22 responses to
“Finally.”

1. Randy said on May 30th, 2006 at 9:55 am

   Remem­ber when that doughy neo-con Jonah Gold­berg (National Review Online) had it put to him a few months ago: enlist or shut up.

   He stam­mered that it would be irre­spon­si­ble of him to enlist, since he has a fam­ily (appar­ently the sol­diers in Iraq are all swingin’ sin­gles), and he’s a lit­tle over­weight (hence the nick­name Doughy Pant­load), and he’s, well, too smart (and too upper mid­dle class) for mil­i­tary ser­vice. He believed he was serv­ing the war effort quite nicely from his den.

   It was beau­ti­ful. In defend­ing him­self, he exposed him­self for the “bet­ter them than me” dork that he is.

2. 4dbirds said on May 30th, 2006 at 11:00 am

   My 19 year old son enlists in the army on June 15. I don’t want him to but he is com­mit­ted. Well at least he’ll spend about 18 months in lan­guage school learn­ing Ara­bic. G.W. will be out of office and hope­fully we’ll be out of Iraq by the time my son is ready to deploy. Nancy, I’m a for­mer army war­rant offi­cer and my hus­band a for­mer army sergeant and we loathe arm chair com­man­dos. So easy to be brave when your ass isn’t on the line.

3. brian stouder said on May 30th, 2006 at 11:24 am

   It is just as vac­u­ous as when oth­ers label those with whom they dis­agree yellow-bellied, immoral cow­ards — unless they are suf­fi­ciently in agree­ment with the poster’s opin­ion of the war, and or per­son­ally served in the war. (and even then, peo­ple who clearly have served the nation for decades, and who were inti­mately involved in this war — such as Gen­eral Franks — amaz­ingly enough STILL get dis­missed as hacks and lackeys!)

   Every sane per­son is (by def­i­n­i­tion!) anti-war; the pre­sump­tion should always favor avoid­ing death and destruc­tion, yes? We can surely all agree on that point.

   Yes­ter­day on C-SPAN, I watched the live cov­er­age of the wreath place­ment at the Tomb of the Unknowns. It was fol­lowed by a replay of a cer­e­mony con­ducted in April at George Washington’s Mt Ver­non estate, where eight sol­diers were awarded pur­ple hearts. As a 4-star Army gen­eral went down the line dec­o­rat­ing these ser­vice peo­ple, I was taken by a woman in one group who was strug­gling might­ily not to cry too much (but she had to keep wip­ing both eyes, as she kept her mouth firmly clenched shut). She was an attrac­tive, older woman. Was she the soldier’s mom?

   Any­way, the gen­eral and the pho­tog­ra­phers moved past that group, and then one could see that the sol­dier had no left leg; his com­bat wound occurred in Jan­u­ary of this year, in Iraq.

   The band did ruf­fles and flour­ishes, the cer­e­mony came to an end, C-SPAN lin­gered for a moment or two more, and that was it.

   Truly — pic­tures that con­veyed more than thou­sands of words could.

   By way of say­ing, Memo­r­ial Day is about much, much more than whack­ing your (sup­posed) polit­i­cal oppo­nents — left or right (although pre­sume­ably it will always be used for that, too)

4. Danny said on May 30th, 2006 at 11:31 am

   I agree, and by way of tak­ing this a step far­ther, I encour­age any of you who have the means to sup­port the troops in real, tan­gi­ble ways. One of the ways we found was about ten of us at work got together and adopted a pla­toon. They appre­ci­ate any­thing and need just about every­thing: read­ing mate­r­ial, soap, foot pow­der, insect repel­lent (None aerosol), alco­hol, hydro­gen per­ox­ide, lotion, baby wipes, sun­screen, hand tow­els, shoe shine kits, mouth­wash, gatorade packs for the can­teen. So we send sev­eral care pack­ages a month with loads of stuff. We even sent a few nice cord­less drills and screw dri­vers so they could build a rec cen­ter for them­selves and I think to help with a school for the locals.

