Posted on 09/07/2013 12:23:00 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
My 16-month-old son was having a bad day. When he doesn’t sleep in the car, he usually points and babbles his approval of all the wonderful things babies notice that completely escape adult attention. On this afternoon, though, he was teething and hungry, a lethal scenario for an energetic youngster strapped into a high-tech seating apparatus (approved and installed, of course, by the state).
When it became clear he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sleep it out, my wife and I stopped at a nondescript exit, the kind one finds every six miles in the South, with two gas stations and three abandoned buildings (if you’re lucky, you also get a Hampton Inn and Cracker Barrel). While she tended to the baby, I entered a convenience store — one of those squat, glass and plastic rectangles that looks like a Sears & Roebuck erector set — praying it would have something other than beer, cigarettes and beef jerky.
I settled on two Kraft mozzarella sticks, resisting the urge to purchase for myself a shiny red can of Four Loko.
“That’ll be $1.82,” the lady at the counter cheerily informed me. After I handed her two ones, she asked, “Would you like to donate your change to the troops?” I noticed a jar with “support our troops” taped to it in handwritten ink.
“No, thank you,” I answered firmly.
“Well … OK, then, sir,” she responded in subtle reproach, her smile not quite so ascendant anymore. “You have a good day now.”
She had good reason to be disappointed. The vast majority of customers, I imagine, spare a few dimes and pennies for so important a cause. Her response evinced more shock than anger.....
The author
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
How do we begin? To tell the story of how dull these fools can be... Lunkish heads that make them duller than a tree... How do we start? (Apologies to Love Story)
Hey if you pass you pass. He's hoping everyone else will pass too.
All over a lousy 18 cents.
Useless education system parasite enjoying freedom made possible by others who are willing to die if need be to protect him and his young family.
Oh, and he is an Allah lover.
Man, I would have never seen that one coming.p
Where the hell is Seung-Hui Cho when you REALLY need him?
Seems like every other thread I’ve read with the source being Salon. The Salon articles are designed to trash American ideals. .....This “author” is obviously an ass, since he says he’s a professor, as though that adds credence to his views.
For an assistant professor of English, he sure can’t write worth a lick.
I’m not crazy about his politics or his nauseating narcissism, but I - an ex-troop, BTW, Vietnam Vet - also wish people would give it a rest.
The currently considered Syrian escapade will be, IMHO, the quintessential Post-WWII waste of young men and treasure if it is not aborted at this point. Every other conflict after VJ Day was also just a variation on this theme. No meaningless conflict that we have allowed our politicians to embroil us in since then has shown an iota of honor towards our troops.
I think we can only truly honor our troops by not wasting or endangering their lives for any but the most clearly necessary wars to defend our country, fought decisively to win. In my view we would honor and support our troops greatly by simply bringing them all home, and then nuking into oblivion any morons stupid enough to even think of messing with us in the future.
mark
That still does not mean we should stop saying “support the troops” - maybe we should say “support our troops by remembering that their job is to protect American people from any and all direct threats to their security and safety, absolutely nothing more and absolutely nothing less”. But you are right that we need to stop getting so defensive everytime someone does not support sending our troops into military actions on the arbitrary whims of politicians.
I am accosted everytime i go to the Dollar General asking me if I want to donate to the Children’s Literacy Fund. “No” I reply...”I’m supposed to have tax dollars that already do that”.
Oh, good grief.
Let him keep his 18 cents. I hope he spends it wisely.
I’m totally in support of our troops, now more than ever. I just don’t support Zippy and his reckless use of them.
I’m always a little wary of collection jars and very resistant to the peer pressure coercion to contribute. I would not have put my change in the jar, either, but for a far different reason than the author.
I like the Semper Fi fund, Wounded Warriors project, Fisher house. Also, if you know of a member of the military or a vet in need, it’s even better if you can help them directly. And if you’re short on funds yourself, consider whether they need a babysitter, a petsitter, a ride to the hospital, etc. An older vet might need help with mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow; same for the families with parents deployed.
God bless our troops and our vets and their families! Thank you for your service!
All the ROTC students at Tech - and there are a lot of them - should protest outside this a-hole’s house. At the least it would upset his wife, Bichon-Frise.
“This “author” is obviously an ass, since he says he’s a professor, as though that adds credence to his views.”...
Saying he is a “professor” automatically qualified him to be an “ass”........MANY of today’s professors are in the same catagory and we hear about them all the time as well. The real problem is none of these “asses” are ever removed from their positions.
These profs will be the first to be put against the wall. The nazis called them useful idiots.
Couldn’t much blame the troops if they decided that the People weren’t worth supporting....
Personally I’m tired of people thanking me for my service but I offset that attitude with the attitudes expressed back in the 70’s when we were spit at.
“back in the 70s when we were spit at”
Pardon, but libs have been spitting at our returning vets as recently as a year ago, both here in Oregon and in Texas on a layover.
My boy was the target of these lib whackjobs; it is NOT a facet of history. (shameful it happened to you and your crews too)
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