A dark 28th Anniversary!

For my daughter, (who was born in 1978) and for everyone below the age of 35, many of you won't even remember what has become one of the worst periods in the history of our country. You have no frame of reference. Tomorrow, November 4th., marks the 28th anniversary of what I consider the "birthday" of Islamic terrorism against the United States. It also marks the beginning of one of the single most dark & disgraceful periods in American history. But given what they're teaching you these days in school, you may never have even heard about it!

There are some who will tell you that I am wrong. There are some who will tell you that on that day, America began to get "paid back" for all of our militant excesses against Muslims & Arabs over the years. If you believe those people - if you buy into what high school history teachers, and almost 100% of college and university professors are teaching these days - that America is now reaping the sorrow it sowed during the last century - well, you don't have to read any further. You just keep listening to those "great American Historians" like Bill Maher, Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, Susan & Mr. Sarandon, and Johnny Depp.

Remarkably, even though there are times when I can't remember my keys or glasses, there are still certain "numbers" that continually fly around inside my brain. I guess that's the way things are because that was how my generation was taught to remember things...memorize important dates and numbers! The Spanish Armada, August 8th, 1588; Vesuvius erupts and buries Herculanium and Pompeii, August 24th,79 AD; ".426" the highest single season batting average since 1900 ( Nap Lajoie, Phila. Athletics-1901); "61 in '61" Roger Maris breaks the Babe's single season home run record-but in a longer season*; Gettysburg, July 1-3rd, 1863; Lincoln's Gettysburg address, November 19th., 1863; "5280 & 1760" - the number of feet and yards in a mile; "3-4-5" the unit measurements needed to "lay out" a 90 degree angle; "58,328" the number of soldiers I was taught died in Vietnam; and finally...

• "66 for 444" the number of US citizens taken hostages in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and the number of days they were held and tortured by Iranian muslim radicals led by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Since many of you are too young to remember, the derogatory name for America, "the Great Satan" was given to us during that time by Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian students torturing our citizens in Tehran. When you see older Americans "flinch" whenever they hear those words spoken by Islamo Fascists today, or by Venezuelan Presidents addressing the United Nations, now you'll know why this is such a sensitive phrase!

To hear Iranians tell it, 3000 Iranian students (justifiably) stormed the sovereign soil of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran simply because the United States allowed the Iranian Shah to come to America for cancer treatments. By leaving (flee is a much better word!) his country the Shah (who in actuality was a military dictator) was abdicating his power to the Islamic revolutionary mob that wanted to (and did) establish a sharia government with the Ayatollah and other radical Mula's at the head, once he was gone. Anyway, the militant students didn't like it that the Shah was getting away! Let's face it, they were Islamic fascists who wanted to overthrow the Shah and kill him in the streets of Tehran. The Ayatollah Khomeini was a radical islamic mula (priest) who had recently returned from exile in France (imposed on him by the Shah), who also wanted to murder the Shah - and preferably his entire family. In any event, these radical fundamentalists were angry that they didn't get their chance to (literally) carve the Shah to pieces, and they were equally as angry that America had "caused" this to happen. Every morning, the Ayatollah simply whipped these already frenzied revolutionaries "into a fervent Iranian lather" - preaching about how Allah expected them to stand up for their religion, and Oh by-the-way how "the Great Satan" America was the cause for every single problem ever befallen any Muslim anywhere at any time in history! We were not like Satan - we were Satan (by-the-way we still ARE Satan); we were the infidel invaders; we were unclean believers in "the book." So, fired up by the Ayatollah, on November 4th., 1978 the students overran the US Embassy and took everyone there hostage.

November 4, 1979 also marks the day that I started becoming a Republican rather than a Democrat. From that day forward, until the day the hostages were released 444 days later, I watched as my President & my government did virtually nothing to get our hostages released.