5. 4dbirds said on May 30th, 2006 at 12:40 pm

   Hum, if it makes you feel bet­ter to send some chap­stick and to tout “the schools, the schools” so be it. The army is accept­ing enlis­tees up to the age of 42. If you’re under that age, I urge you to join. Your coun­try needs you.

6. 4dbirds said on May 30th, 2006 at 12:44 pm

   “Every sane per­son is (by def­i­n­i­tion!) anti-war; the pre­sump­tion should always favor avoid­ing death and destruc­tion, yes? We can surely all agree on that point. ”

   Really? Then there are a large amount of insane peo­ple in charge of this country.

7. Jim from Fla said on May 30th, 2006 at 2:10 pm

   “Every sane per­son is (by def­i­n­i­tion!) anti-war; the pre­sump­tion should always favor avoid­ing death and destruc­tion, yes? We can surely all agree on that point. �?

   I have a hard time mak­ing that case that Franklin Roo­sevelt, Abra­ham Lin­coln or Thomas Jef­fer­son were insane. Yet all took this coun­try to war for a just cause.

   I would sug­gest that every sane per­son (by def­i­n­i­tion) views war as a last resort.

8. brian stouder said on May 30th, 2006 at 2:19 pm

   “Really? Then there are a large amount of insane peo­ple in charge of this country.”

   Leav­ing W aside, Sen­a­tor Kerry and Sen­a­tor Clin­ton joined many other mem­bers of con­gress in cast­ing a dif­fi­cult vote in 2002. They (and oth­ers) make a pretty good case that the pres­i­dent botched things — but still, they cast con­se­quen­tial votes in favor of pre-emptive war. I sup­pose one COULD make a case of a sort of pre­vail­ing national mood in those days in the imme­di­ate after­math of the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks (although I don’t think it was “insanity”!)

   Leav­ing the cur­rent war aside, still it is sane to avoid war -

   even as FDR cer­tainly was not “insane” to ignore the iso­la­tion­ists and go to war in the early ’40’s.

   By way of saying -

   take a breath, 4d.

9. Danny said on May 30th, 2006 at 2:25 pm

   Well, I men­tioned the schools in an off­hand sort of way, but if it serves your pur­pose to mis­char­ac­ter­ize my com­ment, I guess it’s what you must do. As for the mak­ing me feel bet­ter part, it does not, really. It’s about mak­ing some­one else feel bet­ter. Hope­fully, receiv­ing some small com­forts from home, while they are very far away in a very hos­tile area brings some respite. But, no, I am under no delu­sion. My small efforts are really not worth much, but it is all I have to offer. Thanks for point­ing that out.

10. 4dbirds said on May 30th, 2006 at 2:43 pm

    I must have touched a nerve. A lit­tle guilt out there? Sorry guys but you don’t get a pass from me. I’d had SCUDS fired in my direc­tion. I come from a fam­ily of ser­vice. Ser­vice in the mil­i­tary, Peace Corps and Pub­lic Health Corps. So do mil­lions of other Amer­i­cans. If the fol­low­ing doesn’t apply don’t worry. As Brian says “Take a breath”.

    At some point in your life, you could have taken a detour and spent a few years in ser­vice to your coun­try or to oth­ers. You can try to jus­tify your non-service but it is what it is. Oth­ers incon­ve­nienced them­selves, put them­selves in harm ways while you didn’t. You are get­ting a free ride. You can still put your life on hold for what you believe in. If you’re too old to enlist, you can go to Iraq and Afghanistan work­ing for a con­trac­tor or for a char­ity. IF you REALLY believe you would do it. Noth­ing in this world would hold you back, IF you REALLY believed. But you don’t, so you sit at home and find ways to make your­self feel bet­ter about oth­ers spilling their blood. Atrios said it best on his blog.

    “The will­ing­ness to send oth­ers off to die for a mis­guided war because you wet your pants after 9/11 is called “cow­ardice” not courage.”

11. Danny said on May 30th, 2006 at 3:27 pm

    Wow, it is sooo good to have some­one else around here who is as much of a rec­ti­tudi­nous pain-in-the-ass as myself. I was really get­ting lonely. LOL!

