Suicide Soldiers

Leonidas was a Spartan king.

In 480 BC he led a small force of 300 men from Sparta, along with men from Thespia and Thebes, against a vastly greater force of invading Persians.

For three days, the Spartans held the narrow pass at Thermopylae, inflicting heavy losses on the Persians who broke against the shield wall of the Spartan phalanx like waves dashing against the craggy coast below.

Only after a Greek traitor showed Xerxes a trail around the pass, through the mountains, were the Persians able to surround the Spartan position.

All the Spartans, including Leonidas, were killed, along with their Thespian comrades.

But their valiant resistance endures as the epitome of self-less courage against hopelessly overwhelming odds. They bought time for the Greeks to organize and eventually defeat the Persians.

Some historians say that Leonidas hand-picked each of his men and took no one with him who had not already had a son. That means Leonidas knew even before they departed for battle, that they wouldn’t be returning.

It was, in short, a suicide mission.

Can you imagine yourself in that battle?

Can you imagine facing those impossible odds?

Can you imagine voluntarily giving up your life to protect your home, your family, the things you love, your country?

Fast forward a thousand years or so.

Time: the mid-19^th century.

Place: San Antonio de Bexar, Mexico.

Between 180-260 men resist a 13-day siege at the Alamo. Repulsing two final attacks by General Santa Anna’s superior Mexican force, the defenders could not resist the third. All but a few were killed in the battle. Those captured were executed.

The legend of the Alamo is another example of courageous men giving their lives to fight a delaying action, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, to enable a successful defense to be organized and deployed.

Immortalized in song and story, the defenders of the Alamo are lauded as heroes...

So here’s my question:

How come today if a brown person, a Muslim, maybe, straps a bomb to his chest and takes out some soldiers who have invaded his country, how come he’s not a hero?

Why is it that his self-sacrificing act of resistance is maligned as “terrorism?”

Let me get this straight.

American airmen who fly a few thousand feet above the ground and rain down indiscriminate death and destruction on innocent people below, and who do so at virtually NO risk to themselves, those guys are heroes?

But the guy with explosives under his coat, who blows himself up just to kill a few of the invaders, that guy’s the coward?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a big fan of slaughtering innocent women and children, no matter who does it.

What I’m asking is how come when they do it, it's terrorism and when we do it -- in huge, bleeding batches -- it’s just a little unavoidable "collateral damage?"

How come when they do it, it’s torture, but when we do it, it’s just “enhanced interrogation?”

Sure sounds like somebody's lying to somebody. Seems to me we ought to judge everyone by the same standard and not have one for ourselves and a different one for everyone else.

And call it what it is.

If you’re too ashamed to admit what you’ve done, maybe you should be too ashamed to do it in the first place.

sj