Not all teens are morons. I just read via Tim about two who grok: 15-year-old Jessica Brasda and 19-year-old John Moreno.

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The husband is leaving today for a week-long mission, so he wrote a long email yesterday before he left. Two paragraphs stood out as blogworthy...

The line for phones is HUGE! It doesn't look like I will be able to call tonight. What makes it worse is that I have to go out to XXXXX tomorrow for a week. So, if I don't get to call tonight, you won't hear my voice until next week. Emailing isn't bad though. I remind the guys about how hard we don't have it. Our grandparents generation fought in WWII where 1 in 4 died, hot food was unheard of and you didn't have waterproof jackets made of Gore tex. We finally got to the PX at FOB XXXX where one of the privates bought an X-box. Two of the others have TVs. I'd sure as hell like to get home as fast as possible, but it's not THAT bad. I guess I'm just frustrated at all the whining I'm hearing lately.

And later on down the email:

I haven't been doing as much reading as I thought I would. I still haven't
finished the Bernard Lewis book. I'm looking forward to the Christopher Hitchens book. If I hear one more private that didn't finish High School wax philisophic about the problems and OBVIOUS solutions to complex foreign policy problems, I'm going to scream.

Sounds like we're both dealing with under-informed co-workers! He closed by saying he was going to go read my blog; I'd bet you a DVD that makes him the only guy on his camp who gives up time communicating with his family to read the news instead. And I couldn't be happier.

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1 "I'd bet you a DVD that makes him the only guy on his camp who gives up time communicating with his family to read the news instead." He already understands his family. But the struggle to understand the world has no end. It's sad that he might be the only one rising up to the challenge. He knows what he's fighting for. What about those privates who haven't finished high school? Do they grok?

Posted by: Amritas at March 27, 2004 03:34 AM (2tGb4)

2 What about those privates who haven't finished high school? Do they grok? Some of them do. Some of them know why they signed up and why they're there in Iraq. In fact, it's often the college graduates who fail to grok - but then, you already know that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 27, 2004 04:22 AM (+S1Ft)

3 "Some," alas, should be "all." If one doesn't know why one is doing something, one is not likely to do it well. "the college graduates" Including not just recent ones, but the older ones too ... namely, the professors!

Posted by: Amritas at March 27, 2004 04:33 AM (2tGb4)

4 hey guys glad to see so much interest in ths great blog

Posted by: viagra at September 12, 2005 10:42 AM (SHclP)

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Maybe it's a coincidence, given the release of the movies, that over the past year I've seen many bloggers compare the battle between democracy and jihad to The Lord of the Rings. Would we have made that same parallel based on our fuzzy memories of those books? Perhaps not, but the parallel has been made, and there are moments like right now where I feel a surge of excitement and a call to battle. Reading Wretchard's post (via Europundits) sharpened my laser beam and reminded me once again that there's a war on. His post is one that stirs men's hearts and breathes life into their souls:

By striking at so senior a terrorist target, the Jihadis will be in no mood for negotiations. They themselves will cast away the Peace Process and sheer fury will make them forswear their favorite tactic, the faux hudna -- thereby granting Israel a meeting on the battlefield. For this is Israel's mortal challenge to Hamas which has often said it would kill the last Jew. The message, now ringing in their ears, is that the Jew will kill the last terrorist, beginning at the top.

Is this a call to arms? The pinnacle clash of civilizations?

Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

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I was going to spend a few hours composing my thoughts before I responded to Joshua's comment on my post last night:

do educate yourself on the occupation of palestine before you paint them as terrorists.

In 1948 the state of Israel was created by the US and Euro powers to form an area for the displaced jewish population after the World Wars. They re-captured and re-constituted the land of the Palestinians and begain to occupy the land stealing it from the natives. All supposed "terror" groups are fighting for the right of self-determination. This was done with backing by the US, which gives more in aid to Israel then the entire continent of Africa, even the helicopters used in the attack on Yassin are funded and sold by the US govt. America sends aid and retains allied with Israel to have a foothold in the politics of the Middle East. Israel attacks refugee camps, destroys homes and bulldozes farmlands. They are setting up an apartheid wall. www.palsolidarity.com to learn more about peace making in palestine.

feel free to email me about further discussion.

honestly, retry to grok this one.

So I got to work and saw that Oda Mae had already done most of the work for me:

There is no such group as "Palestineans" - the Romans changed the name from Judea to wipe out memory of the Jewish homeland. The British re-named the region that as a joke after WWI. The peoples who lived in that region were the gypsy nomads of the mideast that no other country would accept - see Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and so forth. Basically, the third world squatters of the Arab region. No culture, no nothing. NEVER an established government of "Palestine."

