Oh my gosh, I miss my husband so much right this moment that I can't stand it.

I found a blog post that I'm dying to discuss with him. Yeah, we don't get enough telephone time to discuss blog posts.

“I hope the officers of her Majesty’s army may never degenerate into bookworms.”

Husband, if you're checking the blog, you simply must read that post and also the comment by SmittenEagle it references. And then write me a letter about what you think!

Actually, I already know what you think.

When my husband started Civil Affairs training, he was given a stack of books to read. He was dismayed to learn that, months later, some of his classmates hadn't read any of them. And we're talking Bernard Lewis level books, not Lawrence of Arabia (which my husband read on his own two years ago). He was so frustrated that people could be in a class about the Middle East and have so little motivation to learn anything about the Middle East.

He, on the other hand, is a studier. He has a reputation in his unit for being a bookworm, a brain. And while my husband is a danged genius, really all he's doing is reading books on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. That should be a given for anyone in his branch of the Army. Instead, when he went to the branch library to check out a book on modern Iraq, he was the first person to ever have checked it out.

There's no danger of bookworms among his peers. Sadly.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:27 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I read the book Gates of Fire because Neil from Armor Geddon said that I reminded him of a Spartan woman. What a compliment! I loved the book when I read it during the last deployment. My husband picked up the book about a year after he returned from Iraq, and he was almost mad at me: "Why didn't you suggest I read this book sooner?" Heh.

I'm reading it again now, and I noticed that my husband marked some passages when he read it. I love to see what he marked, like a window into his mind, illuminating what's important to him.

Like this passage:

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods.

And this passage, which I know must have struck a chord with my husband. If I were to say that anything haunted my husband from his first deployment, it would be that he wishes he had done more:

The secret shame of the warrior, the knowledge within his own heart that he could have done better, done more, done it more swiftly or with less self-preserving hesitation; this censure, always most pitiless when directed against oneself, gnawed unspoken and unrelieved at the men's guts. No decoration or prize of valor, not victory itself, could quell it entire.

I like these marked passages; it's as if my husband is here beside me, reading aloud the things he finds interesting. It's nice to hear his voice in the house.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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If you have a quiet moment today, please reflect for a second on our dear internet friend Debey. Think of her and all the other mothers who have lost their children in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe take a minute to go tell her that you're thinking of her today, that we are grateful that there are mothers out there who raised sons like Gunnar.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
  And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
  The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
  No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
  To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
  Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
  Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
  (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
  Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined
  That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assur'd of the mind,
  Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
  Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
  Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
  As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
  To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
  Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
  And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
  Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
  And makes me end where I begun.

   -- John Donne

Posted by: Sarah at 09:17 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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An astute observation on how Obama and Clinton are tearing the Democrats in half:

Also, heard from a smart conservative strategist a day or so ago... this is what happens when your party is made up of groups that want government to do things for them (and spend time and resources) vs. when your party is made up of groups that want government to get off their backs and go away.

Government dollars, even with high tax rates, are finite. Sooner or later, a dollar has to be spent on either environmental protection or worker retraining programs, on scholarships or on expanding Social Security, on government-run health care or foreign aid, on infrastructure programs or on open space preservation. Sooner or later, a Democratic leader can only split the difference so much, and more resources will go to one instead of the other. Someone will feel shortchanged, resentments will build. Besides money, there's the finite resource of time, focus, and energy of lawmakers.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I wrote over at SpouseBUZZ about my pre-deployment stress. With the fertility and my husband leaving, I have not been at peak mental performance lately. So how could I make it worse? How about reading the most stressful and awful book I've ever picked up.

I found the book The Airman and the Carpenter: The Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Framing of Richard Hauptmann for fifty cents at the Goodwill. I thought I'd grab it and learn a little about the Trial of the Century.

I can't read this book for more than a chapter at a time. I cry too much. I get knots in my stomach and shortness of breath. I cry out in anguish and my husband has to ask me what they did this time. When I set the book down at night, I rant endlessly to my husband. I pace the room, I raise my voice, and I can't calm down.

I've even dreamt about Charles Lindbergh.

The Trial of the Century was a joke. It was a farce and a disaster. They executed an innocent man because they had no better suspect. Everyone who took the stand lied. Flat out lied: cops, expert witnesses, Lindbergh himself. God, how this book has made me hate Charles Lindbergh. They planted evidence, coached witnesses, tricked Hauptmann into damning himself, destroyed documents and evidence that exonerated him, and laid out a boatload of perjury as the truth.

And Hauptmann lost his life.

This website does a pretty good job of laying out the absurdities of the case and lining up the questions that Hauptmann's defense lawyer should have asked. Only he didn't, because he too thought Hauptmann was guilty. So throughout the entire trial, he only spent 40 minutes conferring with his client.

