Volunteering For Military Service

I read an editorial today written by Bob Herbert - he writes for The New York Times - he was ranting again about President and Mrs. Bush not sending their daughters to war. Holy Cow!!! How many times does it need said. The military is a volunteer force. Period. It matters not that there are not a bunch of rich kid draftees in the force. This country decided long ago to have a volunteer force. That, by the way, in itself makes Iraq mucho different than Vietnam which many are trying to make the correlation. Arrgh!

As a career military person, I ache along with many who did 'not' serve with each and every casualty in Iraq, Afghanistan et. al. But, they volunteered. And yes, I do know some folks who joined the national guard just for a supplemental check each month never thinking they would be called. However, the bulk of them do it out of patriotism. There is only ONE group of military I really feel sorry for and those are the ones who did their time, got out and got recalled. Now 'those' folks, in 'my' mind at least, did their time. When I got out after 20 years, I knew I 'could' have been recalled anytime during the next 10 years. While I was not, I would have been feeling sorry for myself had I been. And, for the record, I'd a had to buy new uniforms. : )

Anyway - for the lame brains in this country - we have a volunteer military force. If you think about it, one way to 'end' this war is for people to quit volunteering... umm does this say anything to you?