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Most of the citizens of the United States were not even born at the beginning of World War I, however, the "War to end all wars," in actuality, had it's beginnings in the part of the world that is the current hotspot; Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.  Quite often, the Western countries look back and wonder had they interceded sooner, if WW I would have ever happened?  We, of course, will never know for sure now, but millions of people lost their lives, with not a small number of those people being our fellow U.S. citizens, specifically, our soldiers and sailors.  By having "peace-keeping" troops go in now, perhaps the problems over there will not be allowed to escalate into another global conflict.  Since the United States is, without dispute, the leading country in the world now, it is incumbent on our leaders to have the United States do its share of maintaining the peace as most other countries of the world follow our example.

The problems in that part of the world do not have a "quick fix" as there has been animosity between the warring factions for thousands of years, but with the modern weaponry of the twentieth century, the casualties of World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam would pale in comparison if something isn't done by those countries that have the power to intercede now.  With the breakup of the Soviet Union, there was a large number of nuclear weapons up for grabs by countries that are not as amenable to negotiating disputes, thus with certain despots and dictators, there is likely a strong possibility that the restraints of the cold war are no longer there and there would be very little hesitancy to use the ultimate weapons, thermonuclear bombs.  Certainly, anyone who feels our country will not be dragged into that type of an exchange in the event someone decides to unleash those weapons leads a very sheltered life.

Although a lot of our fellow citizens feel the United States should not be dragged into "other people's problems," they ignore the lessons of history. Immediately after World War I, the United States withdrew into itself with the "isolationist" policy and look where it got us.  We were dragged into the second world war as others felt the United States would not intercede, that we were weak.   They were sadly mistaken as we all know now.  Our own little island was one of the first attacked by the enemy as the enemy felt we were weak and would not do anything to protect our territories and possessions. The isolationist policies of pre-World War II are  the direct result of the United States being so abruptly brought into the war.

There are a lot of our soldiers and sailors from Guam and the Northern Marianas that are involved in the current hostilities in Central Eastern Europe and as part of offisland.com's policy of supporting our troops wherever they might be, we strongly encourage all of our visitors to offisland.com  to continue supporting our fellow islanders who once again will be sent into harms way.  One of the strongest ways of supporting our loved ones is to send them letters, MARs Grams, and any other means of contact you can think of.

So many times, we all take for granted what our soldiers and sailors do for us, what their sacrifices have done for us and when anyone should doubt it, think of the following:

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
Who's coffin is draped with the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Thank God for our soldiers!

God bless all of you out there and let's all hope our soldiers and sailors return safely from once again, being there for us.

By Bob Conway
Editor, Armed Forces 

Please submit information to armedforces@offisland.com 
or 
webmaster@offisland.com
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Olympia, WA 98513

Thank you.

Michael was born in Heidelberg, Germany on February 2, 1999.