12. Dorothy said on May 30th, 2006 at 3:31 pm

    The NYT piece was long and sad, but thank you for post­ing a link to it, Nancy. I read the entire thing this morn­ing. I know But­ler a lit­tle — my Aunt Peg and Uncle Johnny lived in a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent homes in that area over the last 40 – 50 years. I spent a week at their first But­ler house in 1964 when my baby sis­ter Janet was born. That was the first time I ever had Rice Krispie Treats!

    That makes me a lit­tle sad, con­sid­er­ing what the arti­cle was about. What a dif­fer­ent world we are in now…

13. mary said on May 30th, 2006 at 4:10 pm

    Dorothy
    In that world we had the draft, and not too long after 64 came the real esca­la­tion of our involve­ment in Viet Nam. We could have learned some­thing from that, and I guess we did. Maybe not the right things, though.
    Bush says he’s learned to not say things like, “Bring it on.“
    Great.

14. Dorothy said on May 30th, 2006 at 4:25 pm

    Yeah I saw that on the news and imme­di­ately thought “It’s a lit­tle late for that, now, isn’t it?” He’s quite the vision­ary, isn’t he?

15. brian stouder said on May 30th, 2006 at 4:58 pm

    One will read, THIS VEHICLE RUNS ON THE BLOOD OF U.S. SOLDIERS and the other, IF YOU WANT TO DRIVE THIS VEHICLE, JOIN THE ARMY.

    I will never be able to afford a Humvee, but if I could afford one — it would be for “week­end driving” — much as some peo­ple go out in a cig­a­rette boat and burn “the blood of US sol­diers” for no use­ful rea­son at all, other than enjoyment.

    Maybe a sim­i­lar sticker for the stern of such craft, advis­ing the offender to ‘join the Navy’, eh?

16. Danny said on May 30th, 2006 at 5:42 pm

    I’m with Nance on the Hummer’s. I can­not look at them with­out get­ting a lit­tle cross-eyed. Although, I’m sure there are plenty of peo­ple who can afford them, they seem so osten­ta­tious and ill-conceived on so many lev­els that it makes me think, “Hey, there goes some jerk liv­ing beyond their means. Fol­low that H3 to the next foreclosure!”

    Maybe a sim­i­lar sticker for the stern of such craft, advis­ing the offender to ‘join the Navy’, eh?

    Uh, or ‘Join the Navy, Cow­ard!’ as some­one here might say.

17. mary said on May 30th, 2006 at 8:46 pm

    I think Pat Robert­son only said that stuff about leg presses because Made­line Albright said she can leg press 600 pounds. Pat needs a Mex­i­can Shit Bath, if you ask me. I don’t know what that means either.

18. Scout said on June 1st, 2006 at 9:24 am

    Hum­mers piss me off too. Not sure why, except they are sym­bolic. A behe­moth, super sized, thumb­ing of the nose and a high deci­bel neener neener to the lit­tle peo­ple they can so eas­ily roll right over. I get the same reac­tion to them that I do when I see or hear the voice of the ulti­mate sym­bol of our country’s decline, Junior Bush. The Hum­mer is the vehic­u­lar poster child for the “as long as it benifits me” crowd.

    What pisses me off even more than an obvi­ously penile impaired fella dri­ving one, is when I see a fake boobed Bar­bie doll behind the wheel, cell phone pressed to her ear, try­ing to park her envi­ron­men­tal poke-in-the-eye in a com­pact only park­ing space, and inevitably hog­ging three spaces. Nancy’s per­ma­nent bumper stick­ers are so called for at time like those.

    I read with amuse­ment the whole litany of pre­vi­ous com­ments regard­ing enlist­ment and troop sup­port, which can be summed up as “Enlist!” “No, you enlist!” “I enlisted so every­one should enlist!”

