Sarasota News Leader

08/08/2014 & 08/15/2014

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stalemate we know as World War I was fig- uratively dug from the English Channel to Switzerland. Do not expect re-enactments in which thou- sands of young men rise from their muddy trenches to charge toward replicas of newly developed machine guns. And do not plan to see thousands more suffer- ing after breathing chlorine gas or phosgene, victims of the world's first experiments with chemical warfare. The people of World War I are all dead now — the wounded, the missing — the survivors, too. It was a century ago. We remember them in Sarasota. The dough- boy statue that once graced Five Points — surrounded by plaques bearing the names of local lads who fell to shells, bullets, gas and disease — now stands tall in the Rev. J.D. Hamel Park on Gulfstream Avenue. Over the subsequent century, more names of local lads have been added to the statute, reflecting newer wars America waged in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. We remember all the deceased in May on Memorial Day. But on the centennial of World War I's begin- ning, we also need to remember other lethal Augusts, other hot summer days when peace turned to war, driving millions into uniforms and early graves. The year 1914 is not the only anniversary of bloodshed. It was 75 years ago this month that German Panzers demonstrated a new tactic called blitzkrieg — "lightning war" — across the plains of Poland. It was on the last day of August 1939 that Adolph Hitler ordered the attack, which triggered the start of World War II. Before that conflict ended six years later, an estimated 100 million people had died. And 50 years ago, in August 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was engaged by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. On Aug. 7, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon Johnson broad war pow- ers, a de facto declaration of war. Ten days later, there was a coup in Saigon, with a general replacing a civilian as chief of state. Insurgency met technology (Agent Orange, starlight scopes, arc light bomber strikes, helicopter mobility), and insurgency won. Twenty-four years ago, on Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait after two days of combat. The U.S. dispatched the XVIII Airborne Corps (stiffened with the 24th mech- anized Infantry Division), the First Marine Expeditionary Force (with two Marine divisions) and the VII Corps (First Armor, Infantry and Cavalry divisions and the Third Armored Division, augmented with the First UK Armoured Division). They were joined by two Egyptian divisions (armor and mechanized infantry), three Saudi brigades, one brigade each of Kuwaiti and Omani troops and battalions from Senegal, Morocco and Bahrain. All totaled, 32 nations participated in the liberation of Kuwait, prob- ably the largest fighting alliance, based on the number of nations, in which the United States OPINION Sarasota News Leader August 8 & 15, 2014 Page 97

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