Soccer Mom: Unplugged

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga writes an interesting article for the American Prospect attributing a personal, political shift from Republican to Democrat to a short three year stint in the Army.  The Soldier in Me describes the author's experience in combat boots as a revolutionary, ideology-changing period that altered forever perceptions about the relationship between society and government and the individual.

There’s a reason most vets running for office this year are running as Democrats. The military is perhaps the ideal society -- we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return. All our basic needs were met -- housing, food, and medical care. It was as close to a color-blind society as I have ever seen. We looked out for one another. The Army invested in us. I took heavily subsidized college courses and learned to speak German on the Army’s dime. I served with people from every corner of the country. I got to party at the Berlin Wall after it fell and explored Prague in those heady post-communism days. I wasn’t just a tourist; I was a witness to history.

The Army taught me the very values that make us progressives -- community, opportunity, and investment in people and the future.

The expressed sentiments are true.  The Army is a community like no other and membership does have its privileges.  But what is noticeably absent from the author's description is the real purpose for enlisting or accepting a commission.  There is no talk of service to the nation.  No talk of patriotism and of a sense of obligation to the nation that offers you freedom and citizenship unlike any other place on this planet.  There is no reference to the selfless sacrifice.  Only a commentary on the benefits and personal rewards for swearing the oath.  Never a mention of self-sacrifice and duty.  No mention of honor or serving a greater good.  Only a litany of "what have you done for me lately". 

What those well-written phrases reveal is a desperate need to be less individual and independent and a desire to abandon self-reliance in favor of a communist style system of institutionalized care.  But let's set the record straight.  Those military benefits are compensation for long days and late nights, for deployments and field time.  They are compensation for willingly putting yourself at risk on behalf of an occasionally grateful nation.  They are not simply handouts issued like welfare checks or WIC coupons.  To suggest otherwise is demeaning to the men who put years of blood sweat and tears into the missions at home and abroad. 

That Zuniga escaped combat duty during a brief enlistment has created a false understanding of what it really means to serve.  In spite of the hand up military service offers to many,  it is not the hand out described in this author's opinion.  What the article is, however, is an eye-opening view at how this Daily Kos proprietor and the liberal left view the government:  as a paternalistic cash cow designed to fund a lifetime of self-indulgent behavior. 

Writes Zuniga: And after my three-year stint, while I was stationed in Germany and missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair, I emerged as a Democrat.  Why am I not surprised?  After traipsing all over Europe, partying at the Berlin wall and being a "witness to history", the threat of being actually called upon to do the job you're paid for scared you into becoming a Democrat?  Notice, everything was all well and good when the benefits were doled out and the only requirements were ruck marches within the confines of an Army post but let someone ask you to do your job...

In spite of this warped view of military service,  I am grateful that Markos has penned these thoughts.  Let them serve as an expose on the real weakness of the liberal mind and it's lazy, self-indulgent and self-serving, socialist leanings.  And I'm grateful for one more thing:  that Zuniga ran fearfully from the ranks and abandoned the nation's true heroes.  Heaven forbid the cowardice set in when someone's life was actually on the line.