We Support The Vets Salutes Our Series of  Patriotic American Heroes

Major General of the Marines  Mike Lehnert

  Bravo Zulu General!
Great speech by Marine Corps Major General Mike Lehnert..**

**  Marine Corps Major General Mike Lehnert is the Commanding General of
all Marine West Coast bases.  Speaking at ****Miramar**** Marine Corps
Air Station to a group, he had this to say.  Powerful.  **
** Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Eight days ago, I was present in
the audience when Tom Brokaw addressed the 2006 Stanford graduating
class. ***
**After the initial pleasantries and one-liners, Mr.  Brokaw said
something unexpected.  He told the class that they were the children of
privilege, fortunate to be attending one of the finest educational
institutions in the country, the anointed because they had both the test
scores for admittance and parents who were able to afford their
tuition.  He noted that they could likely expect rapid advancement in
almost any endeavor they choose and that they were destined to lead the
most powerful country in the world.**

**The class was beaming.**
**And then Brokaw reminded them that the liberties and freedoms they
enjoyed were being defended by young people their age that did not have
their advantages.  That at this time thousands of men and women were
fighting, dying and suffering debilitating injury to ensure that the
rest of us could live the American dream. **
**There was an uncomfortable shifting in the seats, followed by slow but
growing applause from the audience. **
**When we sent my son to Stanford four years ago, we filled out a form
asking for demographic information.  One of the questions for the
parents said, what is your profession?  After it was a list of about
thirty professions including doctor, lawyer, congressman, educator,
architect.  Military was not listed so I filled in "other" **
**My son was the only graduate who had a parent serving in the armed
forces.  As I was introduced to his friends parents, it was interesting
to watch their reaction.  Few had ever spoken to a member of the
military.  One asked me how my son was able to gain admittance with the
disadvantage of having to attend "those DoD schools".  Many voiced
support for our military and told me that they'd have served but clearly
military service was not for their kind of people.**
**This year of the so-called elite schools, *****Princeton**** led them
with nine graduates electing military service.  Compare that with 1956
when over 400 of the ****Princeton**** graduating class entered the
military.  Most of the other Ivy League schools had no one entering the
military this year.***
**I wonder how many of you know the young people who are serving today. 
I won't embarrass anyone by asking for a show of hands to ask how many
really know a young enlisted Marine who has been to war. **
**I'm going to try to give you a better feel about those who serve our
nation.**
**Our Marines tend to come from working class families.  For the most
part, they came from homes where high school graduation was important
but college was out of their reach.  The homes they come from emphasize
service.  Patriotism isn't a word that makes them uncomfortable. **
**The global war on terrorism has been ongoing for nearly five years
with Marines deployed in harm's way for most of that time.  It is a
strange war because the sacrifices being levied upon our citizens are
not evenly distributed throughout society.  In fact, most Americans are
only vaguely aware of what is going on.**
**That isn't the case aboard the Marine bases in *****Southern
California**** where we see the sacrifice everyday as we train aboard
those open spaces that you covet for other purposes.  Many of our
Marines are married and 70% of our married Marines live in your
communities, not aboard Marine bases.  These Marines coach your soccer
teams. ***
**They attend your places of worship.  They send their kids to your
schools.  However, in many ways they are as different from the rest of
the citizens of *****Southern California**** as my son was different
from the rest of the students at Stanford.***
**One of the huge differences between the rest of society and our Marine
families, is when Marine daddies and mommies go to work, some of them
never come home.  The kids know that.  The spouses know that.  Week
after week we get reports of another son, father, husband who won't be
coming back.  During the past four years, over **
**460 Marines from *****Southern California**** bases have been killed
by the enemy.  107 more have died in ****Iraq**** and
****Afghanistan**** due to accidents.  6500 have been wounded some of
them multiple times.***
**You will never know or meet Brandan Webb age 20 or Christopher White
age 23 or Ben Williams age 30.  They were all assigned to First
Battalion, First Marine Regiment, *****Camp Pendleton****,
****California****.  They were some of the Marines who died this week
out of Marine bases in ****Southern California****.***
**Last Friday, we hosted a golf tournament at *****Camp****
****Pendleton**** to raise money for wounded Marines.  There are a lot
of expenses that the government cannot legally pay for from appropriated
funds.  The people who attended the tournament genuinely wanted to help
and we invited a couple of dozen wounded Marines to golf with them.  As
I watched the teams leave for a shotgun start, I saw three Marines
sitting by themselves and went over to talk to them.  Clearly they'd
been told by their chain of command that this was their appointed place
of duty.  They were sitting in the sun chatting, probably not unhappy
with the duty but mildly uncertain as to why they were there.  I asked
them why they weren't golfing and they said that they'd never learned. 
