Kudos to you who join up. I hope that your tours were as good as mine all were. Beuno Suerte.
Low-hanging fruit, huh?
I work with alot of Veterans, and many of them are BRILLIANT. Sure, there are plenty of average to low average guys, but there are far more smart, bright, and intelligent types in the Military than I ever thought before I met these people. (Figures, back before this, I was a liberal idiot with all those stupid predjudices).
Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterise them as ‘children’. If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.
I get many emails from soldiers in Iraq, and they sound a lot more grown-up than most Ivy League professors and certainly than Maureen Dowd, who writes as if she’s auditioning for a minor supporting role in Sex and the City. The infantilisation of the military promoted by the Left is deeply insulting to America’s warriors but it suits the anti-war crowd’s purposes. It enables them to drone ceaselessly that ‘of course’ they ‘support our troops’, because they want to stop these poor confused moppets from being exploited by the Bush war machine.
The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) that everyone must take to get in is normed to the general population, so it provides some indicators of military quality. Scores range from 1-99 and a score of 90 means you have scored better than projected for 90% of the population; a score of 40 better than 40% of the population, etc.
Over the past several years, the Regular Army normally required a score of 31, although it sometimes dipped to 26. In any event, the bottom 25-30% of the population in the US has not been eligible to join. Further, through last year, over half the Army's recruits had scored over 50 on the AFQT very year since the 1980s, so on the average we've been getting people of above average intelligence for quite some time.
The liberal elites show their ignorance of all things military when they say that enlisted personnel are the bottom of the barrel. During my army career I served with many enlisted soldiers who were college graduates. Some of them had advanced degrees. They all had different reasons for serving, but they had one thing in common: they were outstanding soldiers.
The military-ignorant elitists have probably never heard of the Defense Language Institute, located at the Presidio of Monterey, California. Military personnel, BOTH OFFICER AND ENLISTED, are sent to DLI to learn foreign languages, which they will use in various military occupational specialties. The soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines study Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, and many other languages. It takes intelligence and mental stamina to last through the language courses, some of which last a year or more. On top of that, the soldiers have to keep current in their basic soldier skills while going through their language courses. I doubt if Bill Maher and his goofy Hollywood friends could make it through the first day.
Leftists love to stereotype our military with the Losers label. Like these kids my elder son is very bright (95 percentile on ACT, etc) has a BA in Computer Science and is finishing the Navy Nuke training Sept. 18th. I am proud as punch of his decision and his achievement and could not have selected a better course for him.
Have I mentioned I despise Leftist liars and their enablers/defenders in the RATmedia?
A guardsman at work returned this past spring from a year in Iraq as member of some kind of recon group. Kinda tough on a family where the breadwinner brings home about 75k a year only to drop down to military pay.......Mortgages, insurance payments, bills and kids don't get put on hold while a soldier is pulling active duty.
I'd like to see him say that to their faces!
Why is this unusual? Lefties are wrong about everything else. Why would they think smart people wouldn't know what's at stake?
Reading this article and the sentiments of these young people tells me that God continues to bless America. They do us proud!
Thanks so much for posting this.
grandma mac
Thank you so much for this inspiring, uplifting post! God bless these young people, and thanks to them.
One wonders that such faith, honor, strength of character, and dedication to service can not shame the likes of Bill Maher and his leftist cohorts into seeing themselves in contrast.
God's blessings on Gary Reese, of Ashland, TN, and his family, who lost son Sgt. Gary L. Reese of the 278th, on Aug.14, in a rocket propelled grenade attack in Iraq.
("He is someone I'm really proud to be the father of.")
Millions of your fellow Americans are proud of him too, Mr. Reese.