At least they're honest

Since I was over at Milblogs, I figured I would mention this little article, if you haven't seen it already. It's a picture perfect definition of someone who has never been in the military, never even been around the military, and doesn't support the military.

At least he's honest about it, even if he is a deluded halfwit who doesn't have a clue as to what he's talking about. I'd much rather deal with people who admit they can't stand the military, than deal with the liars who claim to "support" the troops when we all know what they really want to do is tear our military down and turn it into a UN peacekeeping force.

Here's one of the indicators of how the writer thinks of the troops:

But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

We're all just mercenaries to him. What a festering genital sore.

UPDATE: John from OPFOR has written a response far more eloquent than I could.

I can't fight this type of ignorance. I just can't. As much as I'd like to, I can't grab Arkin by the ear, and show him one of our squadron chefs, a young airman who works on her masters when she's not cooking meals for our crews. I can't take him to my friend Ryan's grave, a college graduate killed by an IED in Baghdad, who opted to honor his obligations as an enlisted man instead of pursuing a more lucrative line of work. Or introduce him to the security forces airman who walks long patrols through the winter snow, reciting the epics of Homer to himself so that he'll be prepared for his Classics exam. These people aren't the exception, they are the standard.

If there is a war that's unwinnable, it's the war on this type of horrid ignorance. The type of uniformed, intellectually lazy thinking that can only exist in the sheltered bubble of cocktail parties and classrooms. Arkin is a gazer. A man forever condemned to peering out the window into the real world, watching the exertions of men better than himself. And yet he fancies himself the educated one. Any logical human being would trade career in journalism for the expertise gained by serving a mere one month in the box, yet this slime fancies his opinion so informed, so expert, so utterly irrefutable that even the very soldiers who are fighting this war are shamefully ignorant for daring to challenge his infallibility.

And Dan of Riehl World View says that the Press is at war. Dan, they've BEEN at war with us, ever since President Bush first ran for office. The only difference is that they're more open about it now.

And I think the last two stanzas of Kipling's "Tommy" seem fitting:

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! "
But it's " Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An 'Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!