THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 10, 1995 TAG: 9506100014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
Pilot Scott O'Grady's rescue from the forest and foulness of Bosnia is the kind of happy ending Americans like to see, and to produce. It's reassurance that the U.S. armed forces have the skills, the technology, the readiness, the ``training and guts'' the troops require, most civilians expect - and con-gres-sion-al budgeteers ought always to re-spect.
``Amazing kids'' are the rule in this military - not Tailhook gauntlets or sexual harassment or 18-page specs for serving applesauce in the mess, but men and women, young and not so, geared attitude-wise and equipment-wise to count on their community and to be counted on.
``When I was out there,'' O'Grady told the elated crowd on his return to Aviano Air Base, ``I knew you were all there behind me. I could hear you and I knew it. I knew that everything that could be possibly done was being done.''
This pilot's signal was the only beacon of hope heard in Bosnia in years, and his return is its only happy ending. It takes nothing from O'Grady and his rescuers that his ordeal raises hard questions about the rules of engagement in Bosnia, the adequacy of U.S. flyers' protection against Serb weapons and - the enduring fundamental concern - the rea-sons U.S. troops are involved in Bosnia at all. What's lacking there isn't U.S. Marines, or survival and rescue training, or 40 aircraft swiftly scrambled, or the USS Kearsarge nearby. Lacking in Bosnia are the common purpose and community that could rescue a country like American forces rescued a coun-try-man.
If only politicians everywhere gave as much forethought and planning to sending troops into harm's way as the military gives to getting them back. . . by CNB