When the Jewish state was formed, the Jewish peoples did their best to co-exist. After all, many Jews already lived in Tel Aviv and had been coming for years back to THEIR homeland. The "Palestineans" would have none of that, with the help of their now-friendly neighbors in Lebanon and Jordan. With their backing and support, the Middle East Arabs tried to drive the Jews to the sea as part of a war against their "occupation" of THEIR OWN ANCIENT (Jewish - see Jerusalem and other Jewish towns mentioned in sections of the Bible) homeland. The Pallys lost. The Israelis defended themselves and in the process kicked Arab ass.

Did they then drive the Pallys into the sea? Send them into the desert to wander for 40 years? Did they, fuck. No, they continued to try to co-exist with the blighted buggers, to behave in a civilized manner until FORCED by the Pallys to take more extreme action to protect their country and interests. Good on them. Upset by chekcpoints, those inconvenient pesky searches? Here's an idea - stop telling the entire world your one goal is to kill all Israelis and destroy their country and MAYBE Israel will play nice. But, you know, when you keep blowing up buses and restaurants and synagogues and such, you shouldn't be too surprised when you're then searched for bombs whenever you come across the border.

Maybe you should read a bit of history NOT written by the PLO. No need to re-grok this baby! There's lots out there if you're looking for something other than propaganda.

Well, good gosh, when you think about it, the old Third Reich was an ancient civilization. I mean, it was based on ancient German legends, right? And the fact that they were trying to remove the Jews because they weren't part of that original First Reich - well, yeah, it's all making sense to me now! You Neo-Nazis, brothers under the skin with those poor oppressed Pallys. Go at it and GET those Jews this time around. Hurry, the Pallys need you!

They've created their own misery - now they're having to live with it. The Arab countries flooded peoples into "Palestine" where the right of return must be given if the Arabs had lived in 'their' homeland for two years. TWO - well, that makes an ancient civilization, don't you think? Check those figures in the third link to see the real picture.

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/%7Epeters/mythology.html

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/%7Epeters/mixed.html

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/return.html

You will note that the articles, albeit some by Jewish authors, are extensively footnoted with sources. The Palestinean cause is a poorly disguised Anti-Semitism. Would there be this hoopla if the country was still "Southern Syria"? Nah, I don't think so. Nor would there be much of a Gross National Product.

Sarah, in spite of the misleading hairstyle, I think Saruman was a bit complimentary. The guy was just a crippled Orc.

When I was in college, my views on Israel were of the fingers-in-ears variety. (I wrote about this back in November.) I didn't want to even think about it, even despite my fiance's urging. Without doing a single piece of research, it seemed to me that both sides had merit: you can't just give away land that already belongs to someone else, but you can't just kill people because they've been given some land. Seemed like they were both in the wrong to me back then.

But I daresay a week of reading LGF is enough to realize that something lopsided is going on. Just look at this photo again:

Where are the parallel photos of Israelis? Where are the Israeli prisoners released from Palestinian jails who vow to kill again? Where are the Israeli children with ski masks and machine gun toys?

So I have tried to grok a lot of info on Israel over the past two years, and I respectfully decline the offer to re-grok my position. For more on this topic, I defer to Nelson Ascher, the definitive voice on this issue, and point out this post of his. And if we're going to come down on Israel, then I agree with Vincent Ferrari (via Bunker): Let's remove all fences in the world.

MORE TO GROK:

Continued in Israel post.

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I've tried to stay very detached from the deaths in Iraq, because it's easier to deal with if your fences are nice and strong. But this morning I weep.

Kathy pointed out that a milblogger has died in Iraq. His is not a blog I've ever read before, but I went to read his final entry today. And I flat-out wept as I read it. One of the things he said should be highlighted:

I know it is not my money that I am giving away and I am not interested in receiving thanks. But it points out to the fact that this is a society that is in desperate need of everything. It is like pouring a cup of water out in a dry desert. The water disappears and you are left with the feeling of “did it do any good?” Sometimes the answer is “yes.” Sometimes the answer is “no.” Sometimes you wait for the flower to grow. I don’t mean to sound depressed because I am not. I am enjoying this work immensely. It is very gratifying…as long as the flowers grow eventually. I have hope that they will.

He ended his entry with a simple closing, one that breaks my heart to read today:

Hang on to your dreams!
Bob

Smash suggests we pay our respects. I think that's a good idea. And, Bob...we'll make sure the flowers continue to grow.

