On the Kerry flap

I understand how servicemen and women and their loved ones can be insulted by John Kerry’s recent remarks, and I’m glad he apologized to them, an action I felt to be appropriate. I do feel that the Senator's bumbling of the matter has destroyed any hopes of him being President. But I’m amazed that in all the flack that followed, no one, not even the Senator, has pointed out what seems obvious to me:

It has always been a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. We’ve all seen those ads on TV showing young people of modest or less than modest means telling their parents (if the parties involved are African-American, there's only a mother, but that’s another issue) of their wishes to join the service to earn money for college. We’ve also all seen the biographies of soldiers killed in the line of duty on the evening news, no doubt feeling sad to learn that the deceased’s plans to study engineering or law after their discharge, presumably with the funds they’ve earned during their service, will never come to pass.

Going back to the Civil War, and perhaps even prior to that, the wealthy frequently paid the poor to serve in their sons’ stead, in essence buying their children’s safety.

During World War II patriotism - and enlistments - ran high, but sons of the wealthy usually opted for the Navy, certainly still in peril from being shot down, but well away from ground combat. In Vietnam many of the privileged arranged for their sons to perform alternate roles, National Guard duty, desk jobs, training, etc., again, far removed from the Viet Cong. The actual fighting – and the dying – is generally done by ordinary soldiers. Not generals or other high-ranking officers who command them, just plain soldiers. I’m sure that some of them are true patriots who dropped out of college to enlist, but I suspect most are less privileged Americans fighting to earn better lives for themselves and their children . . . because that's the only way they could afford it.

And speaking of this topic, how many members of Congress and other top politicians, regardless of their party affiliations, have offspring serving in Iraq?

What I garnered from Senator Kerry’s remarks was that young people whose parents cannot afford college tuition should study hard to make good grades, so they will qualify for scholarships and won’t have to put their lives at risk to get a college education. Perhaps it is such a delicate topic that there’s just no way to raise it without sounding condescending or insulting.

And maybe that’s why we should discuss it.