Recently my fraternity brother, Mark Finelli, who survived 9/11 (read about his experience here), then went on to serve in Iraq as a Marine, decided to break his long silence on what he thinks of the war and the ‘08 race. Recently discharged Mark sent this email to family and friends.

Dear Family and Friends,

For the past few years, you have been asking me questions about how I feel about our state of affairs in Iraq. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I asked you to read “America’s Secret War,” by Dr. George Friedman (by the way, George Tenet’s recent revelation about the threat of an al-Qaeda’s nuclear cell back in September/October of 2001 was covered in “America’s Secret War,” which was published roughly 4 years prior to the recent Tenet statement-this is just merely one example of George Friedman’s scope of insight).

I have kept my mouth shut. I have been a good active- duty Marine. Now I can speak, and I wrote this little thing for you. Bear with me, I have been reading “blogs” for the entirety of my military life so I tried to write like a “blogger” here. FUN!

What I learned from being a 9/11 Survivor and a Marine in Iraq

1. Running down the stairs of the South Tower while the FDNY is running up will make you feel like a jerk no matter what you do.

2.The sting from 9/11 is gone and the country only cares and feels about the day ceremoniously (this observation excludes survivors, those getting shot at in the Middle East, and relatives of the victims). It is painful to see that my generation did not take a page from the book of our grandparents’ generation, where EVERYONE sacrificed for the team. And the scary aspect of this is that 9/11 was head over heels more horrible and devastating than Pearl Harbor, and Ahmedjinadad is possibly blazingly closer to having a nuke than Hitler ever was. The time it took the frat boys, the skate-punks, the eating-club prima donnas, and the gang-bangers who were going to enlist on September 12th to change their minds lasted less than the amount of time for the ground war to end during the Operation Desert Storm.

This war on the jihadists needs to be more discomforting to the average American than just bad news on the tube, which is why we need a draft if we want to win. Democracies at war abroad cannot wage a protracted ground operation when the only people who are sacrificing are those who choose to go. This is the greatest lesson of my generation.

3. Being able to depend on a much better Marine in a combat zone is wonderful. Being dependable to a much better Marine is greatness. Thank you Major Conway and 1st Sgt. Baker-Mom, you met them when we came home.

4. Patrolling a war zone, except when you or your friends die or get severely injured is more exciting and fun than Cancun in early April, expensive scotch, and skydiving.

5. Until the draft comes back and a period of military service, domestic or otherwise, is required of all citizens upon the age of 18—with equal rights comes equal responsibility—that is to say that until the children of the economic and political elites are faced with the possibility of seeing combat, the trucks won’t be sufficiently armored, and highly effective though wildly expensive technologies will not make it to the combat zone on an infantryman’s timetable, and more often than not will be sparsely found in the combat zone ( and that is the fault of no Marine). If the economic elite, like the children of the deci/centi-millionaires, or the sons of the House of Representatives en masse, on the right and the left, were in the military, then logistics, tactics, and overall strategy would be strengthened dramatically for the average boot on the ground. When FDR and Churchill put war plans together, their sons were on the front line-a huge advantage for a war effort that cannot be mitigated.

I am, however, forever grateful of Commandant General Conway’s recent fast tracking of the MRAP vehicles to Iraq a mere blink after he became America’s top Marine. Thank you, sir.

The McCain boys are in the military with full knowledge that things would operate better if their peers were in uniform, yet they are going anyway. Clearly, a better plan for attack ( i.e., a logistically sound occupation of Iraq) and a quicker armoring of the HMMMV’s, would have happened if men like Al Gore’s son, John Kerry’s step-son, or the President’s nephew were in the military. One or two McCain boys, unfortunately, won’t do it. It has to be a class-encompassing situation; however, I am in awe of the McCain boys-Prince Harry, as well (good for him). If Prince Harry’s personal life is not too “important” to him to deploy, then what is stopping a six-figure bond trader?