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LGF found a touching article called Defending America that caught my eye because it opens with a quote from Dinesh D'Souza. I've never seen any bloggers talk about D'Souza, but he was personally instrumental in helping me discover my beliefs.

During my senior year in college I had to attend a mandatory lecture for a class on Malcolm X (which I took because I hated X and wanted to learn more about him. Learned more; still hate him.) This lecture was given by a speaker I'd never heard of before named Dinesh D'Souza. His speech was against affirmative action. We were a room full of students listening to his hour-long lecture, and I thought his argument was concise, informed, logical, and accurate. He opened up the floor for questions, and immediately everyone in the room pounced on him. No one agreed with him. People yelled, picked on him, argued, acted disgusted...and I sat there slowly realizing that the speech I had just whole-heartedly agreed with and understood was not received the same way by anyone else in the group. I started to really question my values and wonder why they were so different from my classmates' and the other listeners. That was the moment I realized that I had attended the lecture alone, quietly listened to a speech, formed my own opinion independent from anyone else's input, and found that no one else had heard what I had heard. That moment has stuck with me, and I consider it the turning point when I realized that I looked at the world differently from my peers. I have D'Souza to thank for that revelation, and I've never forgotten him. I've since read his books and have enjoyed them very much.

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Screed away, Lileks. That was just what I needed this morning. You know when someone says something that completely throws you off guard, and you stammer and miss the opportunity to make your point? And then hours later you know what you should've said and you curse yourself for letting the moment pass? I had one of those last night.

There were a couple of stragglers at the party last night, and out of the complete blue one of them said, "Do you think Kerry will be elected President?" Now, I know that wives don't have rank, but since this woman's husband way outranks mine, I thought it in good taste to be vague, so I just said, "Well, I don't know," because it's true after all: I don't know what's going to happen. But another wife replied, "God, I hope so." The gist of the conversation was that Kerry would pull the troops out faster than you can shake a stick, and that means everyone's husbands come home, so Kerry's our man.

I wish I had said something. Anything. I was just sorta dumbfounded.

I understand the selfishness of wanting your husband to come home. I understand that we had spent 20 minutes of our meeting discussing who would come knocking on our door if our husband died in Iraq, and it wears on you after a while. And I understand that the military lifestyle takes its toll: one wife has been married six years and her husband's been deployed for three of them. But...

What I wish I'd said is this: Our husbands' job is to protect the American people. This duty is better fulfilled by their being in Iraq now rather than waiting until someone attacks on American soil again. This war we're fighting now only exists because we didn't get the job done in 1991; would you rather have your husband stay in Iraq for a year now, or return to Iraq for combat in another few years when some new dictator decides he wants to start somethin'?

I wish I'd said that. But how do you tactfully tell people whose husbands have been in the Army for years what it means to be an Army family?

An Army family means selflessness. I have to come to terms with the fact that my husband might have to die to protect other Americans from future threats. Not an easy thing to accept, but that's part of the job, and that's what we signed up for. An Army family also means understanding the complexities and repercussions of our nation's actions. I'm not saying that every Army family will fully support President Bush, but "who will let your husband sleep at home" is perhaps not the best gauge for your vote. Army families have a duty to follow and understand world events, but to be willing and ready to do whatever the Commander-in-Chief asks of them.

I'm not happy that my husband is living in Iraq. I'd rather have him home too. But I was shocked to hear other wives say that having their husband at home is the most important thing in their life. More important, seemingly, than principles and duty. Am I the only wife who gets choked up when she reads the Army values? Am I the only one who finds comfort in the fact that her husband's job requires selfless service?

Selfless service is placing your duty before your personal desires. It is the ability to endure hardships and insurmountable odds because of love of fellow soldiers and our country. Placing your duty before your personal desires has always been key to the uniqueness of the American soldier. As citizen soldiers, we claim our service to the nation, state, and community to be an especially valuable contribution.

In a sea of houses sporting Service Flags and yellow ribbons, why do I feel so alone?

MORE TO GROK:

Amritas suggests that selfless service is really a form of love.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:54 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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1 I sincerely hope that you were not the only one staying tactfully quiet. Given that you said the Kerry supporter's husband outranks yours, I hope others felt they had to be tactful too. I'd be saddened if you were in the minority. Rare postings from me for a Friday, working overtime this week to help pay for a vacation at the end of the month. Enjoy while it lasts. PS. Even tho I hit Remember personal info in your comments, it is never saved from one comment to another.