    The ulti­mate blog­gage regard­ing troop sup­port can be found here:
    http://​kfmon​key​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​0​6​/​0​5​/​l​i​o​n​s​-​l​e​d​-​b​y​-​d​o​n​k​e​y​s.html
    excerpt:
    >The prob­lem is, these yahoos have man­aged an ugly trick. They have turned crit­i­cism of the poli­cies of Bas­tards in Suits into crit­i­cism of The Peo­ple in Uni­form Get­ting Shot At. This, of course, is com­pletely wrong, as one can eas­ily tell the dif­fer­ence between the Bas­tards in Suits and The Peo­ple in Uni­form Get­ting Shot At. One group is in Suits, and Not Get­ting Shot At, while another is in Uni­form, and Get­ting Shot At. Please, try to grasp this. Not the same.

    There is a flip side. Some peo­ple con­fuse sup­port­ing the Bas­tards in Suits for sup­port­ing The Peo­ple in Uni­form Get­ting Shot At. This is, again, ridicu­lous. If the his­tory of mod­ern war­fare has taught us any­thing, it’s that the Bas­tards in Suits spend an awful lot of time work­ing the kinks out of plans involv­ing The Peo­ple in Uni­form dying unpleas­antly. They often screw that up. When they do screw up, it is incum­bent upon Bas­tards in Suits to suf­fer crit­i­cism and fix the sit­u­a­tion, as by com­par­i­son The Peo­ple in Uni­form are suf­fer­ing shat­tered skulls, miss­ing limbs and death. Which is, on my scale, expo­nen­tially more trau­matic than criticism.

    Some peo­ple even seem con­fused on how we are crit­i­ciz­ing the Bas­tards in Suits. The Bas­tards have a job to do. They are not doing it. Period. Tommy Franks recently trot­ted out the clas­sic bit of mis­di­rec­tion, attack­ing crit­ics of Don­ald Rumsfeld.

    “I don’t care about your pol­i­tics. I don’t. Don Rums­feld is an Amer­i­can patriot.”

    Yes, well, that’s lovely. But we’re not crit­i­ciz­ing his patri­o­tism. We’re crit­i­ciz­ing his job per­for­mance. One of the great mys­ter­ies of the last six years was how and when the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion turned pub­lic pol­icy into Spe­cial Olympics. “Oh, I know Donny knocked over all the hur­dles, but HE LOVES THE RACE, so you SHUT YOUR FILTHY, CYNICAL MOUTH.” Jesus H. Christ.

    The first war I read about exten­sively was World War I, where I encoun­tered the mag­nif­i­cently British term “Lions led by don­keys.” If there’s a more apt descrip­tion of our cur­rent thrill-ride, I can’t think of it. Here’s the thing: you folk on the other side of this par­tic­u­lar argu­men­ta­tive aisle may like the Don­keys. You may trust the Don­keys. But never, ever for­get the god­dam difference.

19. Danny said on June 1st, 2006 at 11:23 am

    Here’s the thing: you folk on the other side of this par­tic­u­lar argu­men­ta­tive aisle may like the Don­keys. You may trust the Don­keys. But never, ever for­get the god­dam difference.

    Thanks, but the point is not that there are “folk here on the other side.” In fact, I doubt any­one post­ing in this thread is par­tic­u­larly happy with W at this point and cer­tainly no one is play­ing “arm­chair com­mando,” and I’ve not seen it at any time on this blog’s com­ment reel. Which really makes 4DBirds com­ments just fool­ish and out of place. She is address­ing an audi­ence who is not here. As are you.

20. Scout said on June 1st, 2006 at 4:14 pm

    eat shit, danny. wasn’t argu­ing with any­one. merely point­ing out some excel­lent blog­gage that peo­ple here might like. get a life.

21. Danny said on June 1st, 2006 at 7:47 pm

    OK, I’ll get right on that (we like it in the form of tacos in SoCal).

    But you are right, it was an inter­est­ing read. Didn’t mean to sound so crabby, but your excerpt was long enough (and skipped some parts of the orig­i­nal blog post) that I thought the last para­graph was yours and not the blogger’s. My bad.

22. Scout said on June 2nd, 2006 at 1:42 pm

    apol­ogy accepted, danny, and thanks for it. sorry on my end for being pro­fane. shit tacos, huh? with 5 cats and a dog in my fam­ily i could cer­tainly cash in!

    i did try to put an end thingy like this -