THE MISSION was a gambit, a dangerous trap and it was fitting that it kicked off on April Fools Day. 

In the Spring of 2005, the 6-lane highway running from Fallujah to Abu Ghraib was a nesting ground for IEDs--the roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many Soldiers and Marines. 

It was the mission of Vengeance Platoon, a mixture of active duty Marines from Camp Lejeune and reserve Marines from Kansas City, to eliminate the IED threat on the highway. 

At that time, there were very few from-the-factory up-armored humvees.  The armor on the one I was riding in consisted of a kevlar pad duct taped to a 1/3 mild steel 'saloon door.'  A door that, like the swinging doors of the old west saloons, only covered only 3/5 of the opening. 

That armor would do nothing to slow down the shrapnel from an IED made from a 155mm artillery shell.

That Platoon of Marines and I were the bait in the trap--barely armored humvees rolling up and down the road in hopes that the insurgents would attack us with an IED. 

The steel that would come snapping down was Sergeant Hutch's scout sniper team who would hopefully dispatch with the IED team before the Marines and I came rolling along in our Hillybilly Humvees. 
 

FORTITUDE, the "strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger...or adversity..." long recognized in Western civilization as one of the core virtues of man, has fallen by the wayside in the post-modern world that shrinks from danger and risk. 

Aristotle, in the Nicomachaen ethics, argued: 

"With what sort of terrible things, then, is the brave man concerned? In what circumstances, then? Surely in the noblest. Now such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the greatest and noblest danger.  Properly, then, he will be called brave who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that involve death; and the emergencies of war are in the highest degree of this kind."

And in his description of the five types of the brave man, the citizen soldier ranks highest for Aristotle.

"First comes the courage of the citizen-soldier; for this is most like true courage."

The Marines of Vengeance Platoon, in the early morning hours of April 1st were the citizen soldiers.  The youngest were in High School only a year earlier.  The oldest, most experienced, were the reserve Marines who only months earlier were enrolled in college, running small businesses, carpenters or salary men.

They were not the mercenaries or professional soldiers who "exhibit [fortitude] it in the dangers of war; for there seem to be many empty alarms in war, of which these have had the most comprehensive experience; therefore they seem brave, because the others do not know the nature of the facts."

As Aristotle said, mercenaries will, "turn cowards, however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they are inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts." 

"MY LEGS shook a little when I walked out there," Staff Sergeant Tony Rider said, describing his twice daily walk to retrieve an orange construction cone.

To make themselves a more obvious bait, Rider would put out and take down a bright orange construction cones similar to the ones that sprout up on U.S. highways in the summer time.  Twice a day, Rider became the most obvious morsel of bait in a high-stakes trap.

In the Platonic dialouges of 'The Republic' Socrates argues:

"Every one who calls any state courageous or cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf."

Staff Sergeant Tony Rider, husband, father, owner of restaurant franchises, reserve Marine carried the fortitude of a nation on his shoulders every time he walked down the road to put out an orange cone.

The insurgents were slow to rise to the bait, only because they had something larger in mind.

"THE LIGHTS went out and I waited to hear the grenade drop," Lance Corporal Will Gunther said.

He and five other Marines--none of above the rank of E-3--were the tip of the spear that night near Abu Ghraib.

Al Qaida in Iraq, which frequently claims a love of death more than life, had sent suicide bombers and an assualt force to overrun the prison at Abu Ghriab.

The soldiers and Marines guarding the prison repelled the attack and as Al Qaida retreated into the canal country, Vengeance Platoon took to the chase in small cluster of houses where AK-47 and rocket propelled grenade fire had come from.

The terrorists were in there, in the houses whose flourescent lights shown blue against the black of night.

As Gunther crossed the threshold, into the concrete and stucco maze of a of a three story house--all the lights went out--the crack of an AK-47 rang out.

"THE DANGERS of death which occur in battle come to man directly on account of some good, because, to wit, he is defending the common good by a just fight," Aquinas argued in the Summa Theologica.

"The Philosopher [Aristotle] says that fortitude is chiefly about death in battle."

In the Catholic faith, Fortitude is one of the four 'Cardinal Virtues.'  The others being prudence, temperance and justice.

When combined with the three 'Theological Virtues' of faith, hope and love, they form the seven heavenly virtues.

David Bellavia, while speaking to an audience in Kansas City, described the role of Love in combat.

"I tried hate and anger, but they are like caffiene, only good for short bursts," Bellavia said.  "Love is what will ultimately sustain you."

As Augustine said, "fortitude is love bearing all things readily for the sake of the object beloved."

In that dark house a group of young men held fast in fortitude because of their bonds as Marines--a love as brothers.

The gunfire from the opposite end of the cluster of houses silenced immediately--the chase lasted all night, but eventually the scent was lost.  As dawn broke over he Euphrates river valley--the mission of the bait resumed.

HOPE is an anticipated good outcome.  The Greek poet Hesiod, in recounting the story of Pandora unleashing all the evils of man has two versions of hope--one in which it is not released and one in which it is.  And the nature of hope in the poem is debated, is that hope can overcome the evils of man or a cruelty that keeps man from always expecting a good that never comes.

The Marines in their barely armored humvees had hope in four scout snipers--hope that they would kill the insurgent IED team before the bomb ripped through a humvee.

Love, as the basis of fortitude needs hope.  If there is no foreseeable good outcome, no expected good, there can be no love.  As Bellavia said, you can only live on hate and anger so long and can only love the bad for so long before it grinds you down.

You cannot love anything or anyone that will never be good.

Bearing the threat of death in combat on that asphalt road every second could only be out of love sustained by hope.

"REAPER TO VENGEANCE two down," the call came over the radio.

Staff Sergeant Rider had just put out an orange cone and the humvees turned around, out of sight, when the IED team came along.

A van, a driver, a shovel man and a man to drop the bomb into the hole.

One shot from a sniper killed the bomb emplacer.  A hail of bullets from the other snipers took out the shovel man and the van.

The driver survived.

A mission that required fortitude based on love reached the hopeful outcome.

The IED threat along that stretch of road deminished--the various convoys moving up and down it spared for a time.

A week later, the same young men would drive off to another part of Iraq, where the canal country merged with the open desert to conduct similar baited trap mission.

THE VIRTUES of our sons, hope, love, fortitude are tested in a crucible every minute of every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.  For centuries, these virtues were lauded as the foundation of culture and society.  But in the post-modern era they are shunned precisely because they are virtues and most of all fortitude is ignored because it is virtue that can be witnessed in action.

Hope is used as a campaign slogan, love as a lyric, but fortitude requires a choice and action during encounters with mortal adversaries of the good.

Those who do not choose fortitude and display it in action will, as the Bard wrote, 'hold their manhoods cheap.'

It is of Vanity, an over-abundance self-esteem in the post-modern parlance, that prevents the recognition of fortitude.

"He who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is vain," according to Aristotle. "The vain man goes to excess in comparison with his own merits, but does not exceed the proud man's claims."

The vain man, unwilling and unable to attain the honors associated with the virtue of fortitude in the "greatest and noblest of danger" will attempt to redefine fortitude or the nobility of the danger.

Courage becomes questioning and challenging a civil authority which poses no corporeal threat.  The truly mortal enemies of the good are denied and supplanted with those who pose no mortal danger.  Those who show the virtue of fortitude are potrayed as victims.

But the truly mortal enemy does exist and will only be subdued through the efforts of men of fortitude.

The Vain, by denying the virtuous nature of fortitude and the proper honours of the courageous, eliminate the shame of cowardice.  And because cowardice will bear no hardships for the sake of a the object beloved, the good will perish and hope along with it.

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