No one in their families ever played golf and that this was the first
time they'd ever been on a golf course.  I asked them how many times
they'd deployed.  One of the young men had just returned from his third
deployment and had been wounded every time. ***
**The others teased him for being a bullet magnet.  I asked him if he
was going to stay in and he thought for a moment what to say to a
general and he said, "I think I'd like to try college.  No one in my
family has ever gone."**
**I asked these Marines if I could buy them a beer.  They looked at me
and smiled.  One of them said, "We can't ask you to break the rules
sir.  None of us are 21 yet." **
**They seemed much older.  As I left them I wondered about a policy that
gives a young man the power of deciding who will live and who will die
but won't let him drink a beer.  I thought about these young Americans
who had never shot golf but had shot and killed other men in order to
carry out foreign policy.**
**On the 10th of August we will open a wounded warrior barracks at
*****Camp**** ****Pendleton****.  Few taxpayers dollars were used.  We
were able to raise the money through the Semper Fidelis fund to house
those Marines who no longer need to be hospitalized but who suffer
debilitating injuries and need follow-on care.  Heretofore, when
regiments left for the war, they left their non-deployables behind. 
These Marines often had to live in WWII era barracks with open squad
bays and gang heads down the hallway.  Those having limited mobility
found it difficult and uncomfortable.  It was no way to treat our
wounded warriors.  We're fixing it. ***
**Now let me introduce you to another enlisted Marine.  His name is
Brendan Duffy.  Brendan was an infantry Marine. **
**Like so many others, Brendan had dreams of going to college but no
means to do so.  While he was in the Corps, he immediately began using
his *****Montgomery**** GI bill benefits by enrolling in ****Mira****
****Costa**** ****College****.  Though deployed soon after signing up
for college, he took his textbooks to war.  Last month he received Mira
Costas highest award for academic excellence, the Medal of Honor for
Academic Excellence.  Brendan described studying pre-calculus while
fragments from explosions struck the sandbag shelter he was in. ***
**Brendan left the Corps this week and has been accepted to the
University of California, *****Los Angeles**** to study math and
economics.***
**Later this morning I'll be meeting with educators across the
*****California**** ****University**** system.  We are trying to make
****California**** more veteran friendly.  ****California**** hosts 40%
of the combat power of the Marine Corps and 40% of the Marine veterans
who leave the Corps do so out of ****Southern California**** bases.  96%
have participated in the ****Montgomery**** GI Bill and are eligible for
benefits but only a small number enter the ****California****
****University**** system. ***
**That's because *****California****, unlike other states did not
provide any veterans preference or even reach out to veterans.  These
combat veterans score in the top 50% of their age group, are drug free
and morally straight but are lost to ****California**** and return to
other states that aggressively work to attract them. ***
**Several months ago, I along with senior leadership of all the
Services, met with Governor Schwarzenegger and told him that
*****California**** was not an education friendly state for military
veterans.  To his credit, he is trying to change that and this meeting
today is a natural outgrowth of his support.***
**In Iraq, the media talks about the casualties.  They seldom report the
successes.  I don't think that this is intentional.  It is just more
difficult to quantify progress and reduce it to a sound bite. **
**Some of you may recall almost exactly two years ago when a four man
sniper team from 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines was killed on a rooftop in
Ramadi.  It made news because sniper teams aren't supposed to get
ambushed and because an M40A1 sniper rifle was now in the hands of the
enemy. **
**Over the next two years, that rifle was used against Americans and we
wanted it back.  Last week, a 21 year old Marine sniper from 3rd
Battalion, Fifth Marines out of Camp Pendleton observed a military-aged
male videotaping a passing patrol of amphibious assault vehicles near
Camp Habbaniya.  After radioing the patrol and telling them to stay low,
the Marine watched the man aiming a sniper rifle that looked remarkably
like his own. **
**He killed the enemy sniper with one round to the head.  Seconds later,
another insurgent entered on the passenger side and was surprised to see
his partner dead.  That hesitation was enough time to allow Sgt Kevin
Homestead, age 26, to kill the insurgent before he could drive off.**
**When the Marines went down to inspect the scene, they saw that the
sniper rifle was one of their own.  It was the same M-40A1 sniper rifle
looted from the 2/4 sniper team exactly two years earlier.**
**We are making progress in Iraq.  The Iraqi Army is more capable each
month.  In the Anbar province we have brought the 1st Iraqi Division -
the most capable of the Iraqi formations - to the former British RAF
base of Habbaniyah - between Fallujah and Ramadi.  We are standing up
the 7th Division.  In Baghdad, Iraqi brigades own parts of the city and
are reporting directly to the US Army Division commander as component