This book has gotten me in such a tizzy that I can't stand it. I find the whole thing so disgusting and reprehensible. I can't even recommend the book because it's too painful to read. I'm glad I learned about it, but it literally makes me sick to my stomach to read it.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:06 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Via Insty, an excellent comment on taxes:

Clearly the government wants us to spend ourselves broke and throw ourselves on welfare. Then they will stop fining us every year. They fine us for speeding, for spitting in the streets, for doing things they don't want us to do: they also fine us for improving our property, investing money to grow the economy, saving money; the implications are pretty clear?

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Any soldier worth his salt doesn't get wrapped up in ribbons and accolades. I learned that long ago, when I saw medals thrown haphazardly in a foot locker. And I took notice when a guy from my husband's armor unit showed up at his new finance unit and tossed my husband's OIF medals on a desk for him. Finance wanted to have a big ceremony for my husband; armor knew the medals were an afterthought. The men who earned the medals, they knew that the pride came in the work they had done, not the bits of ribbons they received for it months later.

Soldiers wear their uniforms with pride, making sure that everything is proper and in its place. But rarely do they care which ribbons they wear. In fact, I was appalled recently to overhear one soldier belittle another for his paltry chest collection, because I had never heard anything so vulgar in my life. I had never before seen anyone point to his hardware as "proof" he was better than someone else. (But this soldier proves himself a douchebag, time and time again.)

Remember when Mr. Miagi said that karate was in your head and your heart, but never in your belt? Real soldiers think the same thing about their ribbons.

And over the past few days, I have read a couple of slams on GEN Petraeus for wearing a chest-load of commendations when he testified before congress. Badger6 is right that the people who write these columns have no idea what they're talking about. It's not like Petraeus can simply decide not to wear parts of his uniform for fear of intimidating the public. Oh gosh, better leave a couple of these stars off my shoulder, lest someone think I'm trying to show off with four of them. I guess two of them will do for today; I'll leave the other two at home.

Badger6 is dismayed that a wine critic somehow got paid to write an opinion column about Petraeus' hardware. Me too. Because it seems obvious that this fella has never even met anyone who has ever been awarded a medal:

In more contemporary times, decorations have suffered a fraught reputation among the rank and file: nice to get but awkward to display if the memories associated with them are of violence, loss and the ineptness of commanders. There have been isolated incidents of Iraq war veterans returning their medals, and, of course, Vietnam War vets were better acquainted with this kind of protest.

Oh yes, the only reason for medals is so you can throw them on the White House lawn. I forgot. Silly me.

Cassandra found another piece griping about Petraeus' uniform. (You really must read her entire post: A Suspension of Contempt.) She says this:

Challenge the good General on his testimony. Challenge him on the facts if you wish. But check the ad hominems at the door. Just because he wears the uniform of the day doesn't give you carte blanche to take cheap potshots at medals that commemorate battles where better men than you will ever be have fought and died for ideals they believed were worth fighting for, even if you do not.

Petraeus doesn't wear those ribbons because he thinks he's better than everyone else. He wears them because they're a part of his uniform. And I bet if you asked him about them, he'd be humble and dismissive.

Go on, critics, ask him which ribbons he got for getting shot in the chest and breaking his pelvis. None.

It took me a couple of years of being in the Army community before I really grokked ribbons. I should've learned the lesson from watching The Karate Kid for the umpteenth time, but it took a while for it to really sink in. It took seeing real heroes brush off praise over the medals they did receive -- heroes like Neil and my husband -- and seeing those precious awards being treated like the hunks of metal that they are for me to truly get it.

I'm not surprised that some wine critic doesn't grok.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:54 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 unfortunately, too many Americans don't grok. At all. I thought General Pace's actions after leaving the Joint Chiefs explained it best: http://excaliburrd.com/cs/blogs/excalibur/archive /2007/10/17/general-pace-retires-remember- s-his-troops-killed-in-vietnam.aspx

Posted by: airforcewife at April 19, 2008 05:39 AM (mIbWn)

2 It's so funny that you should write about this today. Just the other day, I was going through some items that C had stuffed into a box in the dresser. Inside, I found everything from loose change to a couple of chains that had gotten tangled up and in the mess were some medals and a couple of coins he had gotten from a couple of generals. I fished the coins and medals out and said something like, "Don't you want to keep these in a safer place?" and his response was, "Yeah, do whatever." And to think that I have every award I've ever gotten (not too many)either framed or carefully packed with that acid free paper....lol.

