{"id":22494,"date":"2005-03-02T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:55:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:55:22","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:55:22","slug":"what_i_told_our_troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Told Our Troops"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: General John Abizaid<\/a>, our four-star in Iraq, was on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night, and was trying to explain how the training of Iraqis to protect their own country is going very well and incredibly fast, and some of his answers — we have three bites from Abizaid. It\u2019s amazing to hear, I guess somewhat surprise and disbelief in Lehrer when listening to Abizaid\u2019s answers. First question from Jim Lehrer — he says, “Why is that going so slowly, building the military institution for the Iraqis?”<\/line> <\/line> ABIZAID: Where I sit, I think it\u2019s going remarkably well, and I look at what General Petreus <\/a>and General Casey<\/a> have accomplished both in terms of setting a security environment that was conducive to elections and at the same time building a more robust and capable Iraqi security service. I actually think it\u2019s been a phenomenal success. If I look to our own history and I look to the Revolutionary War, and I see how long it took our forces to develop, how many bumps on the head we had to take before we were successful, I\u2019m actually encouraged that the Iraqis are moving in a pretty good direction.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Now, Lehrer can\u2019t believe this. He can\u2019t believe that Abizaid is optimistic. He says, “You\u2019re optimistic about this?”<\/line> <\/line>ABIZAID: I\u2019m very optimistic about it. I\u2019m optimistic that at the end of the day, the Iraqi armed forces will emerge as one of the best trained and equipped armed forces in the Middle East.<\/line> <\/line>LEHRER: When will that be?<\/line> <\/line>ABIZAID: One that will be loyal to the political leadership. One that will serve the people as opposed to what the previous Iraqi services did, which is feed upon the people.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Next question from Jim Lehrer to General John Abizaid, “American Scholar, which is the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa society, had an article recently which made the point that those 1,500 Americans who were dying, 11,000 who have been wounded, are not from the elite families of America, they\u2019re from the families that are out there. There are no senator\u2019s sons; there are no CEO\u2019s sons, all that kind of milieu that used to be part of the US military; does that concern you, general?”<\/line> <\/line>ABIZAID: Well, I can\u2019t speak for the senators, and I can\u2019t speak for anybody else. I can only speak for the three four-star generals that were testifying in front of the committee today, and every one of us had very, very close relatives personally involved in fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan at one point or another. And if you think we\u2019re not connected, if you think the American people are not connected, it might be true that portions of the elite are not connected, but the rest of us are. I believe that very deep down.<\/line> <\/line> RUSH: This line of questioning just infuriates me. Once again it is a way to — what does that do? It insults the troops that volunteer and who are there. And they\u2019re trying to just nitpick this and suggest that this is unjust and it shouldn\u2019t be going on because the sons and daughters of the elites aren\u2019t there. What does this matter? It\u2019s a volunteer force. You know what? Here\u2019s the subtext of this, and I told this to the troops over there, when I was in Afghanistan. I\u2019ll answer this by telling you exactly what I told them standing before them in Kandahar, Kabul, up at Harat, and I said, “I don\u2019t know what kind of news that you\u2019re hearing here, what kind of news that you see regularly, but there are people in America, and they\u2019re a minority, and I don\u2019t want you to be concerned about this, do not think they represent anywhere near a majority or even 50% of the country\u2019s thinking, but there are still people — and they get amplified by certain elements of the media who are critical of some of you — well, they\u2019re not really critical of you, but what they do is try to suggest that you really wouldn\u2019t be here unless you had to be, that you have no other way out of poverty or you have no other way out of dire economic circumstances, except to join the US military.”