By PL: Translation: "I'm nice and safe in school, why risk my life fighting 'The War on Terror'?"
"It'a a volunteer army, which is great. That way, I can do a lot of talking, and leave the volunteering to others, many of whom dropped out of college to join the war because they bellieved in it."
By JJ: Where is this magic phenomenon occurring, Plaw? Hasn't the standard Charlie Rangel-leftist argument that the army is made up of uneducated, poor minorities?
If that is true, then where are all of these college students dropping out and joining the service?
:rolleyes:
First of all, don't ascribe what you call the "standard leftist arguments" to me.
If I've said that, fine. If I haven't, it carries no weight with me AFAIC.
Now, where is this "magic phenomenon occuring?
Well, all over, i'd say. I've read and heard any number of stories about college kids from all over the country who have done just that.
Perhaps they were made-up stories stories designed to disprove the notion that some people have that the armed forces
are "made up of uneducated, poor minorities"?
(BTW, do the out-of-town kids attending UB still call the natives of Buffalo "Buffaloons"? Perhaps these stories haven't reached up there yet)
By PL: If you believe in the war, yes you should.
BY JJ: Who said I believe in the war? You can quote me in multiple threads expressing my desire to leave Iraq immediately.
I think that
everyone wants us out of Iraq ASAP. That certain;y doesn't distinguish you from anyone else.
Do you want us out before "we finish the job", or should be just leave?
And haven't you expressed the view that you favored our invasion of Iraq in the first place?
You could have enlisted then.
By PL: And does that mean if you weren't in school with your grants and stipends, you would enlist?
By JJ: It is a distinct possibility, considering my family has a history of serving, and that the Armed Forces offer phenomenal packages for schooling and such.
Well, I guess if you say so..... Who am I to doubt your word?
By PL: But since I wasn't afraid to demonstrate against it, even in the face of being part of a peaceful demonstration and attacked on a picket line by bunch of hard-hatted construction worker-thugs swinging iron pipes and having only my bare hands to fight back with (and getting a good ass-kicking in the process), and another time being waded into by billy-club wielding police and winding up with a broken arm for my efforts, I don't think I would have been afraid of fighting in a war if it was a fight for something I felt was right.
By JJ: Clearly not enough of that beating sunk in.
Because, quite frankly, we all know what your generation did to "support the troops" in Vietnam - they would return home, and be spat upon and ostracized for doing their duty.
So much for "supporting the troops."
Yeah, that's the way to do it. Have a bunch of lawless thugs beat up those who they don't agree with, hoping that their message "sinks in".
Am I giving you too much credit in thinking that you don't really believe that, or am I misunderstanding your comment, which was perhaps meant only as another clever quip?
Please elaborate.
And once again, do not assume that my personal views are the same as those of "my generation"
I didn't spit on or ostracize any returning soldiers, and I don't know anyone who did, and I think that the few who did engage in that type of behavior were 100% wrong and hardly representative of a generation.
You weren't around then, so I should explain that the news accounts you've read about incidents like that were reported only because they were rare cases and, because they were so despicable, newsworthy.
Kinda like "man bites dog."
The vast majority of Americans - and I mean the
vast majority - welcomed the troops home and were thankful that they reurned alive.
Those who returned from Viet Nam were victims of the war, the same as its other victims, and most people treated them as such.
By PL: Give your kudos to DMC, not me.
By JJ: No, they were intentionally directed at you - after all, we're no longer on-topic.
[sarcasm]Damn, I keep forgetting that you're the self-appointed internet police around here, deciding what is on topic and what isn't and when it is appropriate to cite posts from other threads and when it's not.[/sarcasm]