Posted by: Nicole at April 19, 2008 09:04 AM (sBJ2p)

3 Thanks for another great post. I think there's one other element that you gloss over a bit as to why soldiers brush aside medals, particularly valorous ones. Most of them really look at it as "just doing my job." I think there's a line of thought in that that says, "How could I have done other than what I did in that situation?" And some also brush them aside because they hate what they had to do that led to receiving it, even though they believe they did the right thing. I have a friend who absolutely refuses to tell me why he won a rather impressive medal--says, "I did a job that had to be done, took out a threat. Period. I will not talk about it." And then there are the issues of medals that are the equivalent of "good job pushing that paper," which generals have usually collected in great number on their way up the ladder. That is something these "critics" also don't get at all.

Posted by: FbL at April 19, 2008 11:23 AM (rW1/8)

4 What a great post. I love Mr. Miagi!

Posted by: Tonya at April 22, 2008 07:48 AM (KV0YP)

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What is this, f-ed up art day? First these wacko artists and now another one. Apparently some girl put a bunch of American flags on the floor for people to walk on, as art. Several people are talking about it, but I really like what Kat had to say. Please go read her whole post.

As for the provost who called the flag "just a piece of cloth"...

Typing that hurts my heart.

You know, I've lived in a couple of countries and I've met people from all over the world. And most of the ones I've met, they don't give a flying fig about their flag. Some of them were downright ashamed of their national identity and wanted no part of flags. When a friend and I found a shop in the Netherlands that sold flag patches from all different countries, we bought respective flags for all our exchange student friends. Some took those patches gingerly from our hands, half smiling and half wondering why on earth we would've bought them such a weird gift.

But my flag, it is not just a piece of cloth.

You know what the coolest part of that Aftermath program was? The end, where they said that once all traces of man are wiped from the face of the earth, when nothing is left to show we were here, there will still be an American flag on the moon.

I spent about ten minutes just now trying to find a story I'd heard once. I finally found it: The Mike Christian Story. And as I finished reading the story, I got a jolt when I realized it had been told by John McCain.

And it's times like this when I feel sad that we're relieved that some people didn't walk on a flag on the ground, when other people risked beatings and death in order to salute the flag.

It's not just a piece of cloth.

It's not.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:30 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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This "art project" is just beyond anything my brain can comprehend:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

That's art?

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body.
...
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

What could you possibly think your art project is going to inspire me to talk about, besides the fact that you horrify me as a human being? Do you think people will go to the exhibit and say, "Huh, I had no idea there was so much blood during an abortion. Thanks to this display, I feel educated on the subject." You're unbelievably stupid if you don't think the only thing people will feel is shock and revulsion.

Look, even people who think that there might be some times when the morning-after pill or an abortion is the right choice for a woman, that time is certainly not whenever you feel like pumping yourself full of sperm and videotaping your miscarriage for a passing grade in art class.

And because these days I have a hard time seeing anything without my own lens of reproductive woes, this just appalls me on levels I can't even describe.

What in the hell is wrong with "artists" these days? Doesn't anyone just paint anymore?

UPDATE:

Here's another completely awful "art" exhibit. This time, a dog is chained up Tantalus-style, just out of reach of food. And left to starve to death. It's art!

Posted by: Sarah at 04:09 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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AirForceWife wrote the following recently:

A few weeks ago I read an article that summarized a study about kid play. The results of the study were ASTOUNDING. The gist of it was this:

For the last fifteen years or so, parents have been directing children's play more and more in an effort to help them learn earlier and more easily. Action figures are no longer generic, but so specific they can't even be kept in the same vinyl storage case. Rather than "free play" where kids interact together with a minimum of adult involvement, adults are now fully involved and moving their spawn from place to place and activity to activity without giving the kid a chance to just play.

And a lot of kids don't know how to "just play" anymore.

The results of the study showed that in trying to help our kids this way, we were actually stunting the evolutionary adaptions that kids self-teach themselves to problem solve and interact in society. These learned behaviors are the basis for everything else a kid learns. In effect, we are giving our kids learning disabilities by trying to give them learning advantages.

I am no longer teaching knitting classes, but I am still working at Michaels when they have in-store events. And my favorite thing to do is watch parents interact with their kids when they bring them in for the kid-geared free events.

One example was the day sponsored by Crayola where the kids got to try out these fancy new markers and paper. So the craft was to make a door hanger, you know, like a Keep Out sign. And it was fascinating how many parents didn't like the way their kid was coloring or what he was doing and literally took the markers from his hands and made the hanger for him.

Yeah, little kids color like crap. The door hanger will not have their name and a fancy drawing of a cat if the kid is 3 years old. But if he just wants to take one marker of every color and draw a mess of squiggles, why not? It doesn't hurt anything, and it sure doesn't teach the kid any skills when you take the marker away from him and do the craft yourself.

