When I was 17, I traipsed off, joined the Navy and went off to fight in Vietnam. My dad cried as he sighed the papers that permitted me to go. I went because I had more testosterone than brains. Now I hope that I have gotten smarter because the equation has flip-flopped and my sons are of the age, brightness and fitness to serve in the military. I have thought about it and have already nearly teared about those prospects.
When my sons went to the polls last November to vote I warned them that they may be voting themselves into a nice uniform when successful Democrats may well re-initiate the draft. New York City Congressman Charlie Rangel has long indicated a preference for the draft, with the end game being that if every parent’s child were subject to have to go to fight, then those parents would be less hesitant to vote for those politicians that would send them.
Well here’s the problem with Rangel’s equation: According to recent reports, most parent’s children won’t have to go to war. Seventy-five percent of our youth just don’t qualify to be in the military. Rangel, a former Korean War veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, the world’s finest fighting force (a part of the Navy) was from a generation of city-dwellers that valued real education, could pass the test to get in, and could follow written orders thereafter.
Today’s kids, for reasons of academics, morals and/or health, are not suitable to serve. They are either too stupid, too criminal and/or too fat to fit into the military. And it is our fault.
Our school systems are failing them. Not all of them, but many of them. Too many are not learning while they are in school, and too many of those will dropout before their classmates qualify for military service. I loved the Navy but not everyone likes the military. And that’s all right — a patriot is born every minute. But, what it leaves are those who do well in school to have to go off and fight, leaving those behind that fail themselves to bask in the both the sunshine of freedoms and the moonlit public benefits for which the young military men and women will both fight and pay.
Our social services and municipal housing authorities will have food stamps and housing for those that drop out or otherwise fail in the school systems, which some members of those same organizations also have oversight. Our social services departments issue benefit cards from which recipients can purchase any sugary, starchy and fattening food they want to shove down theirs and their children’s faces.
So when the veteran returns, he or she will have to scramble and continue their fight. But this time, not for the protection of liberty and democracy, instead, for food, shelter and clothing.
Here in Niagara Falls our residents are clamoring for more police officers on the streets to protect us from our own sons, daughters, cousins and the like, that are left behind. I join the generals, like Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in calling for solutions. Instead of waiving young men and women past criminal behavior or increasing direct and legacy costs of policing, we need to find ways of reducing crime and increasing learning and physical activity. In the North End we have lost ball diamonds, football and soccer fields and nearly lost a basketball court to put in public housing.
Those foreign entities that want to destroy us are hungry for what we have and they are educated and trim enough to take it — that is if we don’t give it to them ourselves. In the meantime, we sit around fat, dumb and happy, only to watch our best and brightest march off to war, trying to save our plump, empty-headed butts.
I’m afraid that I’ll cry like my dad did when that happens.
Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.
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