Tag: Duty

The ‘american taliban’ To Celebrate

This little get together, and venue it’s taking place at, fits well into a new book that’s been recently released, but doesn’t as to the Military it’s Oaths and Constitution of this here United States.

{Note: by the way if you haven’t yet purchased and do so at link it would help this old vet who’s exhausted his unemployment and living off savings and might have to do what he never planned, retire, and at the ripe young age of 62 which doesn’t come about till december.}

The ‘christian?’ military crusaders we now have?, and apparently some really want!, american taliban at work!!

Duty Now For The Future

Decades ago – long before I became gray and respectable – I was a big fan of the punk rock band Devo. I found myself remembering their second album just now; specifically, the title of the album: “Duty Now For The Future.” Today, that phrase seems to carry an unexpected weight; it seems pregnant with meaning and promise.

As I write these words, President Obama has just finished his inaugural address. It was an address for the ages, and yet one that was desperately needed at this particular time in our history. It pointed the way forward with resonant themes from a simpler and more honest time. The themes of duty, sacrifice, responsibility, obligation, and service.

To which I can only respond: it’s about time. Long past time, in fact. Long past time for Americans across the entire political spectrum (as well as those who consider themselves apolitical)  to embody these ideas — ideas that have recently been misappropriated by the hard-right fringe of the body politic and used as blunt instruments of political demagoguery.

It’s a funny thing about America: almost no one talked about duties anymore. All we hear from Americans is the endless din about “rights.” The idea that our rights  can exist in a social vacuum, without  a corresponding  set of duties, is a toxic idea that is poisoning America. We have come to believe that we are  nothing more than individuals, and that as such all we need concern ourselves with is rights, and never with obligations.

Let’s talk about obligations for a change, and about duties. A philosophy that proclaims the idea that rights do not have their basis in duty and obligation must inevitably result in  a sick,  narcissistic citizenry, a citizenry from whom the endless, birds-nest cheeps of “Me! Me! Me! Me!” has reached deafening volume. It is time for less talk about our rights as citizens, and more talk about our duties as citizens.

Obama is not calling America to service because such service is “needed” in any practical sense.  He is calling for service, and sacrifice, and a sense of obligation because these are the  rhetorical clarion calls by which one inculcates a sense of shared duties and national solidarity, without which no healthy, committed society can be built or surv

The Invisible Injuries of the Invisible Ranks: A Military Spouse

Earlier today I received an e-mail from an on line friend, she is the wife of a military serviceman now serving in Iraq, she is also very active in support of her fellow spouses and the families as well as returning OIF and OEF military personal seeking needed help but finding the going sometimes extremely troubling, confusing or denied.

Many of us Veterans have found her and she us and have gotten to know her through our own advocacy of our brothers and sisters. Some are working directly with her and she with them.

She has written a very personal letter, the title I used above is the one from her letter to us, of her experiences and feelings, as a military spouse, and while posting it on a few sites it has now found it’s way to a number of other sites.

“Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations”

The House Judiciary Committee today, Friday, July 25th, will put Impeachment squarely back “on the table” and restored to its prominent place in our Constitution.

Wednesday 07/25/2008 – 10:00 AM

2141 Rayburn House Office Building

Full Committee

By Direction of the Chairman