At the play-doh section, I saw one parent tell her kid his thing was ugly. And she was right, it was ugly. But dang. She made him re-do it.

I think this is related to the idea of "free play." One thing that I have learned from watching all this parent-child interaction is that I will have to remind myself someday to let my kid put whatever he wants on his door hanger. And not do it for him. No matter how ugly it is.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:34 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 #3 made me a necklace of beads (she used my expensive ones) for my birthday. It's hideous. But I wore it anyway. And smiled. She and The Boy made it behind my back when they thought I wasn't paying attention. Cleaning up the beads they left behind made it kind of obvious what was going on, but it was so funny and sweet that they were trying! I think a lot of the parent problem with directing kids making door hangers has to do with the fact that they are around other people and conditioned to the thought that we all have to have little prodigies. If they did these things at home more often, the kids might have more chance to express themselves without being directed. Or, maybe they should just give their sons mohawks and teach them to yell, "Gernomino!", which makes the kid stand out sufficiently enough to make them a little less subject to the whole group dynamic pressure. Or maybe I just scare people.

Posted by: airforcewife at April 03, 2008 11:40 AM (mIbWn)

2 From door hangers to school projects. My kids definitely turn in their own work, even though it is hard for me to step back sometimes and not say a word. I sure don't want to have to go to college with them because they can't do things themselves! When my oldest was little and in Gymboree, she was 2 and she and her little friend were the only ones that weren't in freaking golf lessons! The other Dad was a golf pro too, but he didn't see the point in it and neither did I. Oh well, so I am not raising a Tiger Woods, but my kids certainly don't lack in creativity! One thing I will definitely do as a teacher is to nurture the spirit. I see too many kids during my observation hours that are beat down and told horrible thingsat home and then always think the things that they do are not good enough and want to give up. Maybe...hopefully...I am determined to make a difference. Pretty soon Gunner's hooch will be decorated in early childhood scribble and I know he will love all of them.

Posted by: Army Blogger Wife at April 03, 2008 12:17 PM (Y3JJK)

3 This reminds me of that chain email that was purportedly from Paul Harvey (but was a hoax, but I still liked the message): We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. http://cluestick.info/hoax/Paul_Harvey_Riddle.htm

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at April 03, 2008 01:43 PM (U2RJu)

4 I always thought that when you're a parent, everything your kid makes is a work of art. Not so?

Posted by: Green at April 03, 2008 02:09 PM (6Co0L)

5 My SIL is like this. The kids play all these sports and never have time to do things on their own. It's sad. And she's always making fun of the projects they do in school. I don't see the point of that. Allowing them to suck at stuff gives them the skills and practice they need to get better.

Posted by: Ann M. at April 03, 2008 03:25 PM (HFUBt)

6 I think too many parents obsess about credentials and "skills," while ignoring *metaskills*...or what used to be called "character." It doesn't matter how good your grades are, or how many extracurriculars you were in...once you get out into the world, if you can't take initiative and make decisions for yourself...if you can't bounce back from a disappointment...it's unlikely that you're going to be very successful.

Posted by: david foster at April 03, 2008 05:15 PM (ke+yX)

7 Moderation is the key. Let them do stuff on their own and every once in a while stick your nose in and teach them how to do it a little better. I don't know if I was any good at it when my kids were small. You'd have to ask them now that they're grown up. I was too tired to hover (hovering is a hell of a lot of work). LOL. They did much playing on their own. I will never forget one of the mothers I knew who was a "hoverer". She would listen at the door of her daughter's room to see if everyone was getting along. I asked her what she was doing... when she told me I said - leave them be, they can work out their own problems. She said "but if there's a fight I want to settle it fairly". I said, "Oh hell no, if they fight and come to me to settle it - everyone is in trouble... that makes them work at it harder next time." I believe she thought I was insane. LOL.

Posted by: Teresa at April 03, 2008 05:17 PM (rVIv9)

8 It is hard to let your kids do it themselves. My husband is way better at this and has helped me. Even with the everyday stuff. As soon as the girls could walk, he had them walk as much as possible. Get out of the car, they walk to the door. Go to the grocery store - once we are inside, walk down the isles with us. It made things slower and sometimes it would have been easier to pick them up and go. But now they are both excellent walkers!!!!

Posted by: Amy at April 04, 2008 06:47 AM (x3nWw)

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Let the going nuts commence:

Real Katrina hero? Wal-Mart, study says

"Profit-seeking firms beat most of the government to the scene and provided more effectively the supplies needed for the immediate survival of a population cut off from life's most basic necessities," Horwitz wrote in the study, which was published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "Though numerous private-sector firms played important roles in the relief operations, Wal-Mart stood out."

