Let me share a story, one that is tinged with regret. In the summer of 1952, when I was 30, the Army assigned me to an infantry unit fighting in Korea. Meanwhile, though, there was other news in my family: My father had become the Republican presidential nominee. As an ambitious young major, I refused any offers for other assignments. Avoiding combat duty was and is an unforgivable sin for a professional soldier.

Image Credit... Brian Cronin

As the time for my deployment approached, I discussed my intentions with my father. We met at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, just after the Republican convention, and I explained my position. My father, as a professional officer himself, understood and accepted it. However, he had a firm condition: under no circumstances must I ever be captured. He would accept the risk of my being killed or wounded, but if the Chinese Communists or North Koreans ever took me prisoner, and threatened blackmail, he could be forced to resign the presidency. I agreed to that condition wholeheartedly. I would take my life before being captured.

On looking back through the years, however, I now feel that I was being unfair and selfish and that my father was being far too conciliatory in giving me such permission. On the other hand, I don’t think that the Army should ever have given me an option in the matter.

Today the problem is worse than it was in my time. Unlike the Afghans and Iraqis, the South Korean people solidly supported the American military presence, which was part of a United Nations operation. Their president, Syngman Rhee, whom they saw as their George Washington in the struggle for independence from Japan, enjoyed widespread support. Therefore, once I finished a short stint in combat and was reassigned from an infantry battalion to Third Division headquarters, a few miles from the front, I felt as safe as I would have felt walking down a street in the United States.

Iraq is clearly different. Even though the casualty rate in the combat units is low compared to other wars, the possibility of disaster in the nonexistent “rear area” is always there. A female soldier driving a truck along a major highway can be blown up by a roadside bomb. Civilians are captured for ransom by terrorists; journalists are kidnapped and sometimes murdered. A prize hostage also endangers those around him. The British soldiers serving in Afghanistan alongside Prince Harry were in exceptional danger until he was withdrawn.