After reading this, I had to restrain myself from wishing for a San Onofre explosion and a wind to blow the fumes northward. But I have to remind myself that you and other conservatives are still there in OC, fighting the good fight, no matter how badly you're being beaten by the cool fools. After reading your post, I could almost vomit.
I personally know of three young men, all pretty cool friends of mine that I went through school with, all from "affluent" Orange County, and as I did, they *joined* the army, one went into the Marines, and all went to Vietnam.
One was only in country for about two weeks, we believe a grenade of some type was thrown from a passing vehicle landing right on his back while his platoon was taking a break along side a road, his entire lower spine was exposed and his kidneys and other vital organs were hang out. He laid there in shock, asking how bad he was, and if he was going to be alright, as he started going in and out of consciousness, he was nervously told by his buddy's he would be OK. He obviously died, never made it to the field hospital.
The other cool friend of mine from Orange Country was on routine patrol, and was shot through the throat and died within three minutes. He only had 3 months of his tour left.
My third cool friend from Orange county was a on a chopper, heading to a military hospital. He that had already been hit by small arms fire and was wounded in both arms. After being airlifted out, the chopper got about a quarter mile away, and was blown out of the sky by a rocket. All on 5 on board died.
One of my best buddy's, another cool brat from Orange County was lucky.
It's believed a mortar exploded about 30 feet from him, a piece of shrapnel entered the outer edge of one of his eyes, popping his eye right out of the socket, and was hanging down around his cheek, bleeding real bad, as he was being taken to an LZ clearing to get a ride out, they had to clip his optic nerved, (cut it off) and tie it off to help save him. He survived and still wears an eye patch to this day. His glass eye never looked right, makes him look crazy.
It isn't, in any real sense, their war. War isn't being asked of us or the affluent kids of Orange County, nor does it seem likely to be. Besides, war isn't what they're into.
I cringe when I hear statements like this.
I'm not sure why he targeted OC. One can look in the obits each week to see the number of locals who have died in Iraq. In fact, today's LA Times had quite a few. OC is one of the most conservative places in Calif. An HB councilman has a West Point educated son currenty over in Iraq. For a large number of the kids the author saw at the Irvine Spectrum, many are just passing through a phase before they too become life-long Rs.
You make a very strong point. I served with a lot of very cool surfer dudes who somehow found their way to the recruiter. But I accept the general point of the article about how the vase majority of today's mall rats could care less about the defense of this nation. They can't even comprehend themselves taking arms to defend America.
You can move from the specific to the general and be wrong about the specific.
You can also move from the general to the specific and be wrong about the general.