Stuff Mentioned That White People Hate:

free market solutions
corporations
evil Wal-Mart
the government sucking
bottom-up problem solving
how price gouging saves and appropriately distributes resources

(This blog post patterned off of the White People in the News category at Stuff White People Like.)

Posted by: Sarah at 02:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I finished reading Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom. I think for accessibility's sake I prefer Thomas Sowell's books, but without Friedman there would be no Sowell.

One thing that struck me was how little progress we've made in 46 years. Most of the points Friedman argues are the same points I've heard from the likes of Sowell, Stossel, or Elder. School vouchers, ending the minimum wage, a flat tax, the unsustainablility of social security: Friedman was talking about all of these things in 1962. 1962, for pete's sake. And we haven't done anything about it since then? These problems have been common knowledge for nearly 50 years, and still we manage to screw it up.

A lot of the book felt like it could've been written last week, since we still face the same stupid issues today. That is, until he starts using actual facts and figures.

In 1961, government amounted to something like $33 billion (federal, state, and local) on direct welfare payments and programs of all kinds: old age assistance, social security benefit payments, aid to dependent children, general assistance, farm price support programs, public housing, etc.

Then you see just how boned we are. Each of these programs alone is more than $33 billion these days.

We've had 46 years to take the advice of the world's greatest economist. Why have we been so stupid?

Posted by: Sarah at 03:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Sis B left a comment in the last post. Excerpt:

As far as entitlement... I'm always at a loss here. I have been in situations when I desperately needed a hand up. I have friends who have needed that as well. All of us have used what little we could get by with and managed to get back up on our feet. That's the way "the system" should work.

However, I also know people who have lived in public housing for SIXTY years. Without ever trying to leave. People like that ruin things for everyone else who just need a boost.

I totally agree with this. This is what Bill Whittle meant when he said, "we no longer have a safety net; we have created a safety hammock." I agree that there are times when people need help, and there should be someone they can turn to in a pinch. But I fear there just aren't that many "The Pursuit of Happyness" people out there. I think once you get used to getting something for free, it's hard to let it go. Or once you get used to the government taking care of things, why do it yourself?

I have had a battle raging in my head like this for months now, over something so trivial but completely representative of my beliefs. And it's become a value struggle for me. It's over prenatal vitamins. In the military, we get all prescriptions for free, including prenatal vitamins. But only after you get pregnant, not just while you're trying. I've been buying bottle after bottle of these vitamins for over a year now, and every time I buy them, I get a little mad that I have to shell out the eight bucks myself when I think the Army should just let me have them. For the past six years, I haven't asked for hardly anything from Tricare, so I feel entitled to those damned vitamins, especially since they'd give them to me for free if my body would just cooperate and get pregnant. And when I did get pregnant, I got a bottle for free. When I miscarried, I wanted to go in before the pharmacy found out I'd lost the baby and grab more of the danged vitamins.

It's so stupid and trivial that it seems laughable to write about it. But I think about it all the time: why do I feel entitled to those silly vitamins? Why does it make me mad to pay for them? Simple: because in different circumstances, I would get them for free. It makes me feel like I should get them for free all the time.

How I hate to admit that I have had such a thought.

It's really playing mindgames on me. I don't like the realization that I think the government owes me prenatal vitamins. I don't like the fact that I want to get them for free. I am considering punishing myself for my bad behavior by forcing myself to buy them if I get pregnant instead of taking any of them for free; that's how ashamed I am at my entitlement mentality. And I think I have a pretty hefty libertarian streak in me; I can only imagine what other people think the government owes them.

OK, so let's expand out to something less trivial than vitamins. My husband went in the field this past week. He needed certain gear from CIF, but they didn't have everything he needed. So he was in a bind: he had to have it for the field, but he couldn't get it from the Army at that moment. So he had to buy his own gear, stuff he could've gotten for free if the supply sergeant hadn't been on leave when my husband inprocessed. Stuff like a pistol holster, magazine pouches, etc. It was infuriating to spend all that money on stuff he's entitled to. But it made me think about Kim du Toit's Walter-Adam Fund. His readers raised money to buy things that the Army was theoretically supposed to provide for soldiers, like scopes or rangefinders. But the du Toits insisted that soldiers who fought in our Revolutionary War fought with the guns they owned and shirts on their backs. That our nation was founded on people providing for themselves instead of waiting for the government to hand them what they need. And, the du Toits continued, that if some were willing to go fight, we should be willing to back them financially, and not just through our taxes. That we have a duty to go above and beyond what the government does for our troops.

