Dear Dad:

A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia):
A French army officer walked up to
me in the PX, and told me he thought we (Americans) were a bunch of
cowboys and were going to provoke a
war in Iraq. He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to
count on the support of France. I told him
that it didn't surprise me. Since we had come to France's rescue in
World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and
the Cold War, their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface [again]
at some point in the near future anyway.
I also told him that is why France is a third-rate military
power with a socialist economy and a bunch
of pansies for soldiers. I additionally told him that America, being a
nation of deeds and action, not words,
would do whatever it had to do, and France's support, if it ever came,
was only for show anyway. Just like in
ALL NATO exercises, the US would shoulder 85% of the burden, and provide
85% of the support, as
evidenced by the fact that this French officer was shopping in the
American PX, and not the other way
around. He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if he
would like to, I would meet him outside
in front of the Burger King and whip his butt in front of the entire
Multinational Brigade East, thus
demonstrating that even the smallest American had more fight in him than
the average Frenchman. He called
me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff. With friends like these,
who needs enemies?
Dad, tell Mom I love her,

Your loving daughter,
Lt Col. Mary O' Conner, USMC