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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:38 pm Post subject: Taranto - "Suck It Up and Salute" |
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James Taranto observes the similarity of Kerry '04 and Bergdahl '14...the left's "blinkered view" on the concept of "honor" in the military culture...
| Quote: | 'Suck It Up and Salute'
by James Taranto
June 4, 2014
<snip>
But the administration seems to have been taken completely by surprise by the hostile reaction to the deal's purported upside, Bergdahl's release. That Time report contains a clue as to why: "Obama's move was an ultimate victory for those at the White House and the State Department who had previously argued the military should 'suck it up and salute,' says the official familiar with the debate."
That would be John Kerry's state department. There are some intriguing similarities between young Bergdahl and the young Kerry, as well as between the administration's current adversity and that which faced Kerry when he ran for president in 2004.
<snip>
Kerry's activism back in 1971 was in the service of a similar end. When he ran for president in 2004, he expected both his war record and his antiwar activism to work in his favor. After all, most Americans had wanted out of Vietnam, and the Nixon administration achieved that aim a couple of years later. But while Kerry's end might have been justifiable, it did not justify the means of slandering his fellow Vietnam veterans.
The left's blinkered view of military culture is perhaps best summarized by Elias Isquith, a young writer for Salon.com, who yesterday explained the backlash against the Bergdahl deal as follows: "When a member of the military fails to adhere to the far right's rigid formula of what a soldier should be (nationalistic, religious, obedient; conservative) right-wingers . . . come down on them [sic] like a ton of bricks." He cited one example in addition to Bergdahl: John Kerry.
Isquith seems to imply that servicemen are fungible, each entitled to equal respect regardless of conduct. But the bitter criticism of Kerry in 2004 and Bergdahl today would carry no force if it came from mere "right-wingers." It comes, instead, from servicemen and veterans who see the two men as having behaved dishonorably. Once again the left is being undone by its failure to comprehend the centrality of honor to military culture.
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LewWaters
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Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
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| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 4:44 am Post subject: |
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You saw it much earlier than I did 
Taranto hits the nail square on the head, again.
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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Honor is entirely from the actions of the individual.
Conduct yourself with honor and your peers will respect you.
Conduct yourself in a dishonorable way and your peers will hold you in disdain.
Kerry broke from the path of honor in Viet Nam.
Bergdahl broke from the path of honor in Afghanistan.
Once you act dishonorably, you can never reclaim honor.
This is a concept the liberals cannot understand.
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