Arnold Dupuy put his education on hold to serve his country:
I was working on my second M.A. when an opportunity arose to train Afghan soldiers. I jumped at the chance, as I wanted to make a contribution to the war effort and help the Afghan people. I dropped out of classes, left my wife and two young children, and with a team of exceptionally intelligent and dedicated men, trained several hundred Afghan artillery men.
I have since resumed my studies and will finish next year. Other than being a parent, that experience has been one of the most satisfying of my life. Furthermore, my brother completed three tours in Southeast Asia; my father fought the Japanese in Burma; and my grandfather served in Europe in both world wars. They were all highly intelligent, educated men who made the military a career not because they were losers, but because they loved this country.
Why is it so difficult for Kerry, Rangel and their ilk to understand that bright men and women will put on the uniform not out of desperation but out of love and devotion to their county?
Brian O'Rourke didn't make the cut:
In 1992, my senior year of college, I was rejected for military service on medical grounds: I had asthma after age 12. Because people like Rangel were screaming at the time for a "peace dividend," the military was drawing down its forces at a rate like that at the end of World War II. Had I not failed the physical on those grounds, I'd most likely be in the Coast Guard (though I was flirting with the blue water Navy as well) fighting drug dealers in the Caribbean, or guarding ports in the Gulf, or searching tankers off Boston harbor. Sadly, I'm not, so I live military life vicariously, through my best man, who though an Air Force staff officer was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Iraq; through a former student's service in the Navy--even now traveling home from the Middle East; through another groomsman in the Army
reserve who has been to many ugly mudholes around the world; and through others who have come and gone from my life over the years. The two men in my wedding graduated from college with me, from Tufts, which has a long, distinguished history of ROTC and a more recent, shameful one of disparaging the hell out of the men and women who join it. I know from firsthand witness that they've been mocked, jeered at and insulted in Rangelian terms since they began their undergraduate years. All this at a school that is among the most highly selective schools in the country--a school that has produced quite a few of the self-styled cognoscenti in Kerry and Rangel's service. That former student is an Annapolis grad. I taught him in high school, and he could have gone to any school in the country--he chose service--and now he's my daughter's godfather. In the final analysis, I'm always a little embarrassed that I failed the physical, because from a young age I wanted to serve, and wheezy lungs seems like such a stupid reason to have to be a "wannabe." But my association with these friends is a great honor to me. These men are smart, capable and honorable, and Rangel isn't fit to lace their combat boots.
Bob Crotty salutes his son's bravery:
In rebuttal to the Rangel/Kerry attitude towards today's military. I offer a brief story about my son's service. He is a second lieutenant in the Army headed to Korea next year.He graduated from Stanford with a 3.2 average and a degree in computer science in June 2006. He could be enjoying his first job in Silicon Valley or elsewhere, but instead decided, on his own, to try Army ROTC as a freshman at Stanford. Stanford, of course, does not permit ROTC on its campus, so Bobby and numerous other Stanford students drove the hour round trip to Santa Clara University several times a week to pursue ROTC. The Army offered Bobby a four-year scholarship as a freshman, but I counseled him to turn it down because he did not need the financial assistance.As a dad who served in the military, I would wholeheartedly support his decision to serve. But, because we are in the midst of a war, I wanted him to be certain that he wanted to serve.
At the beginning of his sophomore year and without
telling us until afterwards, he accepted an Army scholarship and committed to serving at least four years of active duty. He is currently on active duty and hopes to attend Ranger school before shipping out to his first duty station in Korea. I had a chance to meet a number of the young men and women in his ROTC unit,as well as the Santa Clara University ROTC cadre--what an impressive group! I can confidently report that the country's military is, and will continue to be, in good hands, much better hands than the likes of Kerry or Rangel. Those young ROTC students are the best of American youth, willing to serve their country in a time of peril. We sing that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. I ask you, who today is braver than those serving in the military? Capt. Michael Tyson writes in from the front:
I have been deployed to Iraq for almost two months and only recently got to a point where I can take some time every day to read Best of the Web. I've been trying to catch up, and latched on to the series of emails you've received from folks like me in response to the Hon. Kerry and Rangel.
Let me tell you about my team.We are small, numbering only nine, but judging by the responses you've gotten, we are typical. I have been serving this great nation for a little over 20 years, most of that time enlisted.I joined a year out of high school. A short nine years later I finished my bachelor's; I would have finished it sooner, but deployments to Saudi and shift work made it difficult. I finished with a degree in Russian and a 3.67 GPA. I am now an officer with a master's in national security studies.
My team chief is a man with about 15 years' Air Force experience and a bachelor's degree, and he just happens to speak five languages, all but one of which he learned in the Air Force.
The next three of my team have varying years of experience (from 6 to 12). All speak Arabic fluently (none had Arabic-speaking parents). All but one have a bachelor's degree. One speaks five other languages fluently.
My lead technician is a Desert Storm veteran and is now on his second tour to the Middle East. Did I mention he's a civilian and he volunteered for this?My other technician just got accepted for a new assignment to serve on Air Force One. He has a bachelor's degree and is actively seeking a master's program for when he gets to Washington. My senior operator has a bachelor's degree in Korean and is on her second Iraq deployment, having spent only four months at home between the two trips.Yes, she volunteered for both. Lastly, I have an operator who is celebrating his first wedding anniversary in a few days. He has spent a total of three months with his new bride this entire first year of his marriage. And yes, he's volunteered for every deployment this last year. Additionally, he got back from a yearlong remote tour in Korea a little more than a year ago. Oh, did I mention all of my team except me are enlisted? This is typical of what I've seen in the last 20-plus years.
Cheers from the sandbox, sir. Cheers back atcha, Captain. Randy Whitell didn't serve, but he offers an appreciation of those who did, in the spirit of the season:
I was in college in 1971, I think it was, when I received a draft number that was somewhere around 312. I finished college, got a job, and looked into flying jets for the Navy. It was a six-year commitment and that seemed like eternity to me then, so I didn't join. Later I came to realize that I probably wouldn't have made it landing on carriers and should have considered flying bombers in the Air Force, but either way, I have always regretted not serving my country. I tell that story so that you realize that I am not qualified to comment on military service or international politics or to have a legitimate opinion on the rightness--or wrongness, for that matter--of going to war. Nonetheless, I often think now of the lives we lead--are taught to lead--and realize, as James Taranto often points out, that we're all going to die at some point, and that dying for one's country in a legitimate fight for our freedom or someone else's, is not, contrary to what the left insists, a waste of one's life. On the contrary, I have come to understand the military's view of honor and that dying honorably, while not desirable when premature, is better than living dishonorably, or even with little purpose. And this latter point is where so much of humanity lives.
In religious mythology, the heroes are those who turn aside from their wants and desires and answer a call to something greater than themselves. It is overcoming the "I want" of one's ego with the "I will" of one's greater self. It is a universal principle central to all religions. This type of decision is everything and the heroes return from their "adventures" with, as Joseph Campbell calls them, "boons to mankind." No one enters the military with the idea that he will die, but they are fully aware of the risks and somewhere inside realize that as long as the cause is a worthy one, that they will not have died for naught, should their number come up. At this Christmas season, it may well be worth remembering Jesus' words, "That no greater love is this, that a man lay down his life
for his brother." Because when one looks at Jesus' life from a mythological point of view, Jesus volunteered to break open the gates of Eden, which had been closed since the beginning of mankind.
Anyone who lays down his life to free others is similarly a hero and anyone with little opportunity and little purpose in their lives could do a lot worse than serving their country.
You can read more of the articulate, thoughtful replies to this topic at The Wall Street Journal Opinion Page here
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