When asked on a 60 Minutes segment concerning the prospect of military service, their responses rang with the same off-note, ear-splitting, mind-bending, what-the-hell-kinda’-BS-was- that? cacophonous response as Dick Cheney’s “other priorities at the time.” Understand, first and foremost, there is not one thing amiss, having aspirations that do not include military service . . . until . . . until one jumps aboard a policy wherein other young men and women (and some not so young) will be required to place their lives and their limbs in the slaughter queue to back the propounded policy.
Yet it gets even hold-the-nose much smellier.
When asked what his sons were doing to serve their country, the presidential aspirant responded that “They were helping their dad get elected president.”
Remember what I suggested in re hasty words and the truth? One can ask you all day what you think of, say, sushi or haggis or boiled liver. I guarantee that you will not blurt out that you like one or one of the others, unless you do. You will not because your response does not reside somewhere within you. And if you do respond favorably, you will only do so because that response resides somewhere within you. Thus, when Mr. Romney replied as he did, he did so because he must have genuinely believed that visiting every county in Iowa or bicycling across the state was somehow the same as one of our soldiers or marines donning 30-40 pounds of combat and protective gear for 10-12 hours or more, in a 110+ degree furnace, and literally facing life and life oozing to eternal blackness perils for more than a year, then to come back and do it all over again, then again — exactly as his stand on Iraq would require.
That isn’t merely sick. It isn’t just disgusting. As a 1964 – ’67 Army Infantry vet, as one who has marched and patrolled, and has seen and known those who have also walked that most terrible walk and have suffered indelibly for having done so, Mr. Romney’s incautious betrayal of his deepest held regards for what our men and women are enduring was so beyond deprecating blasphemy to the point there exist no words to describe them!
I most regret having to report to you sir, it ain’t the same. Not by a damned long shot it ain’t! And the thought that some day you might be faced with the decision to launch American men and women into harm’s way, based on your honest dismissal of their worth and likely sacrifices scares the living hell out of me.
Finally, you sir are nothing but a NIMBY in a $5,000 dollar suit. (Or did I estimate the cost of the apparel too low?) Except that it’s not your back yard you won’t have “it” in, it’s you and your kids that you won’t send. It’s someone else’s. God! how loathsome.
— Ed Tubbs
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