Kim du Toit rephrased this very old and lost-in-cyberspace post when he wrote about renewing the Walter-Adam Fund.

I know, I know: the Army should be getting them this stuff, not private individuals. That’s the ideal. But anyone who’s ever been exposed to the .mil knows that this doesn’t always happen—and in fact it can’t always happen. That’s where we step in. It’s not the government’s Army—it’s our Army. The Army is supposed to feed and support these kids at all times, and they do a pretty good job of it. Yet, if they were fighting on our soil, and during a lull in the fighting a soldier came to your door and asked for some food and drink, would you turn him away with the words: “The Army is supposed to give you food and drink”? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d empty out your pantry, or take food off your own plate if you had to.

In keeping with the NoR’s motto of “One Citizen At A Time”, therefore, these funds are run on pretty much the “One Soldier At A Time” philosophy too. I can’t get a regiment new tanks or Bradleys, but I can help improve the lives of a few soldiers, actual breathing individuals to whom I can write and speak, and then share that with all of you.

And if we can get them gear rather than just care packages, stuff which will help them kill enemy bastards, then so much the better. We are the Nation of Riflemen, after all, not the Red Cross.

This has stuck with me for the years, years, since I donated to the original Walter-Adam Fund. The du Toits believe so much in having the government stay out of our affairs that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is and spend their own money -- after they've already provided for our nation's defense via taxes -- to provide gear for the soldiers at war. I am humbled to write on the same internet as such people.

And it's a swift kick in the rear when I think that I've gotten hung up on vitamins.

The thing is, I don't like the feeling that I am entitled to anything, be it vitamins or a pistol holster. In the end, I am responsible for the baby I may have, and my husband is responsible for his own safety. If we waited for the government to do these things for us, they might not get done, even if it's the government's job to do it. They're supposed to give my husband the gear he needs. Well, what if they can't? Ultimately, we need to step up to the plate and assume the cost.

I'm rambling worse than Sis B thought she was. In the end, what I am trying to say is this: If something needs to get done, I need to do it. If my baby didn't get enough folic acid and then had problems, how could I possibly have the nerve to blame the government for not letting me have free vitamins. If my husband doesn't have enough rounds to be safe because he doesn't have magazine pouches on his body armor, we can't blame the supply sergeant for that. It's our lives and we're in control.

So what happens when we move to a society where everyone is getting more and more things for free? What happens when every woman gets free prenatal vitamins? I am certain that most of them won't have the same moral dilemma I have with receiving them. And what happens when the government says that everyone is entitled to affordable college or health care or social security? And then they run out of social security like they ran out of pistol holsters? Few people are gonna suck it up and go out and buy their own like we did. There's only so much social security money to go around, and what happens when people start screaming to get theirs?

Entitlement isn't just about welfare or government housing. It's about expecting the government to do anything for you, including things they're supposed to do (like pistol holsters). The only person you should count on is yourself. Buy your own vitamins, get your own magazine pouches, and plan for your own college or retirement.

If more people lived as if there were no safety net, we sure wouldn't have this safety hammock.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:08 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I just deleted another long disseratation about what happens when you get things for free. Now I feel like I have to call someone and argue about this.

Posted by: airforcewife at March 28, 2008 08:45 AM (mIbWn)

2 Rambling or not, this is a great post. I've never forced myself to put it into words like you (and du Toit) did, but this is exactly why I am so serious about "troop support" non-profits. If something needs to get done, I need to do it. Exactly. The military/government isn't taking as good care of our troops as they ideally should (could?). Things are better in many ways than they were back in 2002/2003, but there are still problems--gaps, foul-ups, inefficiencies, delays, etc. So, we step up to fill in. And one of the great things about this kind of "stepping up" is that, for us civilians, the military then becomes more and more ours, reinforcing a bond that is vital for a healthy society.

Posted by: FbL at March 28, 2008 02:32 PM (rW1/8)

3 I know this is completely beside the point, but he will almost certainly be happier with a holster that he buys himself as opposed to the issue item. And if it's any consolation, I was a machine gunner and had to carry the silly thing around with me on the base because not only could they not provide me with a pistol holster--they couldn't provide me with the pistol (!). Too many FOBbits traded in their M-16s for pistols for convenience, so I had no backup weapon. On the plus side, people give you more space when you carry a SAW into the PX. Sig

Posted by: Sig at March 28, 2008 08:58 PM (7uphd)

4 I felt supremely guilty about all of the fertility efforts made on our behalf for free. Beyond the vitamins. Things people without healthcare or with pretty much any other healthcare can't even afford to consider. For free. And further down the line, for small small fractions of the cost to those outside the tricare world. It is a great thing. I preferred buying the prenatal vitamins at the local corner drugstore. Between the lines at the walter reed pharmacy and dc traffic, getting my free vitamins raised my blood pressure too much I would have needed more free medication to regulate it. But I have to admit the cost of college bothers me greatly. I can't stand that the price of textbooks goes higher and higher every semester. It is absurd to me that we have to limit how many classes we take by how many books we can afford to buy. I don't want things for free. I just wish there was a measure of sensibility and fairness in some things.