units.**
**The Iraqi Police are the essential element - and the most difficult
challenge.  In any insurrection, the insurgent specifically targets the
local security elements of the government - because they are essential
to maintaining control via interaction with the community, intelligence
gathering, and law enforcement against petty and organized crime,
traffic control.  These police units are having good success in places
like Fallujah.  Ramadi is a different kettle of fish.  Some of the
police departments haven't been paid in months and the intimidation
campaign is in full force. **
**My Chief of Staff, Colonel Stu Navarre formerly the Commander of the
5th Marine Regiment told me this story.  One day in December, the Ramadi
Police Dept Operations Officer (#3 in the pecking order) did not come to
work.  When we inquired, he told us that the day before his 10-year-old
son had been kidnapped after school and transported to the north side of
Ramadi.  He was called by the kidnappers and advised of his son's
location.  When the Operations Officer arrived at the location, he found
his son alive, with a note pinned to his shirt, "If you go to work
tomorrow, you will never see your son again.  We know where you live." I
wonder how many of us would show up for work with that kind of
intimidation.**
**Your fellow Americans in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing a
superb job in the most dangerous places on earth.  They believe in what
they are doing.  The majority of the sergeants, corporals, and privates
enlisted after **
**9-11.  They knew what they were signing up for.  They want to deploy
in defense of the nation.  We are sending best leadership to the combat
zone.  Service in Iraq/Afghanistan has become the norm for our Marine
and Army leaders, and an essential part of their
experience/qualifications for advancement.  Finally, the American people
have continued to demonstrate an unprecedented level of support for
their fellow Americans in uniform - as well as the understanding that
these young men and women are executing the policies of their elected
representatives. **
**Reconstructing an entire nation takes time.  Think about our own
experience during the American Revolution. **
**Despite having a homogeneous nation with no incipient insurgency, it
was thirteen years from the Revolution to the ratification of the
Constitution.  We seem to have forgotten that it takes time to build
institutions. **
**Introduction of a stable, representative form of government in Iraq is
revolutionary in its impacts on the region and the world.  Iraq is at
the center of the Mid-East, the Arab world, and Shia Islam.  Iraq has
been, and will continue to be a major producer of natural resources -
especially oil.  It is at the center of the chess board.  Iraq separates
two sponsors of terrorism - Iran and Syria - and with Afghanistan -
isolates Iran.  It is no coincidence that Muammar Qadaffi has sensed the
change in the wind and sought to distance himself from terrorism and WMD
and become a legitimate player in world politics. **
**The Iraqis are capable of running Iraq.  Today, thousands of young
Iraqis are lining up to become soldiers and policemen - despite
constant, highly lethal attacks on recruiting stations, police stations,
and army checkpoints. **
**Concurrently, there is no more dangerous job than being a candidate
for office or an elected official in Iraq.  We should not underestimate
the absolute danger to any Iraqi that steps up to plate for law, order,
and progress.  The enemy is absolutely committed to winning.  For him,
there is really no other option.  He also understands that the center of
gravity is the commitment of the American people.**
**One of my major concerns is quality of life issues for our Marines,
Sailors and their families.  We are making significant progress but we
have a long way to go.**
**We are building 1600 more homes at Miramar to give our Marines and
Sailors decent places to live.  California is a beautiful State.  It is
also extraordinarily expensive and we are the gypsies in your castle
often driving 50 or 60 miles one way to because those are the only
places that our junior Marines can afford to live.**
**We are replacing worn out World War II vintage barracks that we make
our single Marines live in.  When I took over, I visited some of the
open squad bay barracks at Camp Horno in Pendleton.  A young Marine
corporal and veteran of the fighting in Iraq looked at me and said,
"Sir, I lived better in Fallujah." That hurt but he was right.  A couple
of weeks later I had a chance to talk to the Commandant and tell him the
same story.  I told him that at the rate we were replacing barracks, we
wouldn't have decent enlisted quarters until 2036.  To his credit, he
listened and we now plan to have them replaced by 2013.  This won't come
without a cost because the Marine Corps doesn't get more money to build
barracks, we have to realign our priorities and not buy other things
that we need. **
**It was a significant decision by our senior leadership but the right
thing to do.**
**With our Navy partners we are going after Pay Day Lenders.  Pay Day
Lenders are the parasites found outside of our military bases in
Southern California who pray on young Marines and Sailors because the
lenders know they are uninformed consumers.  Pay day lenders take
advantage that California has some of the weakest laws in the country. 
