In National Review Online, fellow writer W. Thomas Smith Jr., exposes the partisan hypocracy of Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY). Rangel, appearing on Fox News Weekend last Sunday, reiterated his call for a reinstatement of the draft, since "No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits." He went on to say that no young person would ever choose to serve his country in Iraq, and only does so because they have no other alternatives for education or employment.
BULL DINKY, Congressman!
Smith does an excellent job of debunking Rangel's asinine assertion, and details his intentional distortion of the facts. I am only going to offer my personal experience to the dialog.
My son and four of his buddies sat in my living room in Melbourne, Florida on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. They had just come home from high school, of course aware of the horrors, but having not seen them for themselves. As they stared in disbelief at the horrible scenes, they began to talk about it. One by one, the four of them said that they wanted to do something, and swore to join the military upon graduation. All seniors, the pledges were not some distant dream.
All of them ended up fulfilling the promises they made that fateful day. (The fifth is a wonderful friend and good person, but would not have done well in a military environment.) All of them have done at least one tour in Iraq, one of them, two. All came back relatively unscathed, but did experience losses of buddies.
At the time, we lived in a tony, upscale waterfront community, and all of the five lived in at least middle to upper middle class homes. All were college material, whose families had plans and resources to send them to school. Contrary to what Rangel said, none of them joined just to get the educational benefits. I met many soldiers over the years of my son's service, and never once did anyone ever say, or imply, that they joined the Army out of desperation or for the economic advantages.
I think that Congressman Rangel knows full well that what he said is not true; he has access to the detailed statistics. I suspect that he is deliberately lying to make political hay. But, he does a lot of damage to his country and our military when he does this.,He either doesn't care, or maybe he did not join the military out of a sense of duty, but only for personal gain. Either way, he has shown that the politics are more important to him than his loyalty to the nation he is supposed to serve.
This the kind of partisan crap that I, and many others, are sick of. Please, for the good of your country, Congressman Rangel, cut out the crap.
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