Saturday, May 12, 2012

“My Cup Runneth Over”



Most of the time I am grateful for all the positives in my life. I have an abundance of positives and gratefulness just watching the sun come up. We do have to watch out for trip wires though they work in good and bad weather. Here we are, and Spring is upon us again, maybe it is for real this time. Not to bore you, but my home in Orange was broken into and all the copper plumbing stripped from the basement. Unless you have flushed a toilet with a bucket of water lately it is really hard to appreciate what it is like. Well, we will chalk it up for things to do this year. I did not relish a lot of free time anyway.
This is a short note, I have heard that Marines are at war and America is at the Mall several times. I do not like to repeat it as it fills me with disgust. Can you believe the news highlights of the last month and the deceit that is expended on social issues concerning a very small portion of our population but impact us all? Taking our eyes off the ball, I hope this does not mean there will be a lot of swings and misses. Focusing on what needs to be done in the coming election is most important.
This article was sent to me some time ago by a conservative lady we admire, Kathy, who we fondly call "Ma." So, for Mother’s Day, God Bless all the mothers. We love our Mom’s both here and departed, in our hearts they can never die. Most GI’s do what they do because of the experiences they have had as Americans and those of us that have had a great mother know where our motivation derives from.
peterR

Concerning a problem we face with so few in the Service and at a time we are increasingly surrounded by enemies.

Written by a USMA grad, but the same applies to all the others: enlisted and officer.

Thank you to the 0.45%

I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.

My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn't crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I'd worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.

That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: Nick, you're a smart guy. You don't have to join the military. You should go to college, instead.

I could easily write a tome defending West Point and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won't.

What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.

In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four years.

In Vietnam, 4.3% served in 12 years.

Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served in the Global War on Terror.

These are unbelievable statistics.

Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of the burden and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq by a Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child in the military.

Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were not sold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked to sacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing unless they have chosen to out of the goodness of their hearts.

The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their families. The volunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this nation. You.

You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on. You've lost relationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apart from kids you'll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that even professional athletes don't understand.

Then you come home to a nation that doesn't understand.
They don't understand suffering.
They don't understand sacrifice.
They don't understand that bad people exist.

They look at you like you're a machine – like something is wrong with you. *
*You are the misguided one – not them.

When you get out, you sit in the college classrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions on Iraq and Afghanistan because YOU WERE THERE and can't understand the macro issues they gathered from books, with your bias.

You watch TV shows where every vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that. Your Congress is debating your benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more.
But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this. You know your country will never pay back what you've given up.

You know that the populace at large will never truly understand or appreciate what you have done for them.

Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less than normal for having worn the uniform. But you do it anyway. You do what the greatest men and women of this country have done since 1775 – YOU SERVED. Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.*

*AMEN!*

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