Posted by: Blueshift at March 05, 2004 04:55 AM (crTpS)

2 You're not alone. I feel the same way you do and recently, in my online college course, we were asked to write a personal portait. My topic? Being an Army wife. Based on the responses to my post, I was able to make my classmates kind of understand what's it like, but they will never know unless they live it. I too find it hard to stay quiet when wives in this unit only wish for their husbands to be home.

Posted by: Lani at March 05, 2004 05:43 AM (rZmE1)

3 Selflessness...THAT is the most important word for anyone in the military. It is the essense of what makes people in uniform, including police and fire department, put up with the things they do. Too bad for this lady's husband. He obviously has a sense of honor, and look what he has to put up with at home.

Posted by: Mike at March 05, 2004 10:25 AM (cFRpq)

4 It is hard to remember duty in the face of understanding that the person you love might have to suffer or die for that duty. It is good that you understand that duty. At the same time, you should understand where the women who don't understand that duty are coming from....

Posted by: Dr_Funk at March 07, 2004 01:30 AM (RVsRN)

5 Keep the faith. There are surely times when you're surrounded by people who regard the concepts of duty and self-sacrifice as disposable items, to be abandoned as soon as the price becomes too high for them to bear. Military spouses bear a huge burden, too often overlooked. I served in another Army (not the U.S.) and have never forgotten the support of other soldier's families. Yet I never regarded the voices of those who would have had us stay safely at home as "support"--all those voices ever produced was a sense of betrayal and ingratitude. Dr_Funk: It's not important to understand where the women who don't understand the concept of duty "are coming from". If they don't understand the concept then they have no place as a military wife.

Posted by: Keith at March 15, 2004 01:18 AM (fyrCe)

6 Congrats to you madame for being a military spouse. I think you did the right think due to rank structure. its sad how ever that you had to keep silent. More people try to see the military as "just a job" but its not, never has, never will be. Statement such as the ones made to you by the higher autorities spouse are bad for moral, image and would make the common grunt wonder of the leadership abilities his or her commander would have. I would not want a Captain over me or my boys who felt he was doing merely a job and that he can come home with the changing of the Presidency.

Posted by: BloodSpite at March 15, 2004 10:29 AM (Iqzsg)

7 I'm going to stick my neck out and say that perhaps you did the absolutely the right thing for the wrong reasons? I'm a Marine colonel's wife, so I've come up through the ranks for 22 years and listened to just about every sort of idiocy imaginable from senior wives. And I'm still listening to it, because there's always someone senior. Except that, as a wife, they're NOT really senior to you. Politeness is due - to all wives, whether they're officer or enlisted - but there is no rank structure in the "wife corps". I understand the Army is less tolerant of dissent from talking with Army friends, but this is something I feel very strongly about. And I think this persists because it goes unchallenged. I might have done the same thing you did, but perhaps for different reasons. So the end result would have been the same. Ironically, I'd have been quicker to challenge the remark had it been made by her husband. You were in a social setting, and it is generally poor manners to provoke an argument in someone else's house, so I think you made the right decision - your instinct was 100% correct. You have to take the setting into account. When my spousal unit was a 2nd Lt, the BN CO used to bait jr. wives at parties and they would tamely put up with it. I got tired of it, and started coming back at him (hopefully with some wit). He was taken aback, but once he figured out I wasn't going to roll over, he rather enjoyed the contest and my husband didn't suffer any repercussions. I think the important thing was that I didn't get my pantyhose in a knot over it, and my SU already had a reputation for speaking up for himself gently but firmly. 22 years later, he's survived in spite of having quietly pointed out to several seniors that they might want to reconsider something they had just said (because it made no sense). He'll never make General, but no one expected that anyway. I've had a few run-ins with senior wives (once even my husband's CO's wife), but a sense of humor and willingness to talk it out and compromise go a long way, and I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning (well, most mornings)! I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't let rank get in the way too much - choose your battles and try to seize the high ground The younger wives are watching what you do, you sound like you have good instincts and only you can decide what the right time and place are, but if the time comes and your husband supports this, don't be afraid to speak your mind politely and firmly. I'm very lucky in that my SU has never tried to muzzle me (probably realizes it's hopeless). His attitude has always been that if the Marine Corps is going to penalize him for something his wife says, he's fighting on the wrong team. Sorry for the long post - you can see I have strong feelings on the subject.