Posted by: wifeunit at March 30, 2008 09:56 PM (9Qx0C)

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Last night I went to my first political rally, to support Fred Smith for governor. I met him last fall when I was invited with other bloggers to his home. And since our state primary is approaching in about five weeks (lordy loo, we still haven't gotten anywhere near voting here), Fred Smith is out and about, again with his good friend Lee Greenwood.

Now, all I really needed to know about this candidate is that Lorie Byrd is working for him. That's pretty much a good enough endorsement for me, and I probably would've voted for him just based on that knowledge. But I really like Fred Smith's stuff, and I hope he makes it all the way to the top. Most of my friends are internet-based, but if any of you reading this live and vote in the same state as I do, please consider reading about Fred Smith and voting for him in May.

So I got all pumped up on patriotism again last night, my drug of choice. Of course Lee Greenwood sang "God Bless the USA" again, which brings the house down. And I can't get enough of the song he wrote for Fred Smith's campaign:

But honestly, the thing that touched me the most last night was something so small, so unnoticed. The stage in the auditorium had two flags on it, the US flag and the state flag. And before the rally got started, I noticed some men from Fred Smith's staff fussing around the US flag. They left and came back with a cinder block and lifted the flag stand up onto the block. A lady sitting behind me asked her husband why they were bothering with that silly brick.

The American flag was bigger than the state flag and was too big for its stand. It was dragging on the ground, and these men had set to work getting that flag off the floor.

My heart grew three sizes.

That's a heck of a campaign staff. No Che flags in this bunch.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:34 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The Washington Post put out an article on why the recent crop of Iraq war movies aren't doing so well. What's their take?

For now, Kuntz agrees with Bochco: "We're bombarded by information about [Iraq] 24 hours a day," he says. "We already know plenty about it. We don't need to learn more about it from the movies. Right now, it's something people want to forget and escape from. I speak for the American public when I say, 'What a bummer.' "

I speak for my blog when I say, "What a jackass."

They go through this huge list of anti-war movies and wonder why the public isn't interested. Hmmm, let me take a stab at it: Make a movie like 300, and people will flock to the theater. Make the soldiers the freaking good guys, and you've got yourself a hit; make them rapists or dupes or Tools of the Bushitler Oil Junta, and no one wants to see your damn movie.

Maybe dumb people think the Iraq war is a "bummer" because all your movies present it that way.

You know, Neil tried to shop his blog Armor Geddon around as a book. No one wanted to buy it. They told him it needed more inner-angst. He needed to be more conflicted about his role in the war. He needed to not rejoice when they blew up a house full of terrorists. Eventually he gave up, because they weren't buying what he was selling: a book about a soldier who was proud of his platoon and proud to support the mission.

But I bet people would've bought his book. Regular, average, everyday Americans want patriotism, heroes, and victory. They don't want inner-angst and movies about soldiers who got stop-lossed and don't really want to be there.

Sheesh, any waitress or truck driver could figure this out. But apparently journalists from The Washington Post think it's a mystery.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:03 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I read an article in The Australian the other day that begins like this:

A few years ago I joined some colleagues on an academic conference jaunt to a large private university in the American northeast. The approved conference itinerary was to take us directly from our swish Chicago hotel to the campus gates, in the hygienic manner of the modern business traveller.

For reasons too complicated to retell, on the return trip we found ourselves becalmed in a village in the backwaters of rural Indiana, in the old American heartland. The streets we strolled down were lined with wooden bungalows, and there was a flagstaff with the Stars and Stripes in every other front yard. We ate in rural diners by the highway with orange-tinted windows, stained wooden cubicles and waitresses with chequered aprons.

Much like Columbus, we had voyaged in search of streets paved with gold, and instead we had accidentally discovered America.

I remembered this article this morning as my husband and I ate breakfast at the Waffle House. If I knew a foreign visitor who needed to see a slice of the USA, I'd seriously make a stop at the greasy spoon. All walks of life, all races, all ages at the Waffle House, crammed into a smokey, loud, friendly place. And the work ethic at the Waffle House! Those cooks and waitresses move fast. None of this we'll-cook-your-schnitzel-when-we-damn-well-get-around-to-it business at the Waffle House, nosiree. The manager's washing dishes, six waffle irons are going, and waitresses are waiting in line to bark words like "scattered" and "smothered."

