Ask Mr. Smartypants

"Still, the fact remains that not a single person has been inducted into the armed forces against his or her will in this conflict."

But the same can't be said of all the troops who were stop-lossed into staying past their return dates; I see you give a pass to the armchair generals of Right Blogostan, while kvetching about the "dregs and drugs" of today's youth. Is their courage in staying home from a war they support any better? Your political myopia is quite profound.

And what's your take on the current news that soldiers are opting to not go on missions, but instead just "calling it in?" That would seem to conflict with your assertions about troops serving in Iraq, wouldn't it?

This is a superb article that makes an excellent point about the all-volunteer nature of the current U.S military. While on active duty in the U.S. Navy for 11 years, I met thousands of highly-motivated, intelligent, and patriotic people. They each have their own opinions on sports, politics, the weather, and the food that they are served -- but they put all these differences behind them to accomplish their mission. It might be the mission of the day, or of the war. This takes place every hour of every day at every military post around the world. Yes, some people had their commitments extended, some had their deployments extended. I'm sure that they and their families were upset. Some probably still are. However, if the servicemen/women had to make the decision between getting extended and allowing the mission to suffer, the vast majority would choose to stay. I've been there. God bless all of our veterans. Stay safe out there.

Alumnus
USNA 1994

This core message of this article should be shouted from every rooftop in America. I never cease to be amazed at the ingrates who use the freedom secured to them by our men and women in uniform, upon hazard of their lives, to denigrate the very people who safeguard that liberty. They spout their thoughtless anti-American mantras and wilfully seek to undermine the efforts of our honorable military members, because they disagree with a policy. They want our that policy to fail at our troopers' expense so they can advance their own misguided political agenda. Bush haters transform into military haters by extension. Such people are not worthy of a single drop of sweat or blood from the brave men and women who protect them.

Is there a place for debate? Certainly there is. I would by no means suggest that dissent is unpatriotic. However, there are those who secretly rejoice in every report of another American casualty because they think it serves their political fortunes. You know who you are. A pox on your house. Let no one ever have the gall to claim that the soldier or sailor or marine or airman is to be faulted for doing his or her duty, or for fulfilling an oath freely taken. If you're free to shoot off your mouth, thank a veteran.

just a quick note on the stop loss factor .. everyone signs a contract that joins the army and when they sign on for 4 years active duty and four years inactive REady reserve.. so a 4year contract is really 8 years .. read before you sign.

Always fun to hear people tell others to be thankful for those who fight for "their" freedom of speech...and then tell the same people to shut up in the next sentence.

You don't even realize how moronic you are. Complete ignorance of everything freedom means...

What the US military is doing now in Iraq is NOT increasing our freedom. It's doing the exact opposite.

What the US military is doing now in Iraq is NOT increasing our nation's safety and security. It's doing the exact opposite.

Any questions?

OK, I've heard the 1001 excuses for invading a country and occupying it, spending 4,000 American troop lives on oil for the Selfish and the Stupid, creating 125,000+ homeless veterans, 100,000+ permanently disabled casualties, spending over half a trillion dollars just on the war (never mind the expenses incurred BY the expenses), the dislocation of millions of Iraqis and the death-or-maiming of countless more, with no end even being DISCUSSED by the minority that is holding Iraq and America hostage to this evil.

But the one excuse I don't think I'd heard until NOW is that our loved ones are over there dying so that I will have a right to free speech.

Darned if I didn't ASSUME I had been born with that right, in the United States of America. My mistake!

So that's what we're doing in iraq, huh? Getting free speech rights for American citizens. You sure as bloody blue hell coulda fooled me. We sure are going about it a ROUNDABOUT WAY.

So freedom isn't free, huh? OH YES IT BY-GOD IS! My freedom was dearly paid for in several past wars. So was yours, Mr. Smarty Pants. To say that "freedom" is "not free" is to chant a platitude and spread a filthy lie. It is a Victory Gin toast! I won't LIVE IN A COUNTRY where any chicken hawk "sole decider" in power, at any moment, can declare (while fishing on his daddy's yacht off the coast of Maine) that "It's time for another installment on your freedom, little people of America, cuz I like my lifestyle!"

Nuh-uh. Sorry. We don't have kings here.

WE are the vast majority, bubba. We're gonna take this country back from the fascists who've usurped power. It won't be by electing Hillary, either. Get ready for REAL action. We aren't going to stand by for much longer.

See you in the street.

"However, there are those who secretly rejoice in every report of another American casualty because they think it serves their political fortunes."

This is an ugly, hateful lie. Who told you this, Rush Limbaugh? Outside of Ward Churchill and Nicholas De Genova (2 people), the monsters you described above do not exist. You don't know of a single such person. You are stating as fact something you heard Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter say, or something you read at some wing-nut blog by someone who got it from his masters on Fox News. You heard it, and swallowed it whole, so you could regurgitate it at will

(It suits YOUR political fortunes to spread this lie. I'm not sure you have a right to do that. From where I stand, you're shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater.)

In my first post, I avoided addressing any particular person to attempt to keep the discussion here civil. If it wasn't obvious from the first posts, it has become increasingly clear that this comment thread has been found by persons susceptible to conspiracy theories and those who are completely ignorant of the CONTINUED cost of maintaining the liberty that many people in the United States take for granted. The tragically ignorant must be confronted.