<\/line> <\/line>And I told them I recoil when I hear this because it\u2019s a blindsided insult of all of you who are volunteering to go over here knowing full well why you\u2019re coming, and you want to be here. I told them I love and respect you for that. You\u2019re doing things that 99% of the American people including the elites wouldn\u2019t volunteer to do, and I said sometimes when these people call me and suggest this on the radio show, and I told them I get calls all the time from people who said, “Come on, Rush, you praise the troops, it\u2019s easy to do, but be honest about it, most of them are there because they have to be, because they have no other way out of poverty or the barrio or the ghetto or whatever, it\u2019s the only way they can get an education, it\u2019s the only way that they can get any kind of health care, it\u2019s because they don\u2019t have it, and they have to join the military.” <\/line> <\/line>I said let\u2019s just accept the premise. I don\u2019t, but for the sake of discussion, let\u2019s accept the premise that you are here because you have to be, it\u2019s the only way out of just an unlivable life in America. Even if that\u2019s true, which it isn\u2019t, look at what you — I said to them — are willing to do for your opportunity. No matter how you slice it, I said to them, you all are heroes, you all are to be applauded, you all are a cut above the elites, you\u2019re a cut above the average, because whatever it takes, you are doing it, you are volunteering. Who cares the reason? You\u2019re here! And you are doing your duty, and you believe in it. And I said, now, that\u2019s how I answer these people on the phone, but I don\u2019t believe that that\u2019s even a majority. I don\u2019t think that the vast majority of the people here in this audience, I say to them, are here to escape something in the United States and to try to get an opportunity, but even if you are, so what, look what you\u2019re willing to do. <\/line>I think no matter how you slice it, it\u2019s a credit to you, and I\u2019m here to tell you, they appreciated hearing it, and they don\u2019t appreciate hearing this kind of rotgut from something called the American Scholar, which is the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa society. It\u2019s not at all what\u2019s in their minds over there. This notion that you still have to nitpick and you still have to find fault. Why can\u2019t these people simply step back, take a look at the people who are volunteering to wear the uniform and place themselves in harm\u2019s way and simply respect them, and simply give them their due? Why do they have to go poke holes at them? Why do they have to question their motivation? Why do they have to question their inspiration? It infuriates me. For those of you in Rio Linda, that means it makes me mad. And this is one of the many reasons that I wanted to go and have wanted to go for a year and a half on a troop visit, because I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re hearing over there. Well, I do now but I didn\u2019t before I got there. They get some of this stuff but they don\u2019t get a lot of it, thank goodness. But I wanted to go put it all in perspective and be straight with them about what all of us in this country actually think about them and feel for them.<\/line>BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: We\u2019ll go to Fort Huachuca<\/a>, in Arizona. Hi, Chip. Welcome to the EIB Network.<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: Mega dittos, Mr. Limbaugh. How you doing?<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Fine, sir. Thanks very much.<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: I just wanted to call in regards to the comments you\u2019re making that some folks like to claim the only reason people join or stay in the military is because they essentially have nowhere else to go, and to be honest with you that\u2019s incredibly insulting to the folks that choose to stay in uniform.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Yeah, let me ask you, because I can tell you, I asked a bunch of these guys over there and I mentioned this a lot to them. I wanted to take their temperature over in Afghanistan, and I got a number of different answers as to why they\u2019re there, but there was one that stuck out, and I want to ask you why did you join? Are you still in?<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: I sure am, yeah.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Okay, why did you join the Army, the military?<\/line>CALLER: Honestly I initially joined because I needed college money, but doesn\u2019t really matter whether you join, it\u2019s why most people stay in, that\u2019s because of a sense of accomplishment and duty and love of country that people stay in.<\/line> <\/line><\/a> RUSH: That\u2019s what I heard. I can\u2019t tell you, we\u2019ve got some pictures<\/a> up on the website of one of the C-130 — well, we\u2019ve got two of the C-130 crews that flew us around over there — and we had a lot of time to talk on these flights from one place to another in Afghanistan —<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: Sure. It\u2019s not a very fast airplane, that\u2019s for sure.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Well, it does 300 true. I mean, it\u2019s better than a push cart on the ground.<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: (Laughing.) That\u2019s true.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: These guys love the Herc. They think it\u2019s the greatest plane going for what they have to do.<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: It\u2019s a great airplane. It\u2019s just if you\u2019re going long distances it takes longer than some of the others.