Friday, November 18, 2005

Well said, Lieutenant!

In the article linked above, an Army lieutenant tells about her experience attending Harvard Law School. It is an interesting piece, and reflects much of what is wrong with the civilian political left. A partial quote is here:
I found that many people who claimed to value diversity and respect difference could not reconcile my presence at Harvard.
Diversity. Right. Wanna see true diversity? Join the Army.

It might surprise many people that a bunch of Army officers are Democrats and many of them are left-wing types. I worked with a bunch of them, and while no one wore insignia identifying political orientation, you know someone best who you spend a lot of time with. I. myself was a lot more liberal in the earlier years of my duty. My conservative bent came later, as I aged and matured.

Military service has nothing to do with political orientation. Military service is about performance. Pure performance. If you perform, then you are promoted to greater positions of responsibility and authority. If you don't perform, you find yourself unemployed.

Regulations proscribe certain political activities because whoever gets elected, the officers and enlisted are duty bound to follow that President. We call him the Commander-in-Chief and our willingess to follow whoever is elected is the one good guarantee that the military will always be under civil control.

I served with the rich and the poor, the Repubs and Dems and Independents. I served with liberals and conservatives. Educated and uneducated. Straight and gay. All races, citizen and non-citizen. All that mattered was performance. I didn't give a simple damn who served to my left or my right, who brought me my bullets or my beans, who treated my wounds or processed my paycheck. It just didnt' matter what their political persuasion was. Didn't matter at all. We were all brothers and we were all family. Only performance counted.

Would that Harvard Law School should experience such diversity.

2 comments:

oyster said...

I think "Performance" should be the buzzword for the new Louisiana.

Reform and perform, I say.

Anonymous said...

I was a platoon leader in 1968. It was all male and no obvious homosexuals. One of my main objectives was to prevent the Indian from Window Rock, Arizona from killing the Italian from Chicago, and the Alabama farmer from throttling the Black guy from New York. Training to go to Vietnam was a thrill a minute. I cannot imagine the current problems of a platoon leader dealing with males, females and all points in between. Bless'em. JSS3.