Maybe John Kerry should have done his homework and remembered the study Tucker Carlson wrote about back in 2005.
You often hear people compare the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam, but here’s one key difference: Nobody’s calling veterans of the current war baby killers. Even the most strident opponents of Iraq go out of their way to praise the soldiers who’ve served there. Everyone is for the troops. It’s required.
Why the change in attitude? Two words: pity and guilt. Everyone knows America’s wars are fought by America’s poor, people with so few career options that serving in combat qualifies as a lucky break. We feel sorry for the troops because we know desperation drove them into the military. We feel guilty because they are doing what we, the more fortunate, don’t have to do.
It turns out we’re wrong on both counts. A new and comprehensive study of enlistment data by military analysts at the Heritage Foundation has found that the typical volunteer is both more affluent and better educated than the average 18 to 24-year-old American. That’s right: The average soldier is more privileged than his civilian counterpart. And the gap is widening. As the study puts it, since September 11th, “more volunteers have emerged from the middle and upper classes and fewer from the lowest-income groups. … Since 2001, enlistments have increased in the top two-fifths of income levels but have decreased among the lowest fifth.”
But wait. Aren’t poor minorities “disproportionately” represented in the enlisted ranks and the military? That’s the claim Congressman Charlie Rangel and others have made repeatedly on the House floor. It’s a total crock. According to a 2003 Pentagon study, “blacks tend to be concentrated in administration and support jobs, not in combat jobs.” Infantry, armored and artillery units, whose members suffer the bulk of casualties in Iraq and any war, tend to mirror the racial mix of the country almost exactly.
So if enlistees aren’t driven to the military by poverty and hopelessness, why do they join? For the adventure, maybe. Possibly for the experience. Maybe even because they believe in the cause.
Hard as it may be for the average congressman or newspaper columnist to believe, American soldiers aren’t losers. They’re adults who know exactly what they’re doing and are doing it voluntarily. Pity their suffering perhaps, but don’t patronize them.
Maybe Kerry doesn’t read conservatives like Tucker Carlson. (Carlson has been a fierce opponent of the Iraq War, but I think he is still considered a conservative.) I’ll bet Kerry reads the Washington Post though.
But Kerry said he just misspoke. Why should all Democrats be held accountable for something John Kerry said?
Okay, we will forget about Kerry for a minute and just take a look at what some other Democrat politicians and liberals have said on the subject. The first one that came to mind was actor Richard Belzer’s comment about those “19 and 20-year-old kids that couldn’t get a job.” Belzer said he knew much more about the war than them because they weren’t reading 20 newspapers a day like he was.
Along those same lines, when I heard Kerry’s comment I also recalled the way the liberal media treated the story of Jessica Lynch. Early in the Iraq war when the rescue of Lynch became a big story, most in the media went out of their way to include in their stories at least a few lines about how Lynch didn’t really want to be a soldier, but wanted to be a teacher. They said she was forced into the armed forces by poor economic conditions.
Charles Rangel has furthered the stereotype by making comments about only the poor serving. He even pushed for a draft in an effort to make the evil rich serve, too.
Some liberals, like Joel Stein, feel sorry for these poor uneducated troops who were so easy to trick, “I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I’m tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.”
As I said an earlier post, comments like these are enough to leave you speechless.
As a liberal and ex-seviceman I don’t get that chickenhawk crap either. I think it does a diservice to out cause. We have plent things better to argue about the war than who has the right to argue.
One can very reasonably argue about the going-to, the planning of and the conduct of the war. I was an infantry 1st Lt before transferring to JAG Corps and that gives me no more standing to make my arguements than anyone else on these threads.
We all know the old saying about opinons – like assholes everyone has one.
I so disagree with my liberal bretahern on this point.
Hugh,
The chickenhawk stuff is in response to those who think we can’t support troops and be against the war at the same time.
Sure the chickenhawk thing makes no sense to you, but its a retort to something else that makes no sense.
However, how could any young Republican who supports Bush and this war attend college rather than fight in a war their hero calls a “war for civilization”?
That sounds kind of important, if one were to believe the President.
I’m under the impression young Republicans are like me on this one. They don’t believe Bush either.
Robert, I can assure you, young Republicans are nothing like you, thank God.
The poor and the dark skinned don’t much populate the ranks anymore. Google it and learn something.
It is illogical to say we don’t support the war effort, but we support those making the effort. Just wrong, and inconsistent. Like usual with you guys. The average joe fighting this war won’t see the difference, I can assure you.
gozorak –
You spent time at Frankie’s Rocket Ranch too? I spent 8 years there, right after the MMIII upgrade in the ’70s. Glad to hear they finally got somewhere decent to eat on the base!
J.
Robert,
What we can’r believe is that you can support the troops while undermining them at the same time.
I know plenty of people that do support the troops but don’t like the war. Were against it from day 1, would like to see it over today. But they also think it is wrong to publish intelligence information that can help the enemy change tactics and be more successful. Or publish NIE excerpts out of context to paint the war effort and effects in the most negative light possible. Or ask troopers mothers if their son helped rape children, etc.
A good sized chunk, and a very vocal one at that, of the against the war crowd are demonstrably also against the troops out there fighting it. Or at best, don’t care if their attacks on the administration and the war has splash damage for the men and women in uniform.
And Robert, your point about college republican’s is what? It is just a rewording of the chickenhawk arguement.
Not everyone is cut out, mentally or physically, to serve in the military. Maybe some of these people know this. Is the only acceptable way to support the war, in your mind, enlistment in the armed forces?
I support breast feeding children over using formula. But I cannot lactate.
Does that mean my support is fake or invalid?
Ah, watch ’em squirm and hear ’em squeal!
You can almost see the flecks of flying spittle splashing the moonbats’ screens . . .
Somebody really rattled their cages today, didn’t they?
😉
SCSI, you tried that male breast feeding thing, too?
Damn, I can’t get nothin’ to come out. Makes the baby angry.
Which reminds me of the Angry Left which further retards my lactation, I am sure.
Damn!
How many feet can John Kerry fit in that mouth of his? Here he is on “Imus in the Morning” today:
Kerry: These guys have failed America. The people who owe an apology are people like Donald Rumsfeld, who didn’t send enough troops, who didn’t listen to the generals, who has made every mistake in the book. . . .
Imus: . . . Senator John McCain, he seems to think–he seems to agree with the Bush administration about your comments. And you know him, obviously, better than I do, but I know him pretty well. And he probably knows what you meant, too.
Kerry: I’m sorry that John McCain has said what he said. John McCain’s been a friend for a long time. But I have to tell you, I think John McCain is wrong about this.
John McCain has been a cheerleader for a policy that is incorrect. John McCain says we ought to send another 100,000 troops over there. First of all, we don’t have another 100,000 troops. Secondly, if you send them over there, it’s going to do exactly what’s already happened, which is attract more terrorists and more jihadists. Our own generals are telling us that it’s the numbers of troops that are the problem.
So the administration didn’t send enough troops and it sent too many troops? If only we had such a decisive, principled leader as president!