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: That\u2019s true, but I mean the longest flight we had was two hours.<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: That\u2019s not bad.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Plus, I was up in the cockpit. I wasn\u2019t sardined down there in the truck cargo compartment with the rest of the plebes. So I understand, no windows in it, I understand it was — in fact, it\u2019s a funny little story, when we lost the engine coming out of Kandahar trying to get to Bagram Air Force Base we did 360s up there for eight minutes at 8,000 feet and went back and landed, and some of the people thought we\u2019d already arrived in Harat, they had no clue what had happened. When I told them, “Oh, we lost an engine, there were fire trucks out there when we land and everything,” their mouths fell open. But no, I asked these guys why are you there? “I\u2019m here for my family. This is how I\u2019m defending my country.”<\/line> <\/line>CALLER: Well, a neat story Rush. I am an instructor, and post-9\/11 we\u2019re certainly getting a lot of different people joining than used to be and it\u2019s because of patriotism and reaction to it but the best story I had was that a student of mine who had been born in China and didn\u2019t move to the United States until he was 15, and part of the beginning of the class we\u2019d go around and ask everybody why he joined the Army, and his answer was he felt he had an obligation to protect the freedom he never had a chance to enjoy growing up in China.<\/line> <\/line>RUSH: Yeah, doesn\u2019t surprise me. it\u2019s a great, great, great story. But, you know, I heard there\u2019s just a common refrain when I talk to these guys, in fact one of them, one of these, one of the members of the C-130 flight crew was telling me that he has two brothers, and they\u2019re doing extremely well in real estate and finance, and they\u2019re always, “What are you doing over there?” He\u2019s reservist ? “What are you doing? Why don\u2019t you come home?” He said, “Look, you guys, right now this is what I think is the best thing I can doing for my family.” And they respected that, he said, and so forth, but I mean that was a common answer that I got. And I believed them. I believed them. Folks, there\u2019s no other reason to go over there. Even if it is an escape from whatever circumstances here, you get caught up in it. I got caught up in it. They were all inspiring to me.<\/line>END TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

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RUSH: General John Abizaid, our four-star in Iraq, was on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night, and was trying to explain how the training of Iraqis to protect their own country is going very well and incredibly fast, and some of his answers — we have three bites from Abizaid. It\u2019s amazing to hear, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I Told Our Troops - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"What I Told Our Troops - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: General John Abizaid, our four-star in Iraq, was on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night, and was trying to explain how the training of Iraqis to protect their own country is going very well and incredibly fast, and some of his answers — we have three bites from Abizaid. It\u2019s amazing to hear, […]\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/what_i_told_our_troops.Par.0002.ImageFile.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"description\":\"Excellence In Broadcasting\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/what_i_told_our_troops.Par.0002.ImageFile.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/what_i_told_our_troops.Par.0002.ImageFile.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/\",\"name\":\"What I Told Our Troops - The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-19T06:55:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-05-19T06:55:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/#\/schema\/person\/911066e449df26406b107ca78cbbde0b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What I Told Our Troops\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/#\/schema\/person\/911066e449df26406b107ca78cbbde0b\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f18195e0073013fa0e16b040686c2924?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f18195e0073013fa0e16b040686c2924?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What I Told Our Troops - The Rush Limbaugh Show","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/03\/02\/what_i_told_our_troops\/","twitter_card":"summary","twitter_title":"What I Told Our Troops - The Rush Limbaugh Show","twitter_description":"RUSH: General John Abizaid, our four-star in Iraq, was on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer last night, and was trying to explain how the training of Iraqis to protect their own country is going very well and incredibly fast, and some of his answers — we have three bites from Abizaid. 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