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I received this from Veterans for Peace today: A darned good read

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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:39 PM
Original message
I received this from Veterans for Peace today: A darned good read
The actual letter is found at http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com about 3/4 of the way down the page.

A letter to a young Republican

Combat Infantryman

The problem with young Republicans is that they reduce matters of life and death into policy debates.

When challenged on their enlistment status, many Young Republicans cite the service of others, or how they're fighting liberals and for lower taxes.

It is not the same.

It isn't even close to the same.

Walking point in Ramadi is not the same as writing a policy paper at the Heritage Foundation.

What you need to be told, repeatedly is that it is disrespectful in the extreme to compare such work to serving in combat. It trivializes and demeans those who risk their lives daily in Iraq.

Claiming you support the military while demeaning their service with your facile comparisons indicate the opposite.

Thomas Paine supported the Revolution with a rifle as an infantryman.

He didn't support it from Starbucks over a nasty blog post.

If a cause isn't worth serving, what is it worth? Cheap words?

You demand sacrifice from everyone but yourself. So why should we take you seriously. I can play Risk as well. I just don't ask people to die for me in the process.

When the left wanted to save the Spanish Republic, they fought in Spain.

When they wanted to stop Hitler, they joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Army. They didn't publish nasty articles in PM. They risked and some lost, their lives.

Why? Because they felt freedom was more important than anything else in their lives.

What did the right do? Praise Hitler and ignore his crimes.

We know you are blowhards, cowards, who expect others to do what you want done.

But don't compare your selfish lives with military service unless you wear Kevlar to work and dodge mortars off the highway. We have sent our men and women into harms way with less than what they need. Even men.

Oh, you can spout your twaddle all you want, to whomever you want, you have that right.

But don't pretend you support the military. You don't. You just support the war. The military is besides the point to you. Not to their families, but to you. So save the lectures on patriotism and who wants us to lose the war. You do. You aren't serving. Neither in the military or the interest of this country. Just in your sad, febrile fantasy world of dead brown people and Marines slaying dragons.


:kick:
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:43 PM
Response to Original message
1. wow that was awesome!
So rumor has it that you're a Vet for Peace, huh, LW?

BTW, I don't think we met. :)

Nominated!
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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:47 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yes, I'm a member of VFP
and one of my school's sponsors of the Young Democrats.
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I suppose you are one of those liberal historian types....
:)
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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Yep...
and not just a liberal, but one who foams at the mouth when attempting to discuss the Iraq War with rethuglicans who proudly display their yellow ribbons but are unwilling to enlist.

I recall a statement from the movie Platoon where King states (roughly, as I cannot recall the exact line): "The rich always have a way out, but the poor have to go. That's the way it is and that's how it always will be."
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 05:02 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. I own Platoon
and those are wise words. :)

I better get going, I have class in a a little bit. Take it easy.
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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. The scene is where King and Sheen are burning $h!t.
Just in case you want to hear the actual conversation.
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Wetzelbill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 08:37 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. Oh yeah I know just the one you're talking about
"Boys, what we have here is a Crusader." :)
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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-25-05 06:56 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. ...and you gotta be rich just to think like that...
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Kikosexy2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 04:56 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. Excellent...
I salute you sir!
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Left_Winger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 05:00 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Thank you very much
Wage Peace!

www.veteransforpeace.org
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Applan Donating Member (435 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 08:38 PM
Response to Original message
10. Hmmm
makes you think dunnit
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bahrbearian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 08:59 PM
Response to Original message
11. Recomened
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Postman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 09:40 PM
Response to Original message
12. 101st Chairborne Division ....
Edited on Wed Aug-24-05 09:42 PM by Postman
It's so inconvenient to have to actually back up what you say with action.


I think the word is "hypocrite" or..."coward"...take your pick.
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BQueen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 10:33 PM
Response to Original message
13. Lots of great stuff on that blog
I check in fairly regularly...Steve never pulls punches. Right now there's a parody "what if" history of neo-cons and young repubs "insisting" on going to Iraq, training privately, etc., based on a Wikipedia article about Americans who have done so in the past.

Also featured are the inane ramblings of Volodh comparing homosexual "recruiting" to interspecies dating between chimps and orangs or some such bs -- I couldn't make it through it for laughing, but apparently it's for real.
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