Time To Pray

By Semperpapa

Every day, every hour is a good time to pray for our troops deployed overseas. We pray for their safety and for their victory.
But now is an even more important time to invoke God's grace on our men and women in uniform involved in the current operation in central Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Finally, after many days of propaganda and build up, Operation Moshtarak has kicked off late yesterday as the Marines begun their push into the city of Marjah.
The place is a conglomeration of huts and compounds occupied by about 80,000 civilians, but it is also a major hub for the Taliban opium and weapons traffic.
So Marjah has become a very important objective both militarily and politically, as the struggling government in Kabul is trying to assert its control over areas of the country where the Taliban had been the only governance.

And so the operation has begun, as I mentioned, late yesterday afternoon and thankfully, as of this morning, no casualties for the Coalition forces has been reported.
I know it is unrealistic to believe that an operation of such magnitude could unfold and be successful with no ISAF casualties, but the prayers remain on-going.

The Marjah operation has been described by many as the Felluja of Afghanistan, alluding to the Iraqi city our Military had to clean up twice at a tremendous cost in US Military lives.
The comparison to Felluja is disturbing because of the casualties of that operation, and I pray Marjah is not destined to become part of American Military history like Felluja, Ramadi, Hue, Chosin or Bastogne.

The whole approach to Operation Moshtarak has been quite a novelty. From all the Military history accounts and writing I have ever seen, I gathered the understanding that the element of surprise was one very important aspect of an operation of this kind. History is being made, as I see it, because the approach this time has been to advertise the build up and the objectives, including the size of the Coalition force and its composition, the general plan of action and even the fact that Special Forces teams were operating in advance in the city to kill or capture Taliban Command and Control.
Not being former Military, I venture my opinions on the extensive reading I have done throughout my life of Military History, a passion of mine, and never I have seen a military force exposing a plan to the enemy to the degree such I have seen in this case. We are witnessing Military history being made.

So now it is time to pray, for some of us even more. Pray that the lesson learnt today will be a positive one; pray that the decisions made by the commanders in the field were well guided; pray that the policy applied in this case is a successful one.
But most of all, it is time to pray that our sons and daughters perform their duty with honor, accomplish their mission and get to come home safe.

And these are my thoughts!