In North Carolina, pay day lenders are limited to 36% annual percentage
rates of interest.  Here in San Diego we regularly see rates of 460% and
I have seen rates as high as 920% being charged legally against our
service members.  Service members go into a cycle of debt.  Ultimately
because we expect our Marines to be financially responsible, their
ability to reenlist, compete for good jobs and keep a security clearance
is effected.**
**Let me be clear.  Pay day lenders are not providing our Marines with a
service.  They are parasites, bottom feeders and scumbags.  One of them
sent me a note recently telling me that he was a member of an honorable
profession and that I should back off.  He told me that a pay day
lending institution had been found in the ruins of Pompey after Mount
Vesuvius erupted.  I responded to him that archeologists also found a
whore house and that antiquity did not bequeath virtue.  It is a
shameful practice.**
**We also recognize that military leaders have a responsibility to
educate our service members and their families about sound money
management.  We are doing that.  We are using our base papers,
information campaigns and personal intervention to tell them that there
are alternatives to the pay day lending institutions.**
**Both the State and Federal legislatures have heard our message as well
and there are bills making their way through the process to
significantly curtail the excesses of payday lenders.**
**I know that many of you came here today to find out what I would say
about the airport situation at Miramar.  So as not to disappoint you,
let me be clear.**
**The Marines came to Miramar ten years ago as a result of a BRAC
decision and four subsequent BRAC rounds determined that the
interrelationship of the Marine and Navy bases in Southern California
provided a capability that was unmatched anywhere in the country. **
**The Marine Corps uses its bases as a projection platform for combat
power.  25,000 Marines from California bases are presently deployed in
harms way and over 3,000 of them are from Miramar.**
**Through the years, we have accommodated our neighbors development
needs.  Often we allowed infrastructure that was unpopular elsewhere but
vital to the community.  San Diegos primary landfill is located at
Miramar.  A nuclear generation facility sits aboard Marine Corps
property at Camp Pendleton and powers 2.2 million Southern California
homes.  We want to be good neighbors and work hard at it.**
**We examined the proposal for joint use of Miramar carefully, provided
all data requested and saw that data ignored.  Joint use does not work
at Miramar.  Thus the real issue is whether you want a civilian airport
at Miramar or Marines. **
**If you want us to leave, you should say so.  However you must
understand that no matter what names are used to describe us in the
Union Tribune, the decision whether or not to leave do not rest with the
military leadership in Southern California.  It rests with your elected
leaders and most of them have clearly put defense needs above local
requirements and said no to Miramar.  The decision rests with the
appointed civilian leadership in the department of defense.  Theyve said
no as well.**
**Sadly this controversy has effected local civil military relations. 
There is no way you can sugar coat it or pretend otherwise.  But we are
here.  If our leadership tells us to leave we will.  We will take our
Marines, our families, our wounded and if necessary we will dig up our
dead.  However right now our leadership says we stay.  And whether or
not we remain in San Diego, the Marine Corps is committed to protecting
your liberties and your freedoms.**
**We know that this is a difficult issue.  We know that we have many
friends in San Diego but we also know that we have others who see the
economic potential of development of the military installations.  They
say that they love the military but would rather love them somewhere
else than in their backyard.**
**If you take nothing away from this talk, Id hope you understand and
appreciate what a remarkable group of young people currently serve in
your Armed Forces today.  Want to know what Marine Generals talk about
when we are together?  We talk about what a remarkable privilege it is
to lead these extraordinary Americans. **
**I started by mentioning Tom Brokaw.  His book coined the phrase, The
Greatest Generation" and our nation responded in kind.  Twenty years
from now we may recognize that this young generation currently serving
has the same qualities of greatness. **
**On the battlefield today are future CEOs of corporations, university
presidents, congressmen, state governors, Supreme Court justices and
perhaps a future president of the United States. **
**Take the time to meet one of these young people.  You won't be
disappointed.***