[quote=afx114][quote=Veritas]Allan is under attack because he does not fit the left’s definition of the military because of his literacy (an intelligent warrior).[/quote]
I am a lefty and I wish that we had more intelligent warriors. Might by itself is dangerous, but might combined with wisdom is desirable. It is not the might that makes the warrior great — it is the wisdom of when and when not to use it.[/quote]
Afx: Excerpts from Douglas McArthur’s farewell speech at West Point:
“Duty,” “Honor,” “Country” – those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
I am not a fan of war. To the contrary. I’ve buried too many of my friends. Sometimes, however, it is necessary. That willingness to fight when necessary doesn’t make someone a warmonger, it signifies a realistic pragmatism that, sometimes, there is no other choice.
