Wow.

I was looking for the perfect Veteran's Day post, and my friend James sent this:

What Is A Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's alloy forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the bar room loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravating slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier, and a savior, and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, the greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, "Thank You". That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU."

– Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC

G.I. Joe's face came from a true American hero, Sgt. Mitchell Paige. Paige won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal, 65 years ago this week.

When Hasbro asked to use his likeness, his only condition was that G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine. Hollywood wants to make a live-action movie based on G.I. Joe, but they don't think it will sell well overseas, so they're going to call him "Action Man."

Making him a metrosexual isn't enough; apparently red-blooded American fighting men frighten overseas moviegoers, too…

"G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer."

Well, thank goodness the villain — no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK — is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.

Read the whole story, by Vin Suprynowicz, at the Las Vegas Review Journal.

President Bush recently fired 8 US attorneys, which he is completely entitled to do, and the mainstream media (MSM) won't shut up about it. Worse, the Republicans can't seem to stop apologizing.

Concurrently, Dianne Feinstein has resigned as chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee where she served for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases—often without the benefit of competitive bidding—to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife’s watch.

But the MSM hasn't said a word — and neither have the Republicans!

I can understand silence from the networks, news services and newspapers when a Democrat is caught at corruption; they're on the same side. But why aren't the Republicans saying anything?

Read the details at the Jawa Report and HotAir.com.

FrankJ has a hilarious series called "In My World," and the latest episode is funny as ever, but also a perfect description of how the Democrats "support the troops."

Read In My World: Never Negotiate with Democrats. You'll have a greater appreciation of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

BBC News has the details; the summary is 15 UK sailors and marines were boarding ships in Iraqi waters to check for contraband when they were surrounded by several Iranian naval vessels and captured.

I'm sure you all have the same question on your minds as me - "Iran has a navy?"

Anyway, Harvey has the best analysis I've seen so far:

All I know is that in 2500 years, they'll be making a movie called "15" featuring another 20,000 dead Persians.

The arrogance belongs to the liberals, and the blood is the price paid by the men and women in our military.

"It is arrogant to think that if other people just knew how well we thought of ourselves, they'd stop trying to kill us."

– Tiffy Gerhardt (Abby Brammell), The Unit, "Old Home Week"

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.
It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile."
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother,
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

– unattributed 

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

–John Stuart Mill

Find out — read Tora Bora- Did we miss bin Laden? at Blackfive.

Iraq veteran Paul Hackett disgraced himself and his uniform tonight on The O'Reilly Factor, with John Kasich guest-hosting.

First he called Dan Senor, former advisor to the U.S. presidential envoy in Iraq, "Herr Senor." Then he called him "little Unterfuhrer." 

Senor kept his cool a lot better than I would have, but I doubt he'd get in trouble anywhere in the country for giving Hackett a whuppin'. I hope to hear of it soon.

Watch the video — Hackett calls Dan Senor “Unterfuhrer.”

Seriously! 

Well, it was back in 1945, but it's a true story.

We hear a lot about the sons and fathers killed in action, but almost nothing about the daughters and mothers that paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Read what is possibly the only worthwhile post on Daily Kos, and ignore the ankle biters' comments. 

Instead of the ghoulish "Didja kill anyone?" this lady asks returning Marines "What did you do over there that you are proudest of?"

Read their responses at BLACKFIVE.

Wish I could have heard this in person! 

LTC Randolph C. White Jr. delivers the graduation speech for the newest batch of Infantrymen to complete training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, on April 21st, 2006.

…This video is 12 minutes and 11 seconds long and will be the best 12:11 minutes you'll spend online this weekend.

…after that speech, I'd follow LTC White into hell carrying a gasoline can.

Watch the video and read the transcript at BLACKFIVE.

It has been suggested that reinstating the military draft would make the war on terror more "real" to the average American, apparently by getting a larger number of kids raised by liberals into the armed forces. This is a really weird offshoot of diversity.

Thomas Sowell's latest column explores the results of instituting a draft by contrasting draftees from WWII and modern hypothetical draftees: 

Back in the days of World War II, the military were drafting young men who were, by and large, patriotic Americans, people who felt that they had a duty to protect this country from its enemies.

Today, a military draft would bring in large numbers of people who have been systematically "educated" to believe the worst about this country or, at best, to be non-judgmental about the differences between American society and its enemies.

The fact that we could use a larger army of the kinds of people who have already volunteered to put their lives on the line does not mean that we can get it by adding warm bodies fresh from our politically correct schools and colleges, where standards and self-discipline are greatly lacking.

Just getting such people used to the idea of duty and discipline could be a major drain on the military, not to mention a plague of lawsuits from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union if the little darlings were not handled with kid gloves.

He has a good reason for leaving things as they are:

…so many American institutions, from the Congress to the courts, have degenerated into irresponsible self-indulgence that the military is one of the very few institutions left with a sense of purpose for which it is prepared to make sacrifices.

We dare not destroy that institution, or undermine its morale, by pouring into it very different kinds of people, who will be like sand poured into the gears of machinery.

He does have a suggestion, though –

This is not to say that there are no civilians who would be valuable additions to the military. Such people need not be drafted. Our colleges are blocking such people from taking R.O.T.C. by not allowing R.O.T.C. programs or military recruiters on campus in the first place.

Anti-military academics think they have a right to over-ride their students' rights to reach their own conclusions and make their own decisions, or even to hear a different viewpoint about the military.

Patriotic and educated young Americans who want to serve in the military are available. We need to stop academia from sabotaging national defense by blocking them from R.O.T.C. and from even hearing what military representatives have to say.

Read more at Townhall.com.