(Before I go much further into this story, I should explain - in deference to and with every honor and respect - that there was a single secret rescue mission 5 months into the hostage taking - attempted during April 24th & 25th 1980. This mission was carried out by American military warriors of the highest caliber and bravery. Unfortunately, because of an unanticipated sand storm that enveloped them and caused an in-air accident while at an interim staging point, the mission was aborted. 8 American hero's died of their wounds and 4 others were seriously wounded. The remaining mission force left behind enough wreaked military hardware, that the Iranian terrorists had a field day publicizing what they claimed, was the defeat of our military. No further rescue attempts were undertaken.)

I remember how proud I felt when on election night November 2nd., 1976, the electoral vote of New York state, (my wife and I were living in Flushing Queens at the time), put Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia over the top, and made him the 39th President of the United States! Wow! How much had changed since his election day 3 years previously! Now, here he was on November 5th 1979, smiling at the TV camera's and basically asking the Iranian terrorists "how can we come together and settle our differences?" Geeezzz!!!!

President Carter's solution for everything it seemed to me, was "let's talk." In other words, diplomacy - known as "the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups" - was the way President Jimmy Carter approached every problem and issue. Truthfully, former Governor Carter did have that quaint, down-home southern manner about him. We thought him a gentleman. It was one of the things I think, drew so many northeastern voters to back him in 1976! He wasn't a gruff, hard-talking Texan like old Lyndon Johnson! He wasn't sweaty and suspect like Dick Nixon. And he wasn't laughable like good ole Gerry Ford, who'd had his head stepped on once too often on the football field at Michigan! Simply put, Jimmy Carter was a down-home peanut farmer who solved his problems by talking them out with his neighbor and reaching an accommodation. He figured that was good enough in Plains Georgia, and it was good enough aboard a United States Navy nuclear submarine, well ...there wasn't an issue in the country or the world that President Carter couldn't form a committee to talk about! Gross inflation, a gasoline shortage and crisis at the pumps, a decline in our country's productivity for the first time since the end of WWII, labor strikes for more pay, Arab/Israeli conflicts (again!), South Korea wanting us to reduce the number of troops we had there, all these issues President Carter grabbed hold of and figured he'd just smile - and talk 'em through! Little did he know.......

So when the Iranian students committed an act of war against the United States by invading our sovereign Embassy territory and taking 66 U.S. citizens hostage in Tehran, President Carter denied our military's initial and immediate request to go into Iran and get them out. He was going to press negotiations with the Iranian students and the Ayatollah. (To his credit, later in his life he admitted that at the time, he was afraid that any military action against Iran would cause the deaths of the hostages.) Unfortunately, to most Americans and certainly to the families of the hostages, his inaction just made us nuts! And when we found out about a "botched" rescue mission, we were just beside ourselves! What happened to our military was the question everyone was asking?

President Carter told Secretary of State Vance to beef up diplomatic pressure - nothing happened. He cut off oil imports to Iran - nothing happened. He expelled Iranians from the United States and froze $8 billion of Iranian assets in US banks - still nothing! Since the U.S. and Israel basically never negotiate with terrorists, we couldn't go to the table with these militants - it would undercut all future discussions with everyone! And none of the "behind the scenes diplomacy" had done a damn thing, so President Carter was FROZEN. It was horrible to live through as an American!

You felt so helpless as a citizen! More than once when my Swedish cousins asked me why we weren't doing something - I felt ashamed! Every American service man I knew was just tearing their hair out being forced to the sidelines by "diplomacy" - when we all knew that American citizens, including the U.S. soldiers on the Embassy Protective Detail were being tortured daily. So because we didn't act, because we showed the Islamic fascists that we didn't have the "will" to come after our own citizens, they became much more assured that we would ultimately do nothing.

