than I’d seen in 1986. Somehow the aid hasn’t worked.

This week, Jean Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti for the first time since his ouster, reportedly believing he could somehow “help” the situation one year after Haiti’s historic earthquake that killed nearly a quarter of a million people. And while it might be true that he couldn’t have made things much worse, it’s not surprising that he was immediately arrested by the current government.

There are those in Haiti, however, who believe life was better under Duvalier. They point to his record of building infrastructure and schools, not to mention the abysmal state of the administration now in power. But Jean-Claude is probably already regretting having listened to these supporters, and may never taste freedom again.

It isn’t over until it’s over though. Duvalier is still reported to be in possession of millions of dollars pilfered from Haiti’s public coffers. Perhaps he has enough to buy his way out. I’m also not ruling out a violent overthrow of Haiti’s ruling party.

U.S forces have intervened in Haiti at least six times since 1800, including one 19-year period of outright occupation. I, for one, won’t be the least bit surprised if 2011 brings another Haitian deployment of U.S. forces in order to quell political violence.

“Get your gear.  We’re going to war.”

That was the terse command I received as a young Army Ranger Sergeant in December, 1991 when I first heard that Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces had invaded Kuwait.

It took a little longer to fully prepare – weeks of packing and re-packing our bags, trying to foresee every possible threat.  Training rose to a fever pitch as we practiced assaulting a scale-model mock-up of the US embassy in Kuwait city – built along the coastline at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. 

A year earlier, we’d returned from Panama after what was for most of us a first taste of combat.  We’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t all guts and glory.  And this time we were being told there were 4,000 Iraqi troops surrounding our objective.  We were preparing for the fight of our life.

We spent time on the USS Forrestal, carving circles in the gulf of Mexico as we progressed up to live fire training exercises.  We could tell this was going to be big.

Then, in the early morning hours of 17 January, 1991, we were back at Fort Benning, Georgia on an urban training exercise when we received the news that the war had begun.  American and coalition aircraft were launching bombing runs from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf and taking the fight to the Iraqis.  The bombings would continue for more than a month before ground troops moved in.  100 hours after that, it was all over.

Twenty years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, the debate still rages as to whether we should have continued all the way to Baghdad.  If we had, we could have likely saved thousands of American and Iraqi lives.  At the time, most of us would have gladly pressed the advantage, and almost everyone who was on the ground for Gulf War I held the belief that by not finishing Saddam we would end up fighting him again.  It was as plain as the nose on our face.

But then again, nobody asks the grunts.  Maybe someday somebody will – they might be surprised at the answers they receive.

Here’s honoring the more than 300 coalition men and women who gave their lives during Operation Desert Storm.  May they rest in peace.

WASHINGTON — Shortly after 10 a.m. MST on Saturday, Jan. 8, an apparently unstable young man goes on a murderous rampage at a grocery in Tucson, Ariz. A federal judge and five others are murdered in cold blood….

Saturday’s tragedy in Tucson changed the lives of scores of people and threw this entire border city into turmoil. It also affected the lives of some of our military personnel – a team of military doctors who were on their way to Afghanistan when the shooting happened.

These military neurosurgeons are some of the world’s foremost experts on brain injuries because of their experience with brain trauma in the war zone.  So when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head in Saturday’s assassination attempt, the military re-routed their team of brain surgeons to Tucson to see if they could help.

In a news conference Tuesday, the University Medical Center’s critical care director Dr. Peter Rhee described the military’s assistance as “phenomenal” and lauded their skills in the area of brain trauma. 

This is a phenomenon that has been common throughout the history of war: Many medical advances are made out of necessity in wartime, the benefits of which then trickle down to the civilian health care system. Not a good reason to have a war, of course, but call it a “silver lining” to the tragedy of war.

After they’ve finished providing whatever help they can at the University Medical Center here in Tucson, this team of dedicated military doctors will pack up and head back to Afghanistan, where medical miracles like we’ve seen here in the news are happening every day.

One year ago today I was returning from a two-week shoot on the island of Malta when I received word of the earthquake in Haiti. I never made it home. As soon as I hit the ground at Washington Dulles, I got the word from CBN News: get to Haiti.

As a war corrsepondent, I’ve seen more than my share of death and destruction. But nothing could prepare me for what I found when I arrived in Haiti with the United States Marines.

Bodies stacked like cordwood – stretching down the street as far as the eye could see. Gaunt, zombie-like survivors unable to get medical care, much less food or clean water. The unforgettable stench of burning flesh.

Along with good-hearted citizens of the United States who donated billions, Governments and NGO’s pledged substantial sums of help as well. On the ground, it felt like the wild-west – no functional government meant people did whatever they felt necessary to address the situation. Heartbreaking signs spray painted on collapsed homes begged for anyone with a piece of heavy machinery to help dig out trapped loved ones who survived the quake – but most ultimately died of thirst before anyone could dig them out.

But it didn’t take long for the “government” of Haiti to reassert control – and truly, I believe it might have been better if they had not. With their reorganization, the endemic corruption returned, and continues to this day.

Much of the promised help never arrived, and millions of the aid that did make it to the Haiti was siphoned off by unscrupulous officials. Today, the island languishes with hundreds of thousands in squallid tent cities, suffers from an ongoing Cholera outbreak, and a full recovery is still years away.

Operation Blessing

My friend David Darg is the director of international disaster relief for Operation Blessing. He was on the ground in Haiti within hours after the quake, and except for a couple weeks of sorely needed vacation, has been living in Haiti for the entirety of 2010, directing OB’s response to the disaster. He says that despite the deplorable conditions, there are signs of progress everywhere on the ground.

“It’s an emotional time looking back on the year,” Darg told me when I reached him on his cellphone. “We’re& a little frustrated that people are still having to suffer so much. But don’t believe the stories you’re going to see all over the news today – they mostly ignore the good things that are happening here.”

“We’re seeing so much hope everywhere we look – lives changed every day – Operation Blessing has been working on medical facilities, opened a children’s home, and is changing lives by creating jobs through our fishing program. We believe these are the keys to long-term recovery.

This morning at the OB children’s home, we held a small service for the kids – each child planted a tree. Most of them lost their parents one year ago today, and this small symbolic act spoke volumes about how all of us here are looking to the future with hope.”

When you remember Haiti today in your prayers, please include a petition for David Darg and his tireless team of aid workers who have braved riots, cholera, and shared in the suffering of the citizens of Haiti to bring the love of Jesus to a place that needs it more than anything else.

And if you feel led, you can give confidently to Operation Blessing and know that your resources will be used wisely where they can do the most good for the most people.

How you can help: Give to Operation Blessing

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