A Message for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

There are a lot of patriotic messages on July 4^th. Here are some words of encouragement specifically for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This comes from a portion of the talk delivered by Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos at the June 18, 2014, Change of Command at MARCENT – the Marine Command at U.S. Central Command based at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, FL.

Gen. James Amos:

Folks, as I take a look and think about Central Command and think about the president’s planning guidance and strategic guidance of a couple of years ago, he was clear that Central Command is important to the United States of America.

He made a decision two years ago which all the commanders supported. We’re on this glide path to reduce the forces in Afghanistan.

We just went through the second set of elections. And I don’t need to tell you, but it’s impressive to me that it was almost, almost without incident.

So if you think about what is our responsibility as a nation in Afghanistan is, and how we’ve done and gave ourselves a letter grade, I’d say we’ve done pretty doggone well.

We’ve got every reason to feel good about what’s been accomplished in that country and it was the same way in Iraq.

Iraq is going to play out however it’s going to play out.

But we as nations, we as the Coalition and the Joint Force sanctified the ground. We sanctified the ground in Iraq. And ladies and gentlemen, I’d argue that we sanctified the ground in Afghanistan as well.

There’s no harder command, no more thorny area than the Central Command. Bigger than the Continental United States, 522 million people, 20 different nations, seven major languages, and 12 major religions all in that area.

And on any given day, it will keep General (Lloyd) Austin and his component commanders awake all night long. There’s no doubt about it.

A Happy 4^th of July for those now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and to those who served and as Gen. Amos said “sanctified the ground.”