Happy Thanksgiving

I give thanks for you Catholic Anarchist. Your scornful attitude towards men and women who guard our freedom, most of whom have more courage in an hour than you could muster in a lifetime, illustrates well how much we owe them and how mean spirited their detractors are. Well done Catholic Anarchist for helping to draw this important lesson.

I am grateful and thankful for all that our troops do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Michael:

Seriously, let it go. All Donald did was simply post a picture of American troops and offer a prayer for them, and that triggers your Pavlonian response mechanism. Is it such a horrible thing? Are you simply that depraved a human being that you can’t let such a simple thing go?

Soldier worship? Come now.

It doesn’t strike me that anyone attempted a post about the “real meaning” of Thanksgiving, except Donald’s on the 26th repeating President Washington’s original Thanksgiving poclamation — which certainly seems to me to address the “real meaning” of the holiday.

However, given that many of our cultural rituals around the holiday center on gathering with family around the banquet table, it strikes me as entirely natural that people’s thoughts would turn to those whom duty keeps away from their families that this time.

(Can I guess that perhaps you thought you’d spin by American Catholics to see what “those crazy AC guys” were up to, in the way that even when I’m not actively reading Vox Nova I always have to drop by and read you annual anti-US posts on American holidays such as the 4th of July and Veterans Day? No shame in it. We all have our sick curiousities about those we seldom agree with. What will they say next?)

I will always be thankful for those who choose to put their lives on the line so that I can exist with a greater sense of security, for those soldiers of ours who fight the enemy on their soil so we don’t have to fight it here.

“I will always be thankful for the poor and minorities for fighting on my behalf.”

michael, there is a very important war going on that has nothing to do with the middle east, and it looks like you have chosen the side of the bad guys.

Thank you, Dubya.

“I will always be thankful for the poor and minorities for fighting on my behalf.”

Well Catholic Anarchist it has been thirty years since I last wore a green uniform, but when I was in we had poor, minorities, white, middle class and some rich. From my friends currently serving I have been advised that the makeup of the military remains the same, except that now the military tends to be better educated than the general population. Have you ever served in the military? From your comments regarding our troops, I suspect you have gleaned most of your ideas regarding the military from repeated viewings of Oliver Stone’s Platoon.

“Thank you, Dubya.”

Truest thing you are likely to say for a long time Catholic Anarchist. As the events in Mumbai illustrate, the world has a very big problem with radical islam, and the defeat of the radical Islamists in Iraq is a step in the right direction.

I worship God, not the military. Having served in the Army I realize that troops are rarely, in Kipling’s memorable phrase, “plaster saints”. However I greatly respect those who put themselves in danger to protect my family, and I pray daily that God protect them.

You know why relations among ethnic groups are significantly better in the military than in civilian life? First, working toward a common goal. Second, the same barriers to entry. If you don’t pass the tests and the training, you ain’t doing it, period. So there is a lot less resentment, and you know you can count on the person next to you. No quotas, no “need” to hire more of x, y, or z. We could, and should, learn from this.

Not a fun guy, this Michael I. Don posts something nice about giving thanks to our guys and gals in uniform and Katie bar the door. Must be tough living under that skin. Doesn’t understand thanksgiving, respect, gratitude. Arrgh- making my leftover turkey curdle just thinking about him. Happy Turkey Day weekend and blessed Advent to all. You too, Mikey.