By James Zeruk jr. Santa Monica
While reading Susan Hartley’s letter insinuating American military recruitment is evil (”No Child Left Unregistered,” SMDP, page 4, Sept. 22) I got the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get from seeing child molesters in our library, hearing O.J. Simpson claim innocence, and the post traumatic memory of having wasted several dollars and hours