Thank You Again, Mongolia

The New York Times describes how the Mongolians put Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld into something of a fix by presenting him with a horse that didn’t exactly fit onto his airborne command center. Rumsfeld, echoing my own observation about the similarity of Mongolia’s countryside to God’s Country, called the young buckskin “Montana” (on the grand scale of the American West, my home town is right next door). “Buckskin,” by the way, is a term used by us simple country folk, who would rather conserve words than say, “a rich latte hue with a mane and tail the color of dark-roast coffee,” and risk having the neighbors talk.

This, however, is the part of the story that interests me the most.

Mongolia today has 131 soldiers in Iraq, with about 500 having served there already in previous rotations, and 15 more are now in Afghanistan.

Mongolia’s military is focusing on developing the expertise to serve in peacekeeping missions, and during his stopover here Mr. Rumsfeld met with 180 soldiers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. In the group were two sergeants who prevented a suicide bombing at a logistics base near Hilla, in south-central Iraq, in February of 2004.

When a truck approached the gate they were guarding and refused orders to stop, one sergeant shot and killed the driver. The truck, which had been packed with explosives, crashed and exploded outside the base, with no injuries to coalition military personnel.

“It’s a privilege to be able to look you in the eye and say thank you,” Mr. Rumsfeld told the Mongolian troops.

The numbers may not be great, but their government has been willing to put its soldiers in a very dangerous place, and those soldiers have shown that the millenia haven’t dimmed their legendary courage. Mongolia has also opened a shelter for North Korean refugees just outside its capital city, Ulaan Bator. One can hope this is only the Bactrian’s nose under the yurt.