Most all agree that we must stop these people. Our political leaders talk a good talk but no one seems to be willing to walk the walk.
One has only to look at our history to see the answer. The question is, do Americans care enough about their freedom to "walk the walk"?
The history lesson can be summed up with one man, Frank Goettge.
Goettge was a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps.
The United States was beginning its first offensive campaign of World War II in the Pacific Ocean with the invasion of Guadalcanal in August of 1942. The Japanese had started the war in the Pacific with their attack on Pearl Harbor months earlier.
American Marines, as well as soldiers, seamen and airmen, knew that they were in a war where the options were just two ... kill or be killed.
Still, our American boys had been raised to treat human beings with respect and, to them, even in war, their was to be honor and some faith in their fellow man. Yes, they would have to kill the enemy but only when necessary.
Our American boys had no idea what they were facing in a fanatical Japanese enemy. Men who had been raised from birth to believe that it was an honorable thing to die for their Emperor.
On August 12, 1942, United States Marines were fighting for their lives on the island of Guadalcanal, a place that most of them had never heard of prior to 1942. Col. Goettge, a native of Canton, Ohio, was the intelligence (G2) officer for the 1st Marine Division.
Goettge received word that day from a prisoner that a group of Japanese were wishing to surrender. They claimed that they were tired, sick and hungry. Goettge, as with most all Americans at the time, took them at their word and led a 25-man patrol to locate and accept the surrender of the Japanese.
The men fell into a Japanese trap. The prisoner led the Marines into an ambush and in the ensuing hours, all but three men were killed. The three survivors managed to make their way off the beach and swim to safety.
Goettge was the first to die, shot through the head. When their bodies were found, they had been shot, stabbed with bayonets and mutilated by the enemy.
This was the first of many lessons that taught our red-blooded American boys that the only way to fight a fanatical enemy was to give no quarter.
In order to induce the Japanese to surrender in World War II, it was necessary, repeat necessary, to fight a no-holds-barred war.
Even with that mindset and a nation determined to fight and win, it took four long years, along with the innocence, and thousands of lives, of an entire generation of Americans, to defeat the enemy.
We are facing the same situation today. As it was then, it is now. There is only one way to defeat a fanatical and determined enemy, with courage and resolve that leaves them no choice, to surrender or die.
Americans must unite. Our government must stop talking and take the fight to the enemy.
When it comes to ISIS and Muslims, there are no innocents. War is not for the faint of heart.
Our ancestors fought and many died in order that we could live today in a free land, a land where we could raise our children and keep them safe.
The only way that we will remain free and our children remain safe, is to destroy ISIS and Muslim fanaticism once and for all.
As the saying goes, freedom isn't free, it comes with a price.
