[Rembrandt_fan]

Good for you and the Major. I don't think it's true, though, that most on the left despise military men and women--I have several friends and acquaintances on the left, largely because of my profession (the arts), and think that most are otherwise well intentioned folks who are simply baffled by the military. They don't have the background, upbringing, or perspective to understand either the outlook of the military mind or the necessity of such an outlook, or understand that violence is sometimes necessary. Unlike, say, my own family, they've no tradition of service and have never served themselves, so they tend to view those in uniform in much the same way anthropologists view some remote aboriginal tribe.

Of course, the Code Pink crowd is another animal entirely: radically socialist, malicious in intent, hateful in motivation. Truly, Code Pink could care less about the soldiers and marines killed and wounded in Iraq. What they care about is political power and their fervent, grasping desire to have some.

[Bob]

I don't think it's true, though, that most on the left despise military men and women--I have several friends and acquaintances on the left, largely because of my profession (the arts), and think that most are otherwise well intentioned folks who are simply baffled by the military.

If they know where you're coming from, you might be getting a 'sanitized' version of their true views. I've worked with several lefties who put on a good front when they knew I was around. They expressed themselves entirely differently when they didn't know I could overhear them in the office next door.