A shot of hope, straight up no chaser

William Eaton and Sgt. Presley O'Bannon USMC and eight Marines lead the assault on Darnah, Libya, in 1805.

Some may recall that Khadaffi warned us that Darnah was a stronghold of Islamic extremists, even if our mainstream media dismissed that and proclaimed it was, rather, a "secularist" city -- but Diana West easily refuted that, showing that this "secularist" city had the highest percentage in all of Libya of jiihadist volunteers to go mass-murder Americans in Iraq (and that among such Libyan volunteers, 85% signed up to be suicide bombers).

Incidentally, a caption to the painting above found on one website notes that our early Marines intended to march on Tripoli after routing the Muslims at Darnah, but were "thwarted by a peace treaty that allowed Yousef Karamanli to remain in power."  Plus ça Hope and Change, and all that sort of rot.

Sometimes, I just want to give up hope.  

In moments like these, I thank Retired Marine 1st Sergeant John Bernard for infusing me with at least a little jolt of hope this evening, as I watched his speech at a podium on a sunny District of Columbia day before the Nation's Capitol (hat tip to Andrew Bostom and Diana West).

For the first seven or so minutes, he seems to begin a tad slowly, his cadence perhaps plodding and his tonality boring in its no-nonsense banalities.  But don't let that fool you.  Two things during that slow introduction are important:  his solid credentials as a military man; and his anguish as a father who lost a son in Afghanistan, also a Marine.

Then, beginning at about the 7:30 mark of the video and increasing with righteous yet measured fervor, Sergeant Bernard launches into a steadily mounting indictment of our Administration's COIN strategy.  And it becomes clear that he "gets it" about our enemy, Islam and the Muslims who put Islam into practice.

Thank God for Americans like Sergeant Bernard and his son -- killed in action on August 14, 2009: may his memory be cherished as the life of a stalwart defender of the freedoms we too often take for granted.

Note:  Sgt. John Bernard also has his own blog:  Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home!