Posted by: Cassandra at March 15, 2004 12:10 PM (6K3L5)

8 Cassandra has the right of it: "choose your battles and try to seize the high ground". A note: As a 'pro-war' sort whose friends are almost entirely 'anti-war', I've found that a simple question can often make people think again. Don't argue, don't fight, just ask. "What does your husband think about it?" "Do you think that being nice to bullies makes them less likely to attack you? (That one usually gets a double-take, they don't like to think of terrorists as bullies... but watch what happens if you can get them to do so.) Just keep trying, subtly. I'm sure you can think of your own questions. Just make them questions, not statements. Ask, and ask some more. I'll echo Cassandra again... "Sorry for the long post - you can see I have strong feelings on the subject.

Posted by: Kathy K at March 15, 2004 09:01 PM (qFRf+)

9 Thank you for your selfless sacrifice. I say this as a retiree, but also as a spouse of an active-duty military member; my wife was also active duty when we met and got married. I did not tell her to get out after 12 yrs, that was her choice. My wife and I were (are) both very out-spoken, and I have to admire your tact. I agree with Cassandra; "choose your battles." The fact that you were caught offguard by these questions indicates that this spouse was fishing for an agrument, in my opinion. Also, since you didn't know her, you couldn't know if she thinks that she "wears her spouse's rank," as we used to call it. All organizations, civilian as well as military, contain people who "play politics." But I noticed less of it in the military, than I have seen since I've retired.

Posted by: cas at March 15, 2004 10:35 PM (rZmE1)

10 My elder son left home for the Army as an 18 year old. I have seen him twice since then. He has been in Iraq for nearly a year and is now over 21! GO BUSH! Please defeat that traitor Kerry who has more faces than the "mirrored ball" in the discoteques (sp?) he frequents.

Posted by: J. Callihan, Jr. at March 16, 2004 01:58 AM (0gnRS)

11 Its probably for the best that you didn't respond. You can't teach a grown person the meaning of the words like "selfless, honor, integrity, community, discipline, and patriotism." If "Ole Cut-N-Run" wins, the woman you spoke with had better hope her husband is on the first boat out. It won't be pretty for those at the other end of the line. Soon after that it won't be pretty here either.

Posted by: Randm Pat at March 16, 2004 01:45 PM (ve9fL)

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(via Tim) A 19-year-old Marine is going back to Iraq for his second tour because of his sense of duty to his country. Shockingly enough, some of his peers don't even realize that we still have troops in Iraq; America's short attention span is this Marine's biggest fear: "It gets to me. It's almost like 9/11. Everyone started throwing flags up on their cars, but now it's fading out. Same old news every night." So he's volunteered for two more tours, going back a little braver, a little wiser, and a little stronger because he's a Marine and that's what Marines do.

He's also another servicemember who has parents who'd rather use their appearance in the newspaper to express their distrust of the current administration instead of pride and gratitude for their brave child. His mother: "'I don't know if there are weapons of mass destruction,' she said. 'If this is based on a lie, I'm gonna be really [angry].' Getting rid of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a good thing, she said, but, 'Is that worth the lives that have been lost over there? I have no idea. I don't want to lose my only son for a cause that might be a lie.'"

Her son's response?

Isaiah doesn't think highly of the folks who constantly question when troops expect to find weapons of mass destruction.
"I think they should shut their mouths. You can't even find an AK-47 in someone's home because they can hide it so well," Schaffer said. "They really don't know what they're talking about."
He stands firmly behind the president--and wishes Americans would stand just as firmly behind him and other troops.
"President Bush sent us over there for a reason. And from a Marine's outlook, you start something, you finish it," he said.
"God willing, we'll finish it."

Godspeed, Marine. As my husband's company says, "Get 'er done!"

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This made me cry. At work.
Darling Ben Stein. (Thanks, Tim.)

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

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Kim du Toit visited Dachau. This is one of the most poignant posts I've ever read.

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An excellent post from Hardtack and Havoc on his impending return home from deployment. My favorite bit:

The United States is at war. We can see that out here, it is as plain as the nose on your face, I am afraid I won't see that reflected back home. In fact, I know I won't. It wasn't there when I left so why should I expect it to be there when I get back. Never-the-less, the nation is at war. We are fighting the enemy in foreign places like Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and many others so we won't be fighting them in places like Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, New York, etc. The concept is simple: Take the war to the enemy. Does the American public care? More pertantly, DOES IT UNDERSTAND. The unfortunate side effect of taking the war to the enemy is that the war becomes very impersonal to the American people and unfortunately for us all, the American people have a very very short attention span.

Read the whole entry...

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