WW III

        U.S. Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive
Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida.
Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It
is an accurate account of why we are in so much
trouble today and why this action is so necessary.

AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!

    That's what we think we heard on the 11th of
September 2001 (When more  than 3,000 Americans were
killed) and maybe it was, but I think it should have
been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm
clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have
continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a
few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.

    It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a
country going through a religious and political
upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and
seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure
was an outright attack on American soil; it was an
attack that held the world's most powerful country
hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this
sovereign U. S. Embassy set the stage for events to
follow for the next 23 years.

    America was still reeling from the aftermath of
the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from
the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to
do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid
in the desert.  The ill-fated mission ended in ruin,
but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal
with terrorism.

    America's military had been decimated and
downsized/right sized since the end of the Vietnam
War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly
organized military was called on to execute a complex
mission that was doomed from the start.

    Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans
began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle
East. America could do little to protect her citizens
living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil
continued.

    In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high
explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in
Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people.  The
alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button
once more.

    Then just six short months later a large truck
heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT
smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps
headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are
killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze
Button once more.

    Two months later in December 1983, another truck
loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy
in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.

    The following year, in September 1984, another van
was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut
and America slept.

    Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April
1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US
soldiers in Madrid.

    Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives
is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base
at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is
buzzing louder and louder as US interests are
continually attacked.

   Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille
Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a
wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and
executed.  The terrorists then shift their tactics to
bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight
840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic
bombing, Pan