The students loved to disgrace our blindfolded citizens, parading them in front of television cameras, pushing them with their rifle butts and interrogating them like common criminals. One of the worst atrocities for me was seeing these Islamic cowards, wearing clothes around their heads carrying out the daily garbage using the American Embassy flag and dumping it. (Later we learned) the hostages were routinely beaten, humiliated, and threatened with death. They were denied any contact with their families or with qualified medical personnel, for more than a year - and every night here on the evening news Americans and the rest of the world heard....."This is Day 50 of America held hostage," "This is Day 176 of America held hostage," "This is Day 225 of America held hostage," "This is Day 280 of America held hostage," "This is Day 300 of America held hostage," "This is Day 315 of America held hostage," "This is Day 365 of America held hostage," "This is Day 400 of America held hostage," "This is Day 425 of America held hostage," "This is Day 440 of America held hostage," "This is Day 443 of America held hostage."

Imagine how psychologically devastating this must have been for the hostages wondering why their country never came to rescue them - who every day had to endure the torture of being told they had been deserted by their country. Imagine how psychologically devastating this was for all the active military personnel who wondered every day why we weren't using them - who laid awake at nights thinking,"that could be me or my buddies sitting, rotting in that hole!" And imagine how psychologically devastating this entire ordeal was for every American citizen who reached for the newspaper every day hoping to see that the hostages had finally been rescued. Imagine what we felt as we all heard the Ayatollah and student leader Ahmadinejad, telling us that it was our fault because America invaded Iran and supported the Shah; and then, we supported Israel; and then, we were infidels who only wanted Arab oil; and then, we were getting repaid because we were unbelievers and for all the horrible things we had done to Muslims in the past.

You weren't old enough to understand this. Generation X'ers and Generation Y'ers you didn't feel this national disgrace & embarrassment! This is all "video" to you - it's not real to you - your frame of reference doesn't get this.Believe me all this was very very real! 28 years ago tomorrow started one of the single most disgraceful and shameful periods in the history of our country!

It was when WE defined for the Islamic fanatics that WE didn't have a SPINE. That WE didn't have the national WILL to fight a fight to the FINISH. WE confirmed for them that if they could get us on the ground, we had neither the WILL nor the FORTITUDE to allow our military to fight an unrestrained battle with the overwhelming technological advantages we possess.

Within the next 444 days, was when Islamic radicals initially found out that what happened here during the anti-war movement of the 60's, was still festering right below the surface. They found out even if they did something HORRIFIC our collective mindset was so messed up, we'd be frozen in place and couldn't do anything. And that's exactly what happened! Jimmy Carter did nothing. We became a pitiful helpless bear of a country, being pushed around by students with sharp sticks!

Then when things were seemingly at their darkest, I heard a strange sound coming from an American politician on the campaign trail. He said, "that if the Iranians holding our people could understand my rhetoric, they had better not be waiting for me to take office!" And you didn't have to be a genius to understand exactly what he meant by that!
Well you should have heard Democrats and many Republicans, laughing at this one-time movie actor and western "cowboy" campaigning for President! Who was this guy from California? Initially at least, everyone thought Reagan was a kook! President Carter at the time - even though he hadn't made any head-way diplomatically getting the hostages released - I seem to remember his campaign ran ads saying that Ronald Reagan would be a dangerously militaristic President if elected!

Reagan spoke like a kook all right - he spoke about a stronger prouder America. An America with a strong proud military tradition. About a smaller government and less taxes for everyone. A country unafraid to declare itself a leader in the world in all ways - and unafraid to defend and protect itself in any way. Reagan made it clear that while he wasn't "keen" on using our military strength, he didn't see any reason to have all this stuff laying around if someone forces us to use it! He made it awfully clear to Tehran, that things were going to change pretty dam quick when the new "cowboy" came to town! He made us all remember that America was something we should all be proud of, that as a country we hadn't come close to seeing how great our country could be. And that Americans should all look at their country /their democracy as that "shining city on a hill."

Well, to cut this long story short - the cowards in Iran heard him to, just like millions of Americans did! On election day Reagan defeated Carter fairly easily, and on January 20, 1981 within the time it took President Ronald Wilson Reagan to make his first inaugural address, all the hostages were released.

There's no negotiating with religious fanatics - they don't have anything to loose.

(Sorry this is so long, but it's a lesson that needs to be retold!)