From Mohammad:

I wasnÂ’t like this before. I was afraid most of the time. I have always looked for safety above all. I lost faith in the whole world and I wasnÂ’t ready at all to make the slightest sacrifice for the sake of others. I was trying to leave my country and find a better job in a safe place, BUT, The brave solders (who donÂ’t hold shares at Halliburton or Bechtel) who crossed seas and oceans and came to my country to fight for our freedom -and donÂ’t anyone dare say the opposite, as I met so many of these soldiers and had hundreds of letters from them and there families and I know their motives; they fight for their countryÂ’s safety and for our freedom and they are proud of what they are doing- gave me the faith and showed me that man should not care only about himself, his family or his country, these are not enough to make a human being. These guys are MUCH better than me because I have to fight for my issue and they fight for me. They deserve the respect of the world and so do the people who support them. They always give me hope to go on no matter how difficult it seems.

A couple of my soldiers wrote yesterday that they don't think the military belongs at our elite universities because somebody smart enough to go to Harvard should do bigger and better things than the military. They're going to get yelled at today.

Yes, there are smart folks at Harvard. But so much of elite academia is self-perpetuating horse manure. I've never been to Harvard, but I did go to a fairly rigorous university, and many aspects of it were a joke. The students weren't that motivated, most of them simply wanted to regurgitate on the test and then go to their frat party, and a great number of them are now America-bashing MA students, cycling back through the system. In contrast, my students work their tails off to attend classes in addition to their more important job of PROVIDING FREEDOM!

I'm extremely disappointed to hear my student soldiers denigrate themselves like that. At Iraq the Model a soldier's inherent worth is obvious; why isn't it obvious to them? Maybe I should smoke them at the start of class...

MORE TO GROK:

Well, I tried to smoke them, but I got choked up. They were looking at me with the most interesting look on their faces; I realized that most of them consider their job to be nothing special. They don't think they're heroes, so for me to get choked up when I praise them is probably a hoot.

But they're all heroes to me.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:59 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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