There is ethnic diversity in the military, but there is no class diversity, and I don’t care what data-mined statistical fiction you want to show me-I am right about this. Furthermore, Jeffersonian Democracies don’t’ have the luxury of conscription in absentia, especially when a nation depends on the enemy for a critical economic input. To quote George Friedman, author of “America’s Secret War,” and owner of Stratfor, “When those who benefit most from a society feel no obligation to defend it, there is a deep and significant malaise in that society.”

If one half of 1 percent of America’s population owns half the nation’s assets, and that sliver of the populace is without representation within the military, how can we possibly look ourselves in the mirror as a nation that understands the benefits of capitalism, and assume we are on our best war-footing?

From a different angle, I find it hard to believe that a 20 year-old kid at MIT wouldn’t be able to technologically defeat an insurgent wearing fifty cent sandals and holding a three dollar garage door opener if that same student knew he might have to roll past an IED next year.

Be aware that the I.E.D is straight out of the Hezbollah playbook, a playbook that, when appropriate, has been faxed to their Sunni enemies to attack us.

6. Surviving a terrorist attack and joining the military is just what a Hampden-Sydney man does… it never really was a choice.

Or you can be a NYC resident during the attacks and mock everything a fellow Hampden-Sydney man stands for, like Stephen Colbert. Don’t get me wrong, Colbert is hilarious, as is John Stewart (although my bet is that Stewart, in reference to his alma mater, William and Mary, may be more of the latter than the former).

7. There comes a point in war where you realize that worrying is not cost-effective, but being tough is. Seeing your friend in a body bag will expedite this process.

8. Driving through Fallujah proper in the HMMMV turret behind a .50 cal machine gun at 0300 Christmas morning makes you feel as tough as Teddy Roosevelt or Senator McCain.

9. Coming through the North Gate of Camp Fallujah with you and your Marines in one piece after driving through Fallujah proper is what winning the Super Bowl must feel like, only better.

10. After having been a sitting duck in an intelligence failure on 9/11, then hearing on the news for months the troops in Iraq have been sitting ducks in an intelligence failure, while on your way to Iraq will destroy your morale and, to a certain extent, make you lose your mind and make it very hard to deal with future traumatic events-until you return in one piece.

11. The watershed event of the post 9/11 world was the Saudi removal of American troops from its borders. Our greatest “friend” in the Middle East was more scared of al-Qaeda than of us in the post-9/11 reality. And so America found itself suddenly with a weakened foreign policy muscle in the region, -just what bin Laden wanted and helped fulfill bin Laden’s goal of ensuring that the ruling Saudis feared him more than the might of America…. A pro-U.S. Iraq, i.e. an Iraqi government that will politically accept the U.S. in country would have put pro-American forces:

a. West and East of Iran (in Iraq and Afghanistan)

b. South and North of Pakistan (between Afghanistan and our ally India)

c. East, North, and around Saudi Arabia (Iraq, Israel, and the US NAVY which regularly surrounds the peninsula) (This is Dr. Friedman’s analysis).

In business (or, more specifically, real estate), the three immutable factors of success are location, location, location. In war, its geopolitics, geopolitics, geopolitics.

President Clinton, “President Gore”, “President Kerry” or “President YOU” may have invaded Iraq, too, if they felt it would have contributed to five plus years of zero terrorist attacks at home-REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 12th.

There may not have even been a need for OIF if the draft had come back on September 12th . You can walk more softly if you carry a bigger stick. While no one can ever prove that this scenario would have occurred, wouldn’t the world and America be in a better positition if this was the case? The greatest victories are the battles that are never fought (Sun Tzo knew this, as does Secretary Colin Powell-see number 17).

Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Dr. Friedman, has put enough pressure on those who looked the other way as Bin Laden became more potent, notably the elements of the Saudis who were looking the other way for years, for us to “buy some time” between domestic terrorist attacks to implement the safety valves at home, as well as pressure them to help us clamp down financially on al-Qaeda as well as provide us actionable intelligence. It is not a fluke that one of al-Qaeda’s first attacks was in Saudi Arabia after the invasion of Iraq. 95 percent of al-Qaeda’s leadership has been captured or killed because of OIF and, more importantly, the pressure has been put on Iraq’s neighbor by us being there. Some argue that OIF validated al-Qaeda in the eyes of extremists. But what they fail to realize is that the potency of 9/11 did that long before the line of departure was crossed in Kuwait. OIF is a validation not of al-Qaeda, but of hope for America’s security. The jihadists know this, and that is why they are fighting us to the death in Iraq. Remember, they have a finite level of manpower, money, munitions, and logistics in general, just like us. They lose Iraq, they lose all hope of restoring the Caliphate or the rise of Persian dominance in the region. They have no choice but to fight us in Iraq-better our military fight them there than in San Francisco, better we fight them now than our children or our grandchildren. If one dollar, one bullet, or one jihadist less is used to attack America at home, it is worth it-yes, there are more active extremists operating because of OIF, but that’s the point-they are operating in OIF, not Operation Implode Tallahassee.

If one cannot appreciate the duplicitous nature of the Saudi regime, one cannot defeat al-Qaeda. The appreciation and addressing of this phenomenon (while simultaneously tempering Iranian goals) is the price of homeland security. WHILE THE COST IS HIGHER THAN ASSUMED, OIF IS THE PRICE WE HAVE TO PAY FOR WHAT WE ASKED FOR ON SEPTEMBER 12 th, and the military has paid it honorably.

Non-uniformed America has paid nil-how interesting it is that those who have paid nil have complained loudest? Even more interesting is that non-uniformed America’s lack of participation directly relates to the lack of expeditious success in OIF.

Some people on the contemporary American left (and right) will argue that this was not worth it. Well, they weren’t jumping over pieces of dead secretaries after running out of the South Tower, and they weren’t picking up pieces of what was their buddies’ HMMMV for three hours in Nasser Wa Salaam . Thus, using the lesson of opinions taught by my Russian History professor, Dr. James Y. Simms, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, (”you have a right to opinion on the Cold War, I have a right to an opinion on the Cold War, but my opinion carries a hell of a lot more weight”), my opinion of “worth it” has more worth than most. I also remember Dr. Simms saying, “(w)e are going to miss the Russians…” Dr. Hattox and General Wilson said the same thing….

12. The Powell Doctrine would have had a better chance of pacifying post-invasion Iraq . However, pacifying a country the size of Iraq and properly fighting the Islamo-fascists globally would require the U.S. military to be risen to WWII levels and that requires a draft. The fact that we cannot pacify Iraq and invade and pacify Iran at the same time is building a much bigger war on the horizon . Of course OIF has strengthened the Iranian’s hand, but should we have let a bin Laden or Iran cut deals with Hussein in a post-9/11 world-a world that pushed roughly 20k American troops out of the region because they feared the jihadists more than they feared us- what would have happened? Should we have trusted Saddam to be the buffer in the war? THIS IS NOT AFTERNOON RECESS, THIS IS GROWN UP WAR, AND IT IS A DIRTY BUSINESS. WAR MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, AND THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND-let’s not forget this….

At the end of the day, most mistakes that have occurred during Operation Iraqi Freedom have been logistical. There are tactical errors in every war; these can be fixed logistically. The enemy surges and surges in Iraq, and we cannot surge because we are topped off because there is no draft. One doesn’t need to have the tactical and logistical proficiency of General Robert E. Lee to figure this out. And, for the record, if the draft did come back, I have no doubt that my football buddies from high school and college (as well as most entrepreneurial young men) would choose to “get some” in a combat billet rather than fill a domestic service that will be the other option when the draft does return.

140k troops in Iraq is a misleading figure. It takes 6-7 servicemen and women to support a Marine (or soldier) like me, an infantryman, or “grunt.” So, when thinking about combat forces, 140k really should read 30-40k at most in a country of 26 million people. There are more cops in NYC to New Yorkers than servicemen and women in Iraq to Iraqis. Is the Bronx (especially now, with its economic resurgence) really more dangerous than Ramadi?

