A pittance of time...

From a commenter on a recent Hugh Hewitt post:

Young Men and Women Going Off to War
My son graduated from high school this year. He, like many of his classmates, is now off to college; he's studying business. He's an entrepreneurial young man so this is just right for him. My son considered the military, and we'd gotten the occasional recruiter calls at the house for the last year because of my son's interest. In the end, he's off to college, but the military was a real option. One that my husband and I did not discourage.

My daughter, three years behind my son, wants to go to Annapolis. JAG then Harvard. She's got the grades to do it. We're doing everything we can to see that her dream happens.

One of my son's best buddies has joined the Coast Guard. Another buddy has joined the Army. These young men have been to my house numerous times over the last few years and they are both bright. One is a high-achiever - he is focused and knows just what he wants. The military is going to be better because of him. The other young man wasn't sure about which technical school he wanted to go to after high school, and decided that the military would give him options, benefits and purpose. In this case, the military is going to be good for a capable young man.

Throughout the past summer, every week or so my son reported on another classmate who signed up. Some were suprises, some were not. Now, these young men and women are from a wealthy area. We're five miles from the beaches of Southern California! Dude, these dudes and chicks could've gone surfin', for Pete's sake.

They did not have to join the military. But they did.

As a mom, whose son didn't make that choice, I am so deeply touched and impressed by these young men and women, who have options - choices - to do anything they want, and yet still decide to serve this nation. They, and everyone else that signed up for military service, are what make this country great.

(Yes, I expect my son to make this country great, too, through business and commerce, and he'd better darn well have created jobs for his classmates and others who end their service and get into the job market.)

And I know that what happened in my town this past summer also happened in many, many towns across America.

There's a reason why members of the audience gasped at John Kerry's offensive remark. It's because we know the people that he insulted, for the sake of a joke, and they're not worthy of such shabby treatment.

Anybody can make a joke, even John Kerry. But when you pony up to the microphone, make a public speech, trade on your celebrity status and do everything possible to draw attention to yourself, then you'd be wise to take your pot shots at others like yourself - public figures and toadies. Not our service men and women, not when we're fighting a treacherous war that requires every person to keep his or her wits about them.

The US military is all volunteer. No one is being conscripted to fight. Even those who signed up because it was their best economic choice - or because it's a chance to put their troubles behind and start over - deserve our respect for making this decision. The military has a way of educating a young person and making a better person out of him or her. As an organization, this is to be respected as well.

No matter how hard Kerry and the nostalgic media wants this to be Vietnam, it just isn't. And they cannot treat our young people as if they've been forced to do this or made a bad or wrong decision.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means um-hum.

Some of the very best blog reading comes from comments like this one... and a great video from Terry Kelly.

John Kerry may have meant to slam George Bush, but at the very least it was a Freudian slip indicating how he and the Democrats really do feel about our military... that they're either uneducated victims or ruthless murderers.

Rush: John Kerry Said the Same Things About the American Military in 1972