At the Waffle House, America is a spectator sport.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:45 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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My apologies to LGF for stealing his flying pig, but dang...

Angelina Jolie wrote approvingly about the progress in Iraq:

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?
...
As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

(Via Insty, via Taranto)

Frank J wrote a funny post the other day about Obama called "My Solution to Iraq Is to Never Have Gone There." It was funny because it felt all too true; many people talk about fixing Iraq in the past tense, as if "we shouldn't be there in the first place" is an actual solution. So -- and I can't believe I'm typing this -- kudos to Angelina Jolie for dealing with the actual situation as it stands today and not wishing for some utopian non-invasion that doesn't exist. And kudos to her for reporting what she saw on the ground, despite the fact that (I'm guessing) it doesn't jibe with her preconceptions.

So, yeah, pigs fly.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:04 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Lots of people agree that Obama is low on substance. But no one can phrase it like Lileks:

On the radio today Medved and Hewitt both asked Obama supporters to call and say why they were supporting their man. Specifics, please. The replies were rather indistinct. He would end the division and bring us together by encouraging us all to talk about common problems, after which we would compromise. He will give us hope by giving us hope: for many, the appeal has the magical perfect logic of a tautology. It's a nice dream. But compromise is impossible when you have a fundamental differences about the proper way to solve a problem. I believe we can achieve a fair society by taking away your house and giving it to someone else. I disagree. It is my house. Then let us agree to give away half of your house. Compromise! But that is not a compromise. You have taken half my house. We have compromised on your behalf with those who would have taken it all. Let us not return to the politics of division. There are strangers living in my spare bedroom. Then we have truly come together. Look, this isnÂ’t a matter on which we can compromise, because we have conflicting premises. YouÂ’re pretending matter and anti-matter have the same relationship as Coke and Pepsi. They donÂ’t.

He goes on with more awesomeness. My pal Amritas once said that Lileks is the Mark Twain of our time. I love that. I just love how Lileks writes.

(You did say that, right, Amritas? Did I mix you up with Bunker?)

Posted by: Sarah at 08:36 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Sorry, I can't remmeber if I wrote that or not. It sounds familiar, but I might have read it on Bunker's site. Unfortunately, his site has been ... taken over: http://www.bunkermulligan.net/ It still lives on at archive dot org, though. I am sure of one thing, though: it's an honor to have my name and Bunker's on the same line!

Posted by: Amritas at February 20, 2008 11:48 AM (+nV09)

2 I like him for his policy. I rarely listen to what candidates say, it's all going to be smarmy feel good crap anyway. I went to their websites and read about their stances on major issues. His plans seem thorough and deep. Unfortunately, the majority of the American voting public seems to like the feel-good taglines rather than caring about substance. One of his positions is that we must confront the growing threat in Pakistan, which is where the Al Qaeda training camps are and is one of the main reasons we have not yet succeeded in Afghanistan. He also plans to expand the military (including the National Guard) in an effort to meet the growing demands of keeping the region and our nation safe. He has a list of things to do for veterans to make sure they are taken care of during transition and thereafter. For more about Pakistan, you can look here: http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/remarks_of_senator_obama_the_w_1.php. It'll auto-play a speech, so you might want to stop it so you can read what he's saying. The Pakistan info is about halfway down. If you want to see how he stands on other subjects, you can go to www.barackobama.com and click on issues. That will pull up a list of major issues from which you can choose. Once you click on an issue, if you don't see enough substance in the summary, scroll down and click on "read the plan" for an adobe file of more information. You might disagree with where he stands on a lot of issues (and knowing you I'm sure you will ), but I think it's unfair hype to say he's short on substance. And just as he's not responsible for a random idiot displaying a Che Guevara flag, he's not responsible for the ignorance of some of his supporters, either. From reading all of his positions and plans, I don't get the feeling that "compromise" is a major part of his policy plan. Moreso than the right wing, but not as much as it's made out to be here.

Posted by: Sis B at February 20, 2008 01:29 PM (qPf1j)

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I was reading about Obamamania today and came across this tangential comment by "a thirty-something, African-American female":

And finally, after Iowa something changed. I am what you might now call an Obamamaniac and am 'emotionally involved' as you say. But it's not because I think he is some Messiah. I haven't fallen in love with him. His campaign has made me fall in love with this country. His campaign has made me rethink assumptions I had made about huge swaths of this country. My only thought of North Dakota was a place not to go because of the color of my skin. Now, after Iowa, I realize my own small-mindedness and my own cynicism. Sure, some people out there will not want me around but I'll wait until they make that clear to me.

And that is just really, really cool.

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