It is really very simple. If you can secure one area in Iraq, you can secure the entire country with the proper amount of troops and equipment. Case closed.

13. Either Ahmedjinadad and his predecessors/cronies have golden-horseshoes up their asses, or they are legitimate geniuses. My late grandfather, a Marine veteran of Tarawa, said I had a golden-horseshoe up my ass because I survived 61 flights of the WTC on 9/11 and a combat tour in Iraq. Great, I may have something in common with Ahmedjinadad.

So, OIF was about curbing Sunni Wahabiism, initially, Now, OIF is about being on the Iranian border, which is a good thing, because at some point we were going to have to deal with or fight with Shi’ite extremism and the government that harbors it. Better us than our kids and grand kids.

If enemies of the United States were software companies, al-Qaeda is Sun Microsystems to Hezbollah/Iran’s Microsoft. They are competitors you know, and whoever stands up to American Greatness rallies the greatest support with the extremists. America is going to have to wake up to this or have a bloody awakening tenfold 9/11 if Iran becomes operationally capable of nuclear attacks. Keep this in mind when thinking about ceding Southern Iraq.

14. 9/11 was an offshoot of the intra-Islamic war of Shiites vs. Sunnis, moderates vs. extremists, wahabiists vs. capitalists, etc. Christian Europe fought a reformation war hundreds of years ago. Islam is hundreds of years younger than Christianity. Do the math. This equation = when it comes to dealing with them, jihadists only understand a bullet in the head, unfortunately. These people have 9th and 10th century ideals about war, death, and God, but access to 21st century technology. Cede Southern Iraq to Ahmedjinadad and risk ceding Houston or Indianapolis to a nuclear attack.

15. My Shi’ite friend in Iraq once told me, “if I was a Sunni, I would have made Saddam a God…he made us work the oil fields and the Sunnis got all the money, even though there is no oil in al-Anbar.” The Iraqi Sunnis have become jihadists to get back oil revenue. The Iraqi Shiites have become jihadists to keep their new oil revenue. Perhaps “jihad-by-petrol” makes for a less-pure jihadist, but nonetheless, jihadists only understand a bullet in the head, unfortunately. Clausewitz wrote that war is an extension of politics. I would argue that politics are an extension of business , and the few idiots who honestly feel they are killing in the name of God are very impressionable by the self-interested promulgators who know the difference. (This isn’t a religion thing as much as it is a 9th and 10th century idealism about life and death and how to reach socio-political goals that conflict with the cultures of most industrialized nations. I have personally detained jihadists who have had both alcohol on their persons and homemade porn movies of them and their girlfriends on their mobile phones. This is not an Islam problem. Rather, it is Middle East radicalism camouflaged by Islam. India has the second highest population of Muslims. But, they are rarely involved in terrorist activities. Capitalism and democracy are to thank for that. That fact that the average extremist finds himself on the bottom of the oil pyramid is more to blame than Allah, or the perversion of Allah. If you can compare the Islamic enemies of the U.S. to the enemies of the Corleone family, al-Qaeda is the Tattaglia family and the Iranian mullahs are the Barzini family. On 9/11, we weren’t attacked by an aggressor nation, we were attacked by an antiquated and maniacal thought process, one without physical borders or diplomatic restraints in the nuclear age. Jihadism is much more dangerous today than Japanese imperialism or Nazism or Communism ever could have been. We also need to stop comparing the jihadists in Iraq to the Viet Cong; any Vietnam vet will tell you that comparing the battle effectiveness of the insurgents to the VC is disrespectful both to the “man in the black pajamas” and those brave veterans who fought him.

