| A Note from Dave Cox to his grandson Rick |
| With the current war in Iraq, I would like to share a Letter that my Grandfather sent me on my 20th birthday while I was serving in Operation Desert storm in 1991. My grandfather, David O. Cox Sr. served as a Major in WWII and became a very successful businessman after the war. He was the president of Ross Labs in Columbus, Ohio and then Vice President of Abbott Labs when they merged with Ross Labs. He lived a very interesting life and I miss him dearly. I feel that if he had the chance to read this letter today, he would be shocked how on target he was, especially the part about giving a tyrant time. I hope you find the letter as interesting as I did. God Bless the Troops. Rick Cox Dave's note: As I know I could never get this written by hand, and wishing to comment on some of the newspaper articles as to why we are in Saudi Arabia, I have prevailed upon the secretary of a friend to do the honors. In short, we are in Saudi Arabia so that we, our relatives, families and friends can live in relative freedom, with the individual rights as provided in the amendments to the constitution. In addition, we are squelching an oil dictatorship which would have far reaching affects on our standard of living and our efforts to raise the standard of living for all nations. Now I know that sounds high faluting, but let's reduce it to realities. For hundreds, even thousands of years, Mankind knew only force. The Lord of the Manor had the first night with every bride because he had POWER to enforce his will. If a person had power and opportunity but didn't use it, his sanity was doubted and he was quickly put aside by others eager to impose their will by force of their power. This power was not just for the top man, the power system passed down the line to even the lowest bosses and managers within the system. Men, by nature, seem to seek aggressively and to want control of lands, money or wealth and women. The power system seemed to bestow all of these things to the survivor of the fittest at all levels, whether by heredity, strength or by such things as political intrigue. History is a struggle of mankind trying to work itself out of the power system to gain even the most modest protection of human rights for the individual, the family and even nations, to determine for themselves the character of their privilege and livelihood. Throughout history, various individuals have amassed enough power to challenge the advance of human rights, usually they claim economic necessity as an excuse. There is a saying that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." No truer statement has been made. The result is that leaders become dictators and dictators become tyrants who use torture, extermination, imprisonment and other terrible means to squelch opposition and free speech, turning free men into virtual slaves. You and your buddies are there to eliminate such a person and avoid having personal freedom and liberty set back by perhaps a thousand years. Every victory for a tyrant makes thousands more bend to his will unless they risk a losing fight with a superpower. If Saddam continues to gain more power, what nation in the entire Arab and Muslim world could put up a fight against him? Probably none. Thus, we can reasonably predict that left unchecked, Saddam will control 500 million or more Muslims, and 40% - 60% of present oil production plus even greater percentage of known oil reserves. This prospect has belatedly caused the world to get together to oppose him. You are a part of that great effort, which hopefully can prevail without war, but which, if necessary, must be won with war. The root causes of many wars are either religious or economic or a combination of both. Much of history is religion fighting religion to prove it is the one and only TRUE religion. Religions thrive best when its areas are in economic growth. Providing jobs for most of its men at least (and more recently even women outside the home) has been paramount to any government to stay in power by other than strong-arm force and dictatorship. For better or worse, the whole western civilization has been built on energy to provide great numbers of the required jobs. It is said that one in every six jobs in the USA has some dependency on the production and use of automobiles - gasoline, tires, filling stations, repair, maintenance, insurance, etc.etc. Besides, science has done many things to create other industries based on petroleum as major resource material. June (Dave's wife) was surprised when I told her even our milk bottles (plastic cartons), pipes, and many other building materials, boats and many auto parts, lawn mowers, ad infinitum, were dependent on petroleum. It is not unreasonable to say that 50% of the jobs in the western world have some dependency on petroleum as a basic raw material. No one can accurately predict the affect on the whole western world and its present standard of living if free market pricing did not hold down the price of petroleum so that people can afford and use automobiles, and the resultant employment. It is agreed by all sensible experts that the loss of even the control of oil resources would lead to economic chaos and major economic decline with severe recessions and massive unemployment. History has proven repeatedly that dictators cannot be appeased, and that each time you yield to them you face an inevitable and even greater conflict down the line as their strength has increased and yours has not. "Munich" is now a word in our vocabulary because it was the city in which Chamberlain (Great Britain) flew to meet Hitler. Chamberlain virtually gave Hitler Czechoslovakia, came home and said that he had negotiated PEACE IN OUR TIME. Virtually weeks later Hitler struck again and the world was at war. What is not generally recognized is that Hitler came very close to winning that war. In the time he gained by appeasement, he developed a plane that was superior to anything we had. He also developed the V2 rocket, which was superior to any firepower in the world. It was our good fortune, and God's Grace, that our success on the ground with conventional forces kept him from producing more than about 50 V2's and a few dozen planes. One thing that has always distressed me is that God made women so compassionate that by their nature they fight war at the "son" level and do not realize that it is the WOMEN who lose the most when tyrants take over. Many times in history, the men were disemboweled but the women were kept as slaves. I am proud that you are there fighting for your country, your family, and that some degree of human rights will survive and not be set back by this monster. I wish that I could be by your side, and if it cost me my life, I would know that I fought the good fight and that my life had been significant and meaningful to mankind. |