I read your comments, 2 Aug 2005, and am struck by the blanket statement concerning “a State with a slave military”. I find it odd as I was from a middle class family and did not have to enlist, in the late sixties, in order to excape poverty. I enlisted into the Navy for the opportunities it presented to me that I found appealing but I was by no means enlaved to a system that I did leave following nine years of service. In 1996, I decided again to serve my country in the Army National Guard as a “weekend warrior”. At the time I had a good income and family with no need to “enslave” myself to the system. I did it as an adventure and after serving a tour in Iraq it did prove to be an adventure. My brothers in arms, too, were not poverty stricken or there because they had no other way out of a particular situation but rather much for the same reason as I, they desired to serve and loved the adventure.

Yes, there are those who use the service as a means to better themselves but to tag the service as a form of enslavement is truely and an innacuracy that I felt I had to address.

SSG Shaw, Ret

Service was a young man’s duty in my family, one we looked forward to fulfill. The ideals heaped upon our shoulders were pure and noble. The reputation I had to live up to was grand, filled with deeds and sacrifices. Places like Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Meh Cong, and Normandy have been feed with the blood of my kin. And I agree wholeheartedly that “The tree of liberty must, from time to time, be feed with the blood of patriots”, we no longer feed the Tree of Liberty.

Why is it that those that give the most, receive the least? Never to be paid in harvest, the fruit of their labors. Why is it that the arm chair liberals, and capitalistic conservatives reap massive benefits from the blood, sweat, and tears of the poor? Were did the tradition of noblesse go? Should not the ones that will profit greatly be asked to sacrifice greatly? Why are the cherished son’s of Senators and Congressmen not on the front lines of battle? Where are the Bush daughters? In a hospital mere miles from the front, staunching the wounds of war? I didn’t think so.

We are a state with a slave military. I have known brilliant sergeants, without a degree. Kept in place by social constraint. This bloom of youth, plucked from mostly poor families with paper promises, are sent to die. And, yes, a country needs its warriors. And warriors die, this is the thing you accept. We live in a very imperfect world. But these few need to be given all the respect they deserve.

Our military is both revered and looked at with disgust. On some level people respect you for what you did, then there is another level. People fear you because you are most likely aggressive, and you have been trained to be so and to make severe violence. And some men are emasculated by the fact you gave service and they themselves maybe chickened out. God, trying to put all this down isn’t easy… But we no longer have a legion, we have gladiators — slaves that perform in a bloodspot for others to profit from, and in watching be exhilarated by.

My wife is the sort who prefers to arrive at the airport at the absolute last minute, thus increasing her net drama level for the day. I prefer to arrive well prior, get checked in and chilled out prior to takeoff.