The Iraqis are not ready for Milton Friedman economics, nor are they ready for Jeffersonian democracy. A nation of tribes held in check by a ruthless, violent dictator cannot practice Jeffersonian democracy without an extended, gradual political transition. Most of us, including me, thought that post-Saddam Iraq would be akin to post-nuclear Japan. In retrospect, this was a very foolish assumption. I once heard a twenty-year-old Lance Corporal half-jokingly say we should bring Saddam back because “he didn’t care about R.O.E.’s (rules of engagement) and could control these bastards.” While the U.S. military will never blatantly act with such disregard to humanity as Saddam, it is abundantly clear that we expected too much of the Iraqis, and this is a valuable lesson applicable to when we deal with Iran militarily. America’s compassion, our R.O.E.’s in Iraq, is both our nation’s greatest strength and weakness. Also, I promise you, Americans on the ground in Iraq disregard their own lives for the benefit of Iraqi civilians 99.999999 percent of the time.

Iran has a choice, however. They have an educated young population. They can be the India of the Near East or they can be the next disaster. It would behoove the Iranian youth to overthrow the mullahs and choose the former.

By the way, the Iraqi Security Forces are brave. They drive around in Suzuki pickup trucks without armor and the machine gunner stands in the bed with nothing between the road but air. The problem is that they are working for too many different causes simultaneously, with Iraqi nationalism very far down the trough.

And they don’t understand punctuality. We’re working on it.

16. When we go to the field at Camp Lejeune or in Iraq, we bring extra socks, Gore-Tex jackets and weatherproof our gear even if we know it won’t rain. Nothing is left to chance, we are prepared for any contingency. President Bush is the most resolute, decisive, unwavering, and arguably one of the most courageous presidents in our nations history. However, a President Bush who had the learning experiences of a Marine infantryman instead of a flyboy in the National Guard would have applied this know-how to war on the Islamo-jihadists and would have created, I believe, the greatest Commander-in-Chief. In other words, I believe a President George W. Bush who spent some time getting some in the Marine Corps may have seriously considered bringing back the draft around October 2001. Marines prepare for every contingency, even when the weatherman (or Chalabi), says there will be no rain.

On the same note, President Clinton would have made the greatest public affairs officer the Corps has ever seen.

17. The unsung hero of Operation Iraqi Freedom is Colin Powell (again, read America’s Secret War for a more thorough explanation-Secretary Powell would be my first choice for president if he were running). Most of you blame him for being pressured into selling this war to the world. Actually, what he was trying to do, in George Friedman’s view, was change the behavior of elements of the Saudi elite who funded, aided, or turned a blind eye to the aiding of our enemies, without us ever invading Iraq. He had to make it appear that we were absolutely going to invade Iraq so we wouldn’t have to. Without a shot fired, munitions dropped, an Iraqi child killed in the line of fire, or a tear running down the face of a fallen Marine’s wife, Secretary Powell almost pulled it off, and unfortunately, most consider him a pawn or a sellout. Again, invading Iraq pressured the Saudis and other Middle Eastern nations to help us disrupt al-Qaeda (OIF is an international squeeze play, if you will) and it is the reason why most of al-Qaeda’s leadership has been captured or killed, and why there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil in five plus years. President Bush and the Marine Corps, Army, Navy and Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are the reason for that). Therefore, Colin Powell’s speech at the UN, although it may have been a ruse, ranks as one the most selflessly patriotic acts in American history, right between George Washington refusing the crown and Teddy Roosevelt charging San Juan Hill single-handedly with the Rough Riders watching in awe.

17a. The French and (most) American celebrities don’t deserve their own number, therefore, they are 17 A instead of 18.

Hey Pierre- if Dieter beats you within an inch of your life twice, and John Wayne saves your ass on both occasions, the next time you are in the bar and you see John in a tight spot, you help John out. You don’t turn your back on John because it is not necessarily in your best interest, and then go skipping down Rue St. Vincent arm-in-arm with Dieter. This just is not a manly thing to do, Pierre, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Bravo Prime Minister Howard. Bravo Prime Minister Berlusconi. Bravo Prime Minister Aznar. Bravo Prime Minister Blair. And, especially, bravo Prime Minister Rasmussen, for making little Denmark the bravest nation in Northern mainland Europe.

