In my column last week I asked whether those that support the global war on terrorism are hypocrites for not joining the military. Several comment posters thought so. They don’t seem to grasp the point that the reason we don’t want all supporters of the war in the military is because we want to win. Their goal is different – the humiliation of America just so they can say “We told you so.” We want the strongest, most intelligent military of the willing in order to ensure victory. As Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) said, that’s “a real big problem” for Democrats.
Those who don’t support the troops and their mission are showing their complete ignorance when they make charges of hypocrisy. True hypocrisy is the Left’s phony claim to “support the troops” while making demands that weaken the military.
Townhall.com poster “Corbett” wrote:
I don't care if you're 95 years old and confined to a wheelchair. If you believe that the nation's survival is at stake, then you have an ABSOLUTE DUTY to go down to the recruiter's office & try to enlist.
Since logic has never been the Left’s strong point, another poster responded to him:
If you believe national security is at stake and you are unfit to serve in the military you have a PATRIOTIC duty to stay out of the way of those who are and try to help some other way, like offering your support, morally, substantantively, and/or monetarily… Liberals like corbett don't really want 90-year-old invalids going to the recruiting office just to be rejected. They want 90-year-old invalids feeling guilty about having an independent opinion. They want to bully anyone and everyone they can (apparently including aging invalids) because they can't win an honest argument.
This poster calls himself “wiseone.” Indeed! Thankfully, military service is not compulsory because of guilt or fear of being called a hypocrite by treasonous liberals.
Last week I also received emails from parents of servicemen and women who agreed that their son or daughter deserved more than the treatment they get from the anti-military Left. Many on the Left, including some notable Senators, have implied that those who serve are intellectually or morally inferior. They also perpetuate the myth that the military is a “last resort” for the poor. This week Washington state’s Daily Herald columnist Froma Harrop wrote, “We know that the armed forces are all-volunteer (‘the good news,’ Mitt said) and that few children of the rich have much to do with it.”
Like many liberals, Harrop didn’t bother to look up any statistics, but just made a broad statement that sheds light on her opinion of the military rather than the truth. A study of military enlistment from 2003-2005 found that recruits from the poorest neighborhoods have been on the decline. The study summarized, “[T]he additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) support the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight differences are that wartime U.S. military enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers.”
Rather than “support the troops,” the Left continues to define them as poor and uneducated with no extraordinary skills. More so than those who insult them, we know the value of the lives that are lost during times of war. For that reason, every person serving deserves to fight along side his equal. It’s essential to our victory.
As a supporter of the military and daughter of two parents who served more than 35 years combined, I am reminded of one remarkable solder that Tony Snow spoke about at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference:
[The soldier] had no use for the anti-war movement. He pointed out that young people, young men were serving that had never set foot on a college campus, quote, “have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and human rights than folks with their placards. Why? Because they stood in the line of fire between fanatics and those who tried to vote.”
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When he got [to Iraq] he found things that he never would have imagined. He found fulfillment. He found support. He found trust and he found friendship. As a matter of fact, he quoted on his [MySpace] page one local who defined the difference between a terrorist and an American. He said, “They get paid to take life, to murder and you get paid to save life.” And he said that compliment meant more to him “than all the naysayers and makeshift humanists that monopolize our interpretation of this war.”
You want to find the kind of people we have in Iraq? This is it.
And what is going on in Iraq right now is our men and women are seeing folks there who have been subjected to eons of tyranny and suddenly the light’s going off and they’re beginning to see what freedom might mean and they’re beginning to see that the decency and honor and goodness of the American people is something they want to emulate. Yeah, that happens!
As a matter of fact, in an email a little more than a month ago, our author said, “All is well. More war stories than I can fit in this email. Having the time of my life!” Exclamation point! And on the following day, Mark Daily was killed by an IED. That’s what we lose. But in that short time you had someone who had demonstrated through his deeds and his words and his character what it means to be an American.
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