Hank Perkins,

The act of disagreeing with the position that you maintain is not censorship. If you or others choose to "shut up" because you can't argue rationally, that's your choice. Don't whine that the person with the better argument told you to shut up.

John Foster and Carly Corday,

Where to begin.... We have these things called elections. For federal offices, they happen every two years. Specifically for the office of President of the United States, we have them every four years. Assuming that you are a citizen and 18 years of age or older, you get to vote one time.

Increasing your freedom is not the business of the U.S. military. The military defends the security of the U.S. in many ways; some direct, some indirect. These are complicated matters that can not be summed up in a short post. What you made is called a statement, not an argument. Making a statement and refusing to defend it is very much like saying that you'll always have freedom, but refusing to defend it -- or even acknowledging that it needs defending.

Don't infantalize the servicemen and servicewomen who sacrifice on a daily basis to protect this country. They all chose to be in the military, as the original article stated. Those who paid the ultimate price for maintaining your freedoms and way of life are NOT YOUR PERSONAL BLUDGEON. Freedom is not free, it must be defended.

Just because you were born with something, does not mean that you will get to keep it. Birthrights must be defended. Surely you would agree that we must be watchful of our own government to preserve our liberties. Foreign policy is not a simple thing. When we demonstrate weakness, we can rightly expect to be tested. Similarly, if we agree with the founding fathers that

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

... how can we fail to defend the exploited, the weak, those who love liberty. Someday, we will need allies. Burying our heads in the sand is not an option.

Others have said it better than I can hope to. You may not agree with the quotes below, but I assure you that these are commonly held beliefs in the U.S. Military and that a strong majority of your fellow citizens agree with these statements.

usna-alumnus

U.S. Naval Academy
Class of 1994

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." -- General Douglas MacArthur

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1953

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!" -- Alexander Hamilton

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." -- Daniel Webster (1834)

The tree of liberty shall be refreashed from time to time with the bolld of patriots and tyrants.- Thomas Jefferson

From the comments written here I have to say that it is increasingly frustrating to be an American in the 21st century! Taking pot shots at each other is exactly what our enemies want. To create terror among each other and to gain an advantage in our disunity! We all need to get a grip and find the common ground with which we can stand together to face a common enemy both foreign and domestic. Those who would seek to destroy our society have already gained in their quest to destroy America not from outside but from within. Our Leaders on both sides of the aisle, disgrace the traditions of our great institutions by seeking special interest and not serving the interest and well being of the majority of our people.
The left will never agree with the right and vice versa, so why belabor the points? All it does, is waste time and money! We all know it but we can't resist trying to one up each other!

Debate on middle of the road policy differences is one thing, but when I think of the brainpower lost to misguided efforts to prove a point, it really is a national disgrace. Think of all the possibilities we are missing out on!

United we Stand!! Divided we Fall!

Wayne A. Moore
USAR/USAF Retired

to usna-alumnus
U.S. Naval Academy
Class of 1994

THANK YOU , for your service and your comments- "bill oreilly" and " fox" cuoldnt have said it better :) - and yes im shouting as i cant say it loud enough. from a marine mom ( who hates what needs to be done by her son and our nations military but who busts with pride that he- and others like him and you are willing to do it ) semper fi and god bless

I feel for all our fellow men and woman who are protecting us. I feel sorry that there are some people out there that still do not appreciate what they are sacrificing and have sacrificed. My husband was in saudi when this all began back in 90 and my nephew has had three tours to iraq in the past two years. Isnt it time to quit the debate and be there for these brave soldiers.


Lane Filler responds: No, it's not time to quit the debate, but it is time to be there for these brave soldiers. All I ask is that people appreciate the freedom a VOLUNTEER armed force gives them to live their lives, but I don't want us to stop debating this war.
Or any war.
Or anything.

To all of thoes that have taken this article and turned it into a forum to attack the war, thank you for losing sight on the main purpose of the article...supporting the troops.

Do you honestly think that if it was not for the brave men and women in uniform you would still have the freedom of speech. If you assume that there are not people on this planet that think you should think what they think or die, then you are living a lie.

Everyone of us were attacked on September 11. Not just conservitives or liberals, not democrats or republicans, but we were attacked as AMERICANS. If you think for one minute that they care who died, you are sorely mistaken.

They want all of us to convert to their way of thinking or die. Plain and simple. If not for thoes men and women in uniform, then they will get their way.

Remember, it is the soldier, not the reporter, that provides you with the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, that gives you the right to assemble (peacefully) to protest.

It is thoes in uniform that have provided you with the security to sleep at night with out the fear of bombs going off in your local town, there are no IEDs in the streets of America. Never forget that...

Lane Filler responds: Yes and no. It tends to be governments and soldiers, who, in the end, take away people's right to free speech, and if we ever lose that right here, it will likely be Americans who take it from us, not foreigners.
And you can be against terrorism and still see the Iraqi adventure as poorly planned and misguided.
But again, an all VOLUNTEER army makes this a lot more comfortable debate for us folks at home.