Don’t worry, though, Pierre. John Wayne will be there next time your derrière is in a sling. Again.

Also, I am sick of celebrity leftists moonlighting as diplomats. I have no doubt that most of them have the best intentions, but America needs its royalty to be soldiers first, diplomats later. Excluding Pat Tillman, where have you gone Joe DiMaggio (or Elvis, or Jimmy Stewart, or Ted Williams (Ooh-Rah), Clark Gable, and so on….Hef was in the Army! Who doesn’t love Hef?)

Even Jerry Garcia was in the Army for a little while!

It is time the whole of America and American royalty were forced into a WWII mindset, as FDR did for us. For better or for worse, the contemporary American left’s puppets, celebrities, have set the tone for the American spirit, and a nation that historically has consisted of Anglophiles into a nation of Francophiles. The love affair of Hollywood politicos is sickening.

Also, I don’t know what is more disturbing; Watching Rahm Emanuel’s celebratory head bobbing after the midterm elections or the fact that a Corporal in the Marine Corps knows more about the jihadists than Sylvestre Reyes. I do like Rep. Charlie Rangel’s stance on the draft, however, and believe him to be a good man.

The Democrats, as a whole, are no longer the party of “(a)ll we have to fear is fear itself” and “(a)sk not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Hey Colonel Murtha, WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT-in military-ese, means “what the f#$k? How do we win, sir, not how do we run!

The cheerleaders on the right who are without a personal stake in the military, in some capacity, can be just as harmful as the naysayers on the left .

I don’t knock the contemporary American left for wanting peace (I don’t call them liberals because liberal means “open-minded,” which is not an appropriate label). However, their vision of the world as it exists in John Lennon’s “Imagine,” is dangerous. As long as one single evil man exists, this idea is not feasible and is dangerous to all honorable and good-hearted people of all races, creeds, nations, and ethnicities. For the record, I am a HUGE Beatles/John Lennon fan. The entire country should be sacrificing for Operation Iraqi Freedom as they did in WWII to help the military win in Europe and Japan. Wasn’t it worth it? Does Europe fight each other anymore? No, they don’t. American sacrifice brought peace to Europe (yes, a lot of Russian blood was spilled to defeat the Nazis, but when the Russians became a menace, American capitalism and ingenuity behind the leadership of President Reagan bled them dry. Again, the world can thank America and its allies for defeating that 20th century evil empire, as well).

Vietnam, you have a bustling economy there because of the infrastructure America left there. You are a burgeoning economic powerhouse because of us. Communism lost in Indochina. We won.

Oh, don’t forget to ask the Kuwaitis or the Kurds how evil they think America is.

President Bush has admitted mistakes during OIF, but he is far from the only person to blame for our woes in Iraq . Blame the attitude of our new found Francophilia, the noblesse UN-oblige for the war effort by the American left and the cheerleaders on the right who let someone else get their hands dirty for them, and the unrelenting hedonism/unwillingness to sacrifice of contemporary America’s boomers and children as a whole on the right and the left. If anything, blame the President for not asking the whole of non-uniformed America to sacrifice.

The pursuit of hedonism without sacrifice is like giving a 16-year-old boy the keys to a brand new cherry red Ferrari- a foolproof recipe for disaster.

Clearly, the fact that a two-bit tart who purposefully forgot to wear her drawers can compete with the release of the Iraq Study Group’s report proves that our priorities are unbalanced. It also proves that America’s royalty (celebrities) need to be in the military to get today’s youth to feel they should be, too. It worked well in WWII. The relentless pursuit of hedonism without sacrifice that our youth culture emulates is the problem, not hedonism itself. Again, for the record, no one likes to have a good time more than me; I am an unabashed sinner and quite the opposite of anything prudish. Don’t misconstrue me as a teetotaler. However, responsibilities first, fun second is the code that we traditionally follow in America.

