Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Pat?s problem doesn?t exist


I am writing in reference to Pat Murphy's column "Prison Inmates for Iraq Duty?" (Jan. 3, 2007).

I find the column at best na-ïve, at worst insulting to the men and women serving in the armed forces. There are two points I would like to make:

 The military is not the dump-ing ground for society's misfits. To put our prison inmates in the same "foxhole" with dedi-cated, motivated and honor-driven individuals who are willing to risk their lives for their country is just the kind of rhetoric that comes from indi-viduals who have no respect for the military and the people that join, and possibly have never served themselves or found themselves in Canada during the Vietnam years. I have a better idea. Why not give the inmates the opportunity to join the police, fire department, road crews. Hey, Pat, how about having a couple of them sit next to you so you can straighten them out?

 The military is meeting its goals on recruitments of well-qualified young men and women.

There have been and con-tinue to be enough dedicated young men and women who do not consider themselves to be "cannon fodder" and join with a sense of honor and a seeking of a challenge that is not avail-able in our "cushy" civilian lives. What do we put on the gravestones of those who gave their last full measure, "Here lies Cannon Fodder"? They would be appalled to believe any serious citizen would dis-honor them. During the John Kerry "dumb enough to end up in Iraq" statement, it came to light that today's military has a higher education level than the general civilian population.

I imagine Mr. Murphy must have been watching the movie "The Dirty Dozen" and was overcome with the belief that Hollywood had the ultimate solution for a problem that

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Pat's problem doesn't exist

I am writing in reference to Pat Murphy's column "Prison Inmates for Iraq Duty?" (Jan. 3,

2007).

I find the column at best na-ïve, at worst insulting to the men and women serving in the armed forces. There are two points I would like to make:

 The military is not the dump-ing ground for society's misfits. To put our prison inmates in the same "foxhole" with dedi-cated, motivated and honor-driven individuals who are willing to risk their lives for their country is just the kind of rhetoric that comes from indi-viduals who have no respect for the military and the people that join, and possibly have never served themselves or found themselves in Canada during the Vietnam years. I have a better idea. Why not give the inmates the opportunity to join the police, fire department, road crews. Hey, Pat, how about having a couple of them sit next to you so you can straighten them out?

 The military is meeting its goals on recruitments of well-qualified young men and women.

There have been and con-tinue to be enough dedicated young men and women who do not consider themselves to be "cannon fodder" and join with a sense of honor and a seeking of a challenge that is not avail-able in our "cushy" civilian lives. What do we put on the gravestones of those who gave their last full measure, "Here lies Cannon Fodder"? They would be appalled to believe any serious citizen would dis-honor them. During the John Kerry "dumb enough to end up in Iraq" statement, it came to light that today's military has a higher education level than the general civilian population.

I imagine Mr. Murphy must have been watching the movie "The Dirty Dozen" and was overcome with the belief that Hollywood had the ultimate solution for a problem that doesn't exist. After all, any good liberal gets his or her best ideas from Hollywood.

Jack Regan

Hailey




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