The Thirty Year-old Elephant

Ah, the seventies. Soldiers being spit on my fellow Americans, soldiers being attacked by their fellow citizens, military personell being assaulted and abused by other Americans....

Oh, wait. It's not the seventies, it's 2004.

She also described what things were like for her and her comrades around the Presidio. It's bad. Due to harrassment of troops by locals, military personel are forbidden from wearing uniforms off of base. Apparently this stems from an incident where a civilian threw coffee onto a sailor's dress whites. The sailor was about to beat the man bloody, but his buddies held him back. The civilian then charged the sailor with assault, even though the sailor had never made contact. The civilian was not charged with anything. Also, there have been attempts by civilians to gather intelligence on operations within the Presidio. Because my sister is trained in this stuff, she knows when she is being probed. She also knows what to do. I find this very disturbing. The community around the Presidio is openly hostile to aqll military personel, and there have been a number of anecdotal reports of troops being spat upon.

(.....)

We have a thirty year old elephant that was swept under the carpet, but that now has been dragged out into the open. Since we were afraid, as a nation, thrity years ago to deal with the traitors and ignorant agents of defeat then, we must now confront them again. Now we are locked in a battle for our very survival. Now, we have to confront our daemons, or be subjugated by them. While people are fretting about flu vaccines and other damned near pointless topics, we are fighting a war. We are surrounded externally by a vicious enemy being given succour by passive-aggressive powers under the guise of plausible deniability.

Do I really have to mention "read the whole thing"?