 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
It is what happens when we measure things by quantity instead of quality, by numbers and not the human spirit.
After all, Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher was one of just six naval personnel killed in battle during Operation Desert Storm, one of just 148 U.S. military killed in action during the first Gulf War. Another 145 American deaths were classified as “non-battlefield” related., we begin to get a different picture, one that better measures the cost of his lost life or its true meaning, having nothing to do with numbers or the duration of the conflict.
Speicher, a Florida State graduate from Jacksonville for whom the FSU tennis facility is named, was believed to have been shot down during the first wave of the air war, sometime after 7 p.m. Jan. 16, 1991.
Nearly a generation later, his death has been confirmed and his remains identified after some 18 years of being hidden in the desert sands.
I remember the report on the downing of his jet, though I cannot recall if we heard about it that night or in the next few days.
On the night the war flashed across TV sets as if some kind of surreal green documentary, I was assigned as an editor on the “War Desk” for combined USA TODAY and Gannett News Service coverage. We had reporters on the ground near the war zone and at least one would cross into Iraq with our troops when the time came.
It was my job – from the safety of the USA TODAY-Gannett towers – as the overnight editor to work most closely with our team, to get their stories, edit them and move them on our internal wire service. With newspapers strung from the East Coast to Hawaii and Guam, someone was always on deadline.
When we heard unconfirmed reports that a plane was down, I remember thinking there would be many, many more such losses.
When there weren’t, I remember thinking we had gotten off easy. We had not, of course.
When the fighting stopped less than two months later, the allied forces had pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and were in position – had the political leadership so ordered – to take Baghdad. But they did not. Iraq’s threat to its Middle East neighbors – and vast amounts of our oil supply – was greatly diminished. The job had been done – though some question to this day whether it had been done completely.
My brother was in that war zone, in Saudi Arabia, where Iraq attempted to lob SCUD missiles, which, with the passing of time, look less terrifying but still deadly enough to have killed 28 U.S. soldiers when a SCUD struck a barracks in Dhahran three days before hostilities ended.
Operation Desert Storm seems an almost forgotten part of our history in the wake of the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the war on terrorism, Afghanistan and the second Iraq war, a small affair accomplished quickly and neatly.
But there was nothing small or quick about this war to the families and friends of those 28 soldiers, nor to those who loved Capt. Speicher.
As shown by the words of his widow, Joanne, who raised their two children after her husband was shot down, there is no such thing as a small war or one with a little bit of consequence:
“Capt. Speicher was a brave and wonderful father, husband and naval officer who responded without hesitation when his country needed him,” she said in a statement Sunday. “In doing so, he followed many, many others who have sacrificed for our freedom.”
The men and women – and some 15 American women were killed in this war – are no less brave nor any less of heroes because the war was short and number of casualties low.
The sacrifice of his family, the loss to his childrenan the sorrow of his friends stand in testimony to the steady will of Americans of our generation and every generation to stand up for freedom and democracy whenever called upon.
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