[PEN-L:7402] 9,000 PURPLE HEARTS - THAT'S AN ORDER

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

9,000 PURPLE HEARTS - THAT'S AN ORDER

                  By STEVE DUNLEAVY

                 LEE GRAVES this week got some good news
                 for his business, but not very good news for
                 soldiers.

                 "On Wednesday, we got the official order to
                 make 9,000 Purple Hearts," he told me from
                 Tomball, Texas.

                 Purple Hearts are awarded to servicemen and
                 women who are wounded in the zone of hostility
                 during war.

                 But we are not fighting a war, according to Bill
                 Clinton, we are just "degrading" Slobbo's war
                 machine. OK.

                 Then why in good God's name are we making
                 Purple Hearts if we are not in a war and we don't
                 expect casualties?

                 "I was a little surprised to get that big an order
                 from the Defense Logistics Agency," said Graves,
                 boss of medal-making Graco Industries.

                 "I have been producing medals and campaign
                 ribbons for 20 years and never have I been asked
                 by the Defense Department to come up with a
                 Purple Heart.

                 "But 9,000 Purple Hearts. Yes, well I am
                 surprised."

                 The order is stone-dead cold, according to Lee, a
                 Good Ol' Boy who has done his time in the
                 trenches of foreign wars.

                 "I think I am right - they [Washington] want 1,400
                 Purple Hearts for November, 1,400 for
                 December, 1,600 for January, 1,600 for
                 February, 1,600 for March and 1,400 for April."

                 Unless we have a war, why would the Defense
                 Department be asking for Purple Hearts?

                 "Off the top of my head, I am guessing that 9,000
                 would be about 10 percent casualties of our being
                 there. Wounded, I pray. That sounds right. I sure
                 hope nobody gets killed."

                 So, even though Clinton has always told us that
                 ground troops would never be an option and he
                 announced it to Slobodan Milosevic, guess what.

                 Well, the Pentagon must think otherwise.

                 I called Christina Di Memmo, the public-affairs
                 officer at the Defense Logistics Agency in
                 Philadelphia, which is the groundhog for Pentagon
                 buying.

                 "I am not the person to give an official response,"
                 she said politely.

                 If I can't get a comment from an official
                 spokesperson, then who can I get to talk?

                 Dutifully, she called back later and said, "We are
                 simply maintaining the quantity of supply."

                 Nobody wanted 9,000 Purple Hearts last year.

                 Bill Clinton isn't taking my calls today.

                 Silly Billy.

                 Now, if Silly Billy for once in his life is playing
                 good poker with Slobbo, and not tipping his mitt,
                 I will, for once in my life, applaud him.

                 But if the Pentagon is saying, "Screw this
                 draft-dodging mook, we are going in, ground
                 troops and all," then it tells us the measure of
                 Clinton's intelligence.

                 William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard,
                 told a packed New York Post breakfast forum on
                 Tuesday: "There will be U.S. troops in Kosovo by
                 November."

                 Whether his "Kristol Ball" is better than mine or
                 whether he knew about 9,000 Purple Hearts
                 being ordered, I don't know.

                 But I do know what Lee Graves says honestly:
                 "For 20 years, we have been making medals and
                 ribbons for the armed services.

                 "We have never been requested to make Purple
                 Hearts for the armed forces. Never. Truthfully, I
                 hope they are not needed."

                 Yep, I think we are going in.

                 Better to kill the killers than bomb the living
                 daylights out of innocent civilians who are the
                 descendants, as Henry Kissinger said, of people
                 who stood by us in two world wars and spat in
                 Hitler's face.


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Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
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