1 Boring Old Man

Cheney: War will not drag on indefinitely

Vice President Dick Cheney told newly minted Coast Guard officers Wednesday that the war on terror would be won on their watch and dismissed fears that fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan would drag on indefinitely. Cheney, sporting a 10-gallon hat, said the troop surge in Iraq "has succeeded brilliantly."

"The war on terror is a lengthy enterprise, but it does not have to go on forever," he told more than 200 graduating cadets during the 127th commencement at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. "The only way to lose this fight is to quit. That would be irresponsible," Cheney said. "More than that, quitting would be an act of betrayal and dishonor. And it’s not going to happen on our watch." The commencement address was Cheney’s second in four years at the academy. He was joined by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. President Bush addressed graduates last year.

I wonder if he had a moment where his boyhood heroic military fantasies met reality. I remember mine clearly. I was working the desk at the student center in the fall of my junior year. Kennedy came on the television set in the lounge and announced the Russian missles in Cuba. After work, I walked alone across the campus in the twilight, expecting to join up and go to War in the coming days. And on that walk, I felt what it was like to be in a foxhole being shot at, being shot, being killed. I never saw the John Wayne War Movies the same way again.

Since that day, I’ve had a different way of hearing talk like, "The only way to lose this fight is to quit. That would be irresponsible. More than that, quitting would be an act of betrayal and dishonor. And it’s not going to happen on our watch." And in the coming years when I heard that childhood friends had died in Viet Nam, it wasn’t like the movies – it was only tragic. I still think about those guys, particularly in relationship to Iraq. I don’t like that kind of talk any more. And I particularly don’t like hearing it come from a man who stayed in graduate school to avoid the draft, and then was a big part of starting this uniquely senseless war.