Citizen Soldiers

[feuerkugel]

My next post was going to be about the wedding, but I heard something this morning that pissed me off, so here we go.

The woman reading the news on WLRH this morning kept referring to National Guard troops as "Citizen Soldiers."  As opposed to what?  A lot of media attention has been devoted to the National Guard, to the extent that it seems like

Comments

[delathi]

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

[g_vageherrin]

Ah, Kipling - poet of the soldier! Love it, love it, love it!

Anybody that spends time in the mean and nasty is somebody worth honoring - and my hat's off to your pops, Fireball.

[boson]

I don't know where this notion is coming from, but I've also heard someone on the radio -- a caller -- implying the exact same thing, that members of the armed forces are, in some sense, not citizens. This caller ignored the National Guard and went so far as to suggest that we should reinstitute the draft so that we would have "citizen soldiers." The caller suggested that, somehow, the presence of untrained conscripts would have prevented Abu Ghraib, where the presence of untrained volunteers did not.

Makes me wonder if this is just a case of convergent evolution of idiots, or if one of the far-left talking heads has begun emulating O'Reilly's regard for accuracy (heck, total ignorance seems to get Bill ratings...).

[oneiric_yen]

Rant justified. ~shakes head and harrumphs~ My father was and my brother is a veteran, so I have strong feelings on the treatment of all servicemen after they have fought. Whether or not I agree with the war they were in.