Are We Hypocrites for Not Enlisting? Part 2
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.
Lisa De Pasquale
Lisa De Pasquale is is a writer in Alexandria, VA. Miss De Pasquale was previously the director of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where she oversaw all aspects of the conference from June 2006 to April 2011. Prior to CPAC, she was the program director of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. In 2010, she was named a “Rising Star” by
Campaigns & Elections magazine in their annual list of top political leaders under 35. She has written articles for Townhall.com and Townhall Magazine,
Human Events, The Daily Caller, Washingtonian, the St. Augustine Record, The Washington Times, The Houston Chronicle, and the Tallahassee Democrat. Originally from Florida, Miss De Pasquale received a B.A. from Flagler College in St. Augustine.
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