Webloggin » Where Will The Warriors Go?

In one of my email lists, one of the correspondents, who is ex-military, voiced his concern that, if America collapses per Obama’s plan, enlistments and re-enlistments in the military will collapse too. After all, why should a young man or woman enlist if there’s nothing left to fight for. His question was well-timed, because a visit to Goodwill yesterday (where I, the ultimate cheapskate, love to buy books) left me thinking along those same lines.

One of the books available was Generation Kill, about a Marine unit that was one of the first to head to Baghdad. I opted not to get it, despite the cheap price, because of how the book jacket sold it: reading the book would allow you to spend time with young men who loved to kill. You’d get up close and personal with Mafiosa style murderers outfitted in American uniforms. I don’t know if that’s what the book actually delivered, but that’s how it was sold.

As it was, though, that book jacket got me thinking. First, I thought about George Orwell’s famous quotation that “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” Given that there are men who are warriors to the bone, we should all be grateful that they are willing to take on the jobs that the weak, effete, lazy, scared, inept and ideologically opposed among us are unwilling to do. I also thought, thank God these men are on my side and not on someone else’s.

(Read the rest at Bookworm Room)

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