Sadly, many now think the military is for losers

Austin Mis-Statesman ^ | November 07, 2005 | Gary Chapman

[sam_paine]

Gary Chapman, REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR

'Why aren't you in Iraq?" That's the question I posed recently to a group of undergraduates at the University of Texas, an honors class studying the legal aspects of the war on terrorism.

I tried to ask this without antagonism or implicit criticism, but the question appeared to unsettle the students anyway. None of them had given military service much thought. All of them were against the war in Iraq. They told me they support the troops, but not the war itself. They won't sign up to fight a war they consider illegal and a mistake.

....

Either we're all in this together, or we should get the hell out. We can't have it both ways.

Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the LBJ School. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.

[gogogodzilla]

Heh...

As I'm stationed in Maryland, I really need to find a bumper sticker for my Volkswagen GTI that reads 'Red in a sea of Blue'.

:-)

[gogogodzilla]

Yes, but think of how much fun you would have being the Drill Instructor able to chew out a bunch of whining liberals.

:-)

[Young Scholar]

Don't equate commanders when there is no equating them.

I specifically stated I wasn't comparing my hypothetical sitution involving Clinton to Bush's situation in Iraq; I was just using that example to demonstrate a situation can exist in which conservatives could support the military but oppose a particular mission of the military. In my example, most conservatives would probably agree that supporting the military would almost necessitate opposing their clearly unwise mission.

[Xenophon450]

"while I sat in an Austin theater waiting for a movie to start and the ads featured a pitch from the Marines, some people in the audience booed."

The valiant profit more their country than the finest, cleverest speakers.

Plautus

[sam_paine]

For the life of me I cannot understand the placid-flacid strategy while getting methodically picked apart.

You know why it is? Because Democrat politicians and Republican politicians are identically idiotic. But the leftist electorate is led by their pols, and the conservative electorate has to drag their pols kicking and screaming in fear of elections.

[an amused spectator]

I specifically stated I wasn't comparing my hypothetical sitution involving Clinton to Bush's situation in Iraq; I was just using that example to demonstrate a situation can exist in which conservatives could support the military but oppose a particular mission of the military. In my example, most conservatives would probably agree that supporting the military would almost necessitate opposing their clearly unwise mission.

Oh, I'm sorry. Let me be even more general. I will remove my reference to Bush, and make my point even clearer for you. As I linked for you in my previous post, a former soldier told Bill Clinton to his face that Clinton was not fit to be Commander in Chief. This would go doubly so for Hillary!

Why would any reasonable person, let alone a conservative, be required to support an incompetent Commander in Chief, or any mission that they assigned? We could pray for those put in harm's way, however.

[Young Scholar]

Why would any reasonable person, let alone a conservative, be required to support an incompetent Commander in Chief, or any mission that they assigned? We could pray for those put in harm's way, however.

That's my point exactly--that's it is at least possible to support the troops even if you disagree with the mission.

[an amused spectator]

No, your point was "Could someone support the military, but disagree with the current war?"

Disagreeing with the current war is tantamount to not supporting the military, since most of the military AGREES with the current war.

BTW - the Commander-In-Chief is part of the military, also. He's The Big Toe. Not supporting The Big Toe is also not supporting the military.