Look, I like Ben Stein, or at least the persona the public knows. But really, this is too much:
Here I am in my swimming pool in Beverly Hills, lazily swimming laps back and forth at midnight. I can see the stars above my palm trees and cedars. The dogs are loping around the back yard sniffing for squirrels. My wife is upstairs drinking the Cuervo Gold or whatever it is.I am thinking about a conversation I had a couple of hours ago with my pal Phil DeMuth. He said that basically, what we had to realize was that our freedom, our prosperity, our opportunity, our rule of law, came from 19 year olds carrying around M-16's. He was quoting from a fine book called Grunts.
This idea is burning like wildfire in my brain. Here we all are, living like kings, living like maharajahs, and what's keeping us alive? Kids from small towns in Pennsylvania and Iowa and Wyoming and the Central Valley of California. And their parents and their wives and their kids, many of them now widows and orphans.
All of which is true, as far as it goes. Stein goes on to say we should be thankful, thankful, thankful to them. And he's right about that too. But that's it. He seems to believe that all that's required of him is gratitude, that it will somehow be a comfort to the soldiers, the wives, the fatherless children, to know that a wealthy man is lying back in his Beverly Hills pool thinking happy thoughts about them. I'm sure he doesn't mean to come off this way, but good grief.
Dennis Dale, writing on the American Conservative's blog, is less forgiving than I am. I especially like his accusing Stein of confusing "necessary evil" with "inherent good."
Stein's bit resonates with me in light of the McClellan stuff recently reminding us all that George W. Bush twisted the truth to get this country into a war that ought never to have been fought. And it also resonates with me because I was sent by a family member over the weekend a network news clip of an incredibly dangerous operation US soldiers are now undertaking (I can't, for security reasons, discuss it). My brother-in-law and his company are on the front lines -- his guys were filmed for network TV. My brother-in-law was nearly picked off the other day by a sniper. We're praying constantly for our soldiers, and for the safe return of our particular soldier, who's scheduled to come home next month.
Frankly, I'm in no mood to hear about Ben Stein's tender feelings under the Beverly Hills stars, and how Ben's plush life depends on guys like my brother-in-law sticking their heads up to get shot at by Shiite SOBs. If I were his wife, I'd be upstairs knocking back tequila too.
UPDATE: Dennis Dale, whose blog post I relied on for this one, says he's learned now that Stein is opposed to the Iraq War -- which changes things, I think, and certainly Dale thinks so. He's apologized to Stein. So, in turn, do I.
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The Marines never have a problem recruiting, and I think part of it is they are trying to sell it. There's some real truth to that classic line from the Princess Bride, "Life IS pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling something."
The Army goes about it all wrong - throwing money at the problem, talking up the benefits and the bonuses.
Hardly a word is mentioned about just how grueling and hard it can be (it isn't for everyone but it's a real risk!) and how much you will learn about yourself and other human beings, nor is it even insinuated how much it can cost you. Nothing is said about the honor of CHOOSING such a hard path willingly, of serving so others don't have to, of answering the call to stand in the gap. Little is said about the pride in serving which can carry you through hard times, about the indescribable feeling that comes over you when you are no longer saluting patriotism, or freedom, or the Constitution when you see that flag, but are now saluting men and women you've known personally, who've paid the highest price.
At any rate, it is hard to put all that into words. But the Marines put it in their commercials. And it works.
Most of us enlist for mixed reasons, but once we're in uniform, none of those reasons matter anymore. It's about the things I tried to describe here, and it's about doing whatever it takes to get your brothers and sisters home safe and sound. I really wish the Army would get onboard and quit trying to sell itself like a brand of cola. It's demeaning and it's dishonest.
As far as a draft - at this point something has to give, manpower in Iraq is at a limit. I would rather that my unit had a couple of draftees to help out than nothing. Because that's the stark choice we are down to, as is evidenced by the skyrocketing recruiting and re-enlisting bonuses, and the use of Stop-Loss and Recalls and medical waivers and moral waivers, to say nothing of deploying the NATIONAL Guard to other nations, to man our units. The category of people the military describes as having "the propensity to serve" is shrinking, not growing. We will have to draw down troops to a certain level. In the meantime, I hope we improve recruiting techniques. Then maybe we can back off the crisis measures of waivers and Stop Loss and the heavy use of our increasingly inaccurate "Reserve" forces.
News outlets will often be asked to sit on pieces about individual operations until the operations are over with. This way we don't have silly journalists giving away our positions to the enemy in real-time. It's happened. Rank and file servicemembers abide by similar restrictions, as far as talking to the folks back home.
AnotherBeliever - As a Marine, I concur with your assessment of Army vs. USMC recruiting strategies. It's interesting to hear someone from the Army echoing what I've thought for some time now.
Stay safe.
MI:
I was just watching the new Marine Corps commercial yesterday morning at the gym. It's the one with the long line of Marines in full dress uniform, stretched over the length of the country, doing formal drills with their rifles. It's almost overdone - but not if you listen to the words. The Marine Corps isn't selling anything, but rather stating their ethos and the larger ethos of military service. They do a pretty good job, like I said, it's hard to put the complex reasons and emotions behind service into words.
This continues at the recruiter's office. There is less talk of bonuses and more of service and challenge over on the Marines' side. Part of this is pure pyschology. I can remember being pushed to volunteer for Arabic. There is a dedicated language recruiter, though this person generally has a third of the country to cover, so my contact with mine was only by phone. I expressed interest in maybe being a Russian linguist. He made some comment about Arabic being where the action is. You WANT to be where the action is, don't you? (This was before the Iraq war would press everybody into action here, be they cook, mechanic, or linguist.)
Well, yes, I answered. Of course I did. Wouldn't I want to my service in the Army to be as big an adventure as it could be? Wouldn't I want to have stories to tell? Wouldn't I want to truly EXPERIENCE things rather than get some secure job in an office stateside?? There were other factors I took into consideration by the time I made my choice (bonuses and benefits), but his challenge to be "a part of the action" was what tipped the scale.
There's been days I've really regretted it, of course. And days I've been proud. But I'll never ask myself when I'm older, what if I had chosen the harder path?
I don't know how widespread that kind of mentality or motivation is. Maybe it is more common a mindset in young people than we give them credit for. I do know that the Marines are really good at going after that mindset and cultivating it and capitalizing on it, and I really don't think the Army can (or should) go on much longer without tossing out their "sales campaign" and doing the same.
So "George W. Bush twisted the truth to get this country into a war that ought never to have been fought"? I know I'm a little late to this post, but are "crunchy cons" now parroting left wing smears of GWB? He really "twisted the truth"? So Bush knew that there really were no stockpiles of weapons, but just pretended there were to get us into a war? How about every opportunistic Democrat who read the polls and voted for the war? Did they "twist the truth" as well? Did every intelligence agency in the world also "twist the truth"? How about all those UN resolutions, were they purposefully twisting the truth? They were just having fun because they knew that Saddam was really lying about this weapons capabilities?
Really, Mr. Dreher, I don't care what you felt about the war, initially or now, but this is just pathetic.
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