The new America-Government programs will replace the family and the church, two traditional bastions of strength, and the one government program that has saved the world more the once, the selective service, is more culturally taboo to discuss than the latest celebrity porn home movie.

The press isn’t helping, either. Inadvertently, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, THEHUFFINGTONPOST.COM, THE NY TIMES, CBS, and ESPECIALLY moveon.org, have fueled the jihadists efforts so well that only the insurgents on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan could be considered a greater enemy. They are beating us at home; a lesson they learned from Ho Chi Minh. I realize that most of these people care about the troops but they are not helping.

The francophiliacs/American left are cowardly to hide behind moral relativism because relating to traditional American morality is hard and sacrificial by nature. They have forgotten that our American morality has saved this world more than once, and finding the fortitude to support it is necessary for peace and freedom.

18. Oil is the blood of the world economy. America has two choices A. wait for a major domestic city to get nuked and bring back the draft. B. Develop an alternative fuel source that can replace oil yesterday. There is no choice C. Senator Kerry was 100 percent on the money when he said that we need to invent our way out of this dilemma. Why finance those who seek our annihilation? Let them figure out another way to build an economy-one that does not threaten Western civilization. IF AMERICA DOES NOT WANT A DRAFT, GO GREEN YESTERDAY! MR. PRESIDENT, SIR, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR TERM TO ELIMATE OUR MIDDLE EAST OIL ADDICTION AS MUCH AS YOU CAN-PLEASE.

I realize that many currencies are supported to some extent by the petroleum trade. America is a very bright nation, and we can change this if we really want to.

We need to go to hydrogen, solar, wind, biodiesel, nuclear energy and off the Middle Eastern energy nipple with a Manhattan Project level of commitment, because the stakes are even higher this time around. How the majority of America does not understand this is confusing and embarrassing.

It is not surprising, however, that Vinod Khosla, on of history’s great technology investors, is putting all his efforts toward alternative energy.

Those guys at Secure America’s Energy Future deserve medals for their work. In fact, most of them already have medals, which is why they are wise to this pending disaster.

We also need to apply a Manhattan Project level of effort to solving the IED problem. Col. Bing West, USMC, ret., who writes regularly for a number of periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly, has recently pointed out what every grunt on the ground in Iraq already knows: IEDs account for more than 70 percent of attacks against U.S. forces. Essentially, America’s sons and daughters are losing their lives in Iraq to cowards wearing 50-cent sandals and carrying five-dollar garage door openers. This is a national travesty and we should be ashamed. America’s technological abilities are not being maximized in solving the IED problem.

Give me the five brightest students from M.I.T. and Cal Tech and I promise that in six months I can take them on mounted patrols between Baghdad and Fallujah, just like the ones we do everyday, and I guarantee that my “squad” can make IEDs less effective than a “Just Say No” campaign at a Dead show.

19. Senator McCain is the best choice for president in 2008. Mayor Giuliani is an extremely close second-although Mayor Giuliani never served in the military, he was history’s greatest impromptu general that morning. God, I wish they would run together, but, alas, it would never happen.

20. Honor is the most expensive virtue.

To the young men of America not in the military, I would tell you that you may not be interested in killing the jihadists, but they are interested in killing you, and your mothers, and your sisters, and your wives, and your daughters . Wake up. Those people holding hands jumping out of the towers found out the hard way. I assure you, spending seven months in Iraq was much easier than 20 minutes in the South Tower on 9/11.

Jon Mayer, a great and awesome guitar player, sums up our generation’s reluctance to win the war very nicely in his song, “Waiting For The World to Change.”

He sings, “One day our generation is going to rule the population…” and make the world a better place. Hell, you can be in Afghanistan and Iraq right now “getting some” in the Corps making the world better place.

I say again, honor is the most expensive virtue.

I remain, Semper Fidelis,

CPL FINELLI, USMC