RNC Purple Hearts
I have a confession to make. I don't understand Republicans. Many of them did something at the Republican National Convention that revealed them to be fundamentally different as human beings from me. I'm talking about this the cute little purple heart band-aids.
I was raised in a very Republican, very conservative household. I grew up loving my country, my country's flag, the freedoms I had here that others in the world lacked, and respecting those men in uniform who had fought to gain and preserve those freedoms. My heros growing up were Sgt. York and Audie Murphy.
As I grew older, I realized that not everything our nation did was honorable. This did nothing to diminish my love of my country, but I learned that many of our armed incursions into other nations' affairs were not undertaken with the intent of spreading freedom but with the aim of preserving the business interests of our major corporations. This was never something that I held against the men and women under arms who we sent to those far shores to carry out our government's bidding. As far as they knew they were serving their country. I did hold it against those who send out troops into wars for profit or under false pretenses. So it is in Iraq.
There are a number of ways a people and a government can honor their troops. You pay them a living wage and decent benefits. You provide them with equipment to do the job. You provide them with decent food. When they are wounded, you provide them with the best medical care available, on the battlefield and afterwards, when they've returned home. We as a people ask these men and women to be prepared to sacrifice their lives for us. We as a people owe them our gratitude and respect for their willingness to do that. We owe them that for life. We may disagree with some of the things they do after they've returned home, but that doesn't diminish what they did for us in battle. Some people don't get that.
During the Vietnam War, there were apocryphal tales of returning soldiers being spit upon by the war's opponents. It doesn't seem to have really happened, though. Nobody's ever come through with verified tales of such a thing. At the Republican National Convention, though, many of the delegates figuratively spit on John Kerry for what he did in Vietnam. With the exception of John McCain, I don't recall one prominent Republican speaking out against this. Ann Coulter has written columns questioning the circumstances under which Max Cleland lost three of his limbs in Vietnam, suggesting that his sacrifice for us doesn't count. During the 2000 primary, the Bush campaign questioned whether McCain might have become unhinged while a POW in North Vietnam. This is dishonorable behavior. This is not how respectful people treat their veterans. This is how Republicans behave
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