Whose boots on the ground?

Who's boots on the ground?

Successful warfare is a team effort with the team consisting of air and naval forces in support of ground operations.

In World War II heavy destruction by bombing did not end the fighting. In Europe it took multiple invasions and heavy fighting across Europe to defeat Germany. In the Pacific, the island hopping campaign moved our airfields closer to Japan at the cost of tens of thousands troops during many intense assaults from the sea with naval support. The Atomic bombs brought a surrender that stopped a planned invasion of Japan. In Vietnam more bombs were dropped than during all of World War II, but the defeat of enemy forces took ground troops.

In Iraq, coalition air forces have pounded ISIS and weakened their fighters, but the ground gains have been minimal. It will take "Boots on the Ground" to drive the ISIS force out of the cities and villages they have occupied, and Iraqi military forces have begun this campaign with the present effort to retake the city of Tikrit. This will be the first test of the Iraqi army since their rout last year, and it will also be a demonstration of their administration of retaken cities. Can the officers of the Iraqi army keep their troops from sectarian violence against civilians?

The pundits and politicians who are calling for U.S. ground forces to enter the battles apparently have short memories. Many are the same people who forecast that the U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a quick and easy process in 2003, and they ignore the costs to our troops and the debts we ran up during that war. Those costs continue as we care for the wounded from the Iraq War as well as the families of the dead and wounded.

The followers of ISIS are barbarians. The nations of the Mideast should destroy them with the U.S. providing air support and assistance to those attacking ISIS. We are not in danger from ISIS as a military threat but rather as a sponsor of terrorism, and our major effort should be to defend against that ISIS-sponsored terrorism while our allies wipe out their base of operations.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He resides in Chaffee, Missouri.