West Points cadets heard a quick, empty commencement address from Pres. Bush Saturday.
“The war began on my watch — but it’s going to end on your watch,” he said during a brief appearance…before returning to Camp David outside Washington, D.C., for the weekend.
Hold the bus to the holiday retreat, George. I’m not sure if you’re talking about kids now or the ones you let die in your stead in Vietnam.
“…Thirty-four times since your class arrived, you have observed a moment of silence in Washington Hall to honor a former cadet fallen in the war on terror…We will honor the memory of these brave souls,” [Bush said.] We will finish the task for which they gave their lives. We will complete the mission.”
“We,” of course, meaning, “you guys.”
When I hear Bush talk about “the war,” “the mission,” etc., my thoughts go to something that’s been bothering me since I was listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago. Punching buttons, I paused on the Lex and Terry Show, syndicated from nearby Jacksonville, which proudly defines its appeal as “male humor.”
Callers competed in a contest called, “The Mental Challenge,” which I gathered required one listener to identify which of several others was, in fact, mentally challenged and which were merely uninformed dolts. After a series of “duh” queries about sports and American Idol, the hosts asked an amazing question:
Who are we at war with?
One player answered “Afghanistan.” Another said “Arabs.” The third began to answer several times and finally said he didn’t know. Lex and Terry never supplied the correct answer.
Listening in the car, I was like the third contestant. I started to say, “insurgents” but they weren’t even in the picture when we launched this errand. So I switched to “terrorists,” but if that’s the case, why are we in Iraq instead of wherever it is terrorists come from? Saddem Hussein? No, we took him out but we’re still there. I finally concluded that like that third guy, I don’t know who we’re at war with.
I suspect no one — including our leaders — does. Yet they keep sending more West Point cadets, and National Guard dads and moms, and kids whose lives are just starting, to be killed or maimed. And we keep permitting them to.
