Do we really support the troops?

[Swede]

Commentary:

Once again U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has demanded that we institute a military draft in America. As a member of the San Diego Veterans for Peace, I support this idea. Regardless of how Americans look at the war in Iraq, our troops are being crushed by a lack of manpower. The Army has had to lower its recruiting standards to meet low numbers. Troops who have fulfilled their obligations are being forced to stay and return to Iraq. I met a Marine last week who is being sent back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty, and I wonder how we can ask such a thing of our soldiers while we enjoy our football games and turkey dinners as if nothing has happened. Even in Vietnam, a conscript was obliged to go to war only once.

Where has the support for our troops gone? Three years ago Michael Moore, the movie producer, stood on a street corner in Washington, D.C., facetiously asking the congressmen if they would encourage their children to join the war in Iraq. Today he could be on any street corner in America asking any parent the same, and from most he would receive the same disdain that the congressmen gave him. Real support for our troops does not consist of broken and oxidizing magnetic ribbons long since fallen from the bumpers of cars and not replaced. Many Americans who cheered for the war have now turned their backs when asked to personally sacrifice.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/22/opinion/commentary/20_08_5911_21_06.txt

[mike_c]

1. does the author speak for the San Diego VOP or is he just...

...invoking their authority to support his view? Does the San Diego Veterans for Peace endorse that view?

[MethuenProgressive]

2. Rangel doesn't want the Draft - he wants to expose hypocrites

"If the 'War On Terror' is the most important fight of our generation, why aren't your kids in the Army?"

Feel free to use that line when talking with the next freeper you meet.

[Captain Hilts]

3. I donate platelets at Walter Reed. So, yes, I do. nt