What did the war that Scott Speicher fought in inadvertently do in the early 1990s?
radicalize the Islamist movement
Title: The Things They Carried
Passage: The Things They Carried (1990) is a collection of linked short stories by American novelist Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War. His third book about the war, it is based upon his experiences as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division.
Title: Islamism
Passage: Another factor in the early 1990s that worked to radicalize the Islamist movement was the Gulf War, which brought several hundred thousand US and allied non-Muslim military personnel to Saudi Arabian soil to put an end to Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait. Prior to 1990 Saudi Arabia played an important role in restraining the many Islamist groups that received its aid. But when Saddam, secularist and Ba'athist dictator of neighboring Iraq, attacked Saudi Arabia (his enemy in the war), western troops came to protect the Saudi monarchy. Islamists accused the Saudi regime of being a puppet of the west.
Title: Ray Daniels
Passage: Lieutenant-Colonel Ray Daniels MC (15 July 1923 – 27 April 2003) was awarded the Military Cross for his ‘exemplary actions during fierce fighting’ at the Battle of Cloppenburg in 1945, played rugby for Wasps RFC after World War II and later became Chief Executive of the William Press Group that he led to become a FTSE 100 company in the mid-1970s and early 1980s.
Title: Scott Speicher
Passage: Michael Scott Speicher (12 July 1957 – January 17, 1991) was a United States Navy pilot who was shot down over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War becoming the first American combat casualty of the war. His fate was not known until 2 August 2009 when the Navy reported that Speicher's remains were found in Iraq by United States Marines.
Title: Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Passage: The Indian Army Chief in 1971 Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw had the highest respect for the fighting capability of the Pakistan Army but he did not accept the theory that they did not fight the Bangladesh war with enough vigor and zeal. In a BBC interview, he said:
Title: William Scott Chalmers
Passage: William Scott Chalmers CBE DSC (1 May 1888 – 11 June 1971) was a rear admiral of the Royal Navy who served in World War I and World War II.
Scott Speicher Islamism