Chris Walsh

While The Media has been spoon feeding us every detail about Brittney Spears' latest hair style and wondering where Anna Nicole's body would be buried (and even more news-worthy, who the father of her 4 month old daughter was), several U.S. Marines were saving the life of an Iraqi baby named Mariam.

This probably comes as a surprise to you, since all you've heard from Democrats and their lackeys in the dinosaur media is that Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. The Iraqis, the insurgents, and the Democrats (and an embarrassingly large number of "moderate" Republicans) all want us out of there before we make things any worse. The mainstream media are all too willing to play along, finding the air time and/or newspaper real estate to report U.S. troops body counts or the latest Hollywood scandals, then making excuses that they can only cover so many stories whenever our troops make any progress in Iraq.

Of course, they do have time to remind us that these troops are only in Iraq because they were too stupid or too poor to have any other options. The same media elite who coined the term "baby killers" during the Vietnam war era frequently remind us that they are the ones who support the troops. Of course, what they mean is they support the idea of rescuing these hapless rejects who stumbled into the armed forces by surrendering as quickly as possible so they can come back home and get back to their mediocre lives.

Chris Walsh was one such "reject." Walsh had been an EMT in St. Louis, and he joined the Navy reserves after 9/11. He was deployed to Iraq, where he served as a Medic alongside the Marines. You can read his story here, and the details that follow are taken from that article.

While out on patrol, Walsh would often set up impromptu clinics on the streets of Fallujah while his buddies set up cover positions. At great risk to himself, he would provide medical care to suffering Iraqis in the middle of an insurgent hotbed.

On one such patrol, a roadside bomb exploded just in front of the Humvee he was riding in. He and the Marines he was with set out after the triggerman, but stopped when the reached one particular doorway. A woman held an infant out to Walsh, repeating, "Baby. Baby sick." Walsh halted the pursuit and took out a digital camera. Her name was Mariam, and she had a rare condition in which her bladder had developed on the outside of her body. Walsh showed the pictures to a doctor back at base camp, Captain Sean Donovan. Donovan knew that the baby would die if she wasn't operated on soon, but such a procedure could not be done in Iraq.

Walsh decided that he would take it upon himself to get baby Mariam out of Iraq, in spite of the red tape such an endeavor would face. He enlisted volunteers to help him, and once a week he would take a dozen Marines with him to Mariam's house, where he would tend to her to try and prevent an infection that would endanger her life.

Over the next few months, there was a groundswell of support for the effort to get Mariam to Boston, where she could undergo the lifesaving surgery that she needed. Then, on Labor Day of last year, Walsh and two Marines were killed when a bomb was detonated directly under their vehicle.

In the wake of Walsh's death, the Marines in his battalion decided that the only way they could honor the loss of their brothers was to take up baby Mariam's cause. The weekly visits to her home continued, and the battle against the bureaucracy preventing Mariam's evacuation continued. By the end of September, Captain Donovan's battalion was preparing to leave Iraq. Distraught over the idea of leaving before Mariam had been rescued, Donovan prayed for a way to get Mariam out of Iraq. The next day, he received an e-mail telling him that Mariam would be evacuated to the United States to receive the surgery she desperately needed.

Mariam arrived in Boston in October. The surgery was successful, and Mariam continues to recover. Walsh's mother, Maureen, has spent a lot of time at the hospital, holding Mariam in her arms. Mariam's family acknowledges that these events surely were an act of God.

Stories like this coming from Iraq are more common than you would think. Schools are being built, vital infrastructure is being developed, and lives are being changed for the better because "our troops" are willing to put their lives on the line to see these successes happen. They believe in what they are doing, even if we don't back here.

It continues to amaze me that the champions of defeat in the media and the legislature claim to be supporting these troops. Supporting the troops means supporting victory. It means honoring these men and women and the things they are accomplishing. It means letting them do their jobs and finish what they started. It means telling their stories, even when they don't line up with your political agenda. Men like Walsh continue to risk their lives and sacrifice their own interests in order to make Iraq a better, safer country. They deserve more than just lip service and condescending rhetoric about bringin' 'em home.

As a nation, we should be embarrassed by what's going on in Washington. "Symbolic votes" sending messages to the President send an even louder message to our troops and their enemies. Senators who voted for the war before they voted against it are using the war effort as a political springboard, looking for every opportunity to oppose our President, even if it means standing with the enemies of the United States. Unfortunately, the "surrender at all costs" movement seems to be gaining more and more momentum. We owe it to the troops to oppose this mindset, even when the easy way out seems very attractive.