Paul Umphress is the opinions editor of The Red & Black, the Uiversity of Georgia student newspaper, where this column originally appeared. It is being reprinted in today's Journal-Constitution in New Attitudes, a weekly opinion column written by readers between the ages of 15-22.
Paul starts his commentary on the Iraq war with a new perspective.
I don't think our government will draft young men like me for the war in Iraq. This is a good thing, because if it did, I'd be taking an all-expenses-paid trip to hide out in Europe courtesy of my father -- a Vietnam veteran.
Although he fought under the flag in Vietnam, the last thing my father wants is to have his only son killed fighting a war neither he nor I believe in.
Before you react to the next section, remember, this is Georgia! (We have to find a way to let these young men and women know we are on their side! Peace pipes, and all...)
No, my dad isn't some peace pipe-smoking liberal who barely saw action. Let me tell you about him.
My father was an Army infantry officer who trained in Special Forces and served as a rifle platoon leader with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. He earned many awards, including the Bronze Star for valor, the Air Medal for making more than 25 combat assaults by helicopter and a Purple Heart for being shot in the knee -- a nonfatal wound, thankfully.
All too often in the pro-war vs. anti-war debate, the only talking heads we hear from are ignorant, polar extremes: war hawks, whose own wings have never had a brush with combat; and liberal pacifists, equally inexperienced with warfare, who refuse to acknowledge the realities of the violent, unjust world we live in and the pivotal, almost catch-22 position the United States is in as the strongest military power in the world.
Paul then goes on to create a stunning defination of Patriotism - one which the thugs and Cheney sycophants could not begin to comprehend.
[My Father is] the kind of man who knows firsthand it is possible to salute the flag while disagreeing with those elected to represent it -- that it is possible to support volunteer soldiers, whose job is not to ask why but to do or die, while disagreeing with a war he believes should never have been initiated.
I am so relieved to see so many experienced, old style Conservatives begin to take issue with the war in Iraq.
Once again, the United States is bogged down in an unwinnable civil war between guerrilla forces and is trying to impose American democracy on a country that has no history of such
institutions.
Given his experiences in Vietnam, my father believes the best thing America can do at this point is to withdraw and declare victory, and I stand behind him.
I find great significance in these articles from red state true believers who are seeing right through the smoke screen of deceit that Cheney/Bush are blowing.
You can read the whole, lovely thing,right here