What Honor
Commands
The other day a friend of mine who works in law enforcement
told me he’d be deploying soon to Iraq, working for
a private security company contracted to protect government
officials there. Like others I know who’ve gone, he
couldn’t quite explain, at least so that I could maybe
understand, why he’d made that choice. It’s an
assignment so scary, the military won’t even assign
its own people to the job.
But the money, my friend said, was definitely a factor. The
guys working for Blackwater and the other mercenary groups
are very well paid. That’s an argument it’s hard
to argue with, just as it is for new recruits to the Iraqi
army. Those guys don’t want to be soldiers and targets.
But in a country with no economy or future, it’s the
only way they can figure out how to feed their families. And
so a lot of them are getting killed trying to do that.
Our view is we’re glad elections are over… or
mostly over. It’s been a bruising and brutally partisan
spectacle, encapsulated by the singularly disturbing images
of former POW John McCain stumping, as it were, against fellow
veteran and senate candidate Tammy Duckworth of Illinois,
who lost her legs in Iraq.
There are, we believe, still circumstances where at the very
least, honor commands the respect of silence. No one knows
that better than McCain.
Veterans Day, which we celebrate November 11, is one such
time. We hope people will really take time to think about
the sacrifices so many have made, in defense of our freedoms
and the constitution which has kept them real and meaningful
for over eleven generations. Patriotism isn’t an abstract
ideal or a symbol on someone’s lapel. It’s a measure
of our honor and respect for what makes our country what it
is, and the actions we’re willing to take to protect
those things.
BP
