Bob Krum reports:
Soldiers' Angels Germany has the pictures. (h/t Mudville Gazette)BAGHDAD – How are you spending your 4th of July holiday? While most Americans probably slept, 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines raised their right hands and committed to a combined 5,500 years of additional service during the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military. Beneath a large American flag which dwarfed even the enormous chandelier that Saddam Hussein had built for the Al Faw Palace, members of all services, representing all 50 states took the oath administered by Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq.
Oh, and if you are reading this post today, thank a vet.
Someone has to step up and do the hard jobs. God bless them everyone.
What did I do on the 4th? Well, I'm pretty sure I was the only person in a 300-house subdivision who put up a flag yesterday, and I am not happy. I didn't do it to show off or to make any kind of point, I did it because it's what people are supposed to do on July 4th. No one else in our neghborhood that I could see put up a flag! Not one, and I am really pissed.
But for that, who do I blame? That's easy: DEMOCRATS, LIBERALS, the pinko-commie-leftist-emo-MEDIA, and all of the other sorry, useless, no-account sadsack S.O.B.s who've denigrated and demeaned and undermined the efforts of the President and our Military since they first realized they could make political hay by doing so! I am angry at everyone who has spent the past 6 years doing nothing but making Americans unsure and even ashamed of their response to the horrible attacks of 9/11/2001! I am furious at all of the ignorant euro-canadio-whiner-wannabees who say outloud that the U.S. is in any way to blame for those attacks, and that everything we've done since has been the ill-managed, uncontrolled thrashings of a headless snake. Why didn't people put up flags around here? Most likely because they don't want to feel like war-mongering jingoists, and because they've got pride in our country and its history confused with support for everything our government does. Either that or I'm surrounded by scum-sucking Clintonites & Pelosians....
To be sure, I am really not happy about the erosion of rights in our country, nor with the lack of focus in our wars, nor with our seeming inability to create a coherant foreign policy (State bears some responsibility for this), and I am not happy about the price of fuel, which seems to be more the result of profittering and price fixing by oil companies than the natural flow of a free market. Yeah, there's a lot I'm not happy about. But last night as I was taking down my flag, my displeasure with the administration and the military and our economy paled to trivial-ity besides my ever-growing hatred of all things and people who call themselves Democrats and liberals in America. Yes, people bear re-sponsibilty for not sticking to their values, and everyone around here made a choice--or not--about putting up a flag, and yes, it is a small thing. Even so, I choose to blame the nay-sayers and appeasers and cowards and losers of the world who would rather be nice than be free. For my part, I'll take mean and free any day over belly-up puppy-rub happiness, and anyone who doesn't like that can just kiss me where the sun doesn't shine. I am an American and proud of it, and I fly flags on holidays and any other day I feel like it, and people who don't should just be ashamed of themselves.
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On a more positive note, I also read the Declaration of Independance (a copy kindly left on our door by a local political campaign--libertarian, which figures), and then I read it out loud to my family. Amazingly, I think for the first time in my life, I read and understood the Declaration as it was intended to be read, as it existed in the minds of the men who forged and signed it. Maybe understanding has come with age, or maybe my recent education experience and follow-up reading has given me insight I lacked before. I don't know. Whatever it was, yester-day, I once again found myself choked up at the amazing intelligence, eloquence, dignity, and courage of our forebears, but this time I was able to evaluate its parts with a critical understanding. Nothing in the document was curious, no phrase or punctuation seemed unusual or confusing, and for the first time, I read it from start to finish as though reading a letter written by a friend. It is coherant and complete, and every word and sentence is perfectly suited for its task. Also, for the first time, as I read, I was able to see the future in its contents, the connections between the colonists' points of grievance and the evolution of our Constitution and Bill of rights, and even between the Decla-ration and some of the most contentious debates of today. I saw too the foundations of some of our most cherished notions about the rela-tionship between government and the governed, and about what people have the right to expect and demand from their leaders. And even more interesting, I saw the ghostly presence of the greatest thinkers of the ancient past, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, et al. To be sure, I am not a scholar of Greek, Roman, or Judeo-Christian thought on government and society, but I know enough to recognize their influence on the document that declared the end of British rule in the 13 American colonies, to say nothing of their influence on our current world. To be honest, the experience was almost breathtaking, and it more than made up for the sour taste left in my mouth by the lack of flags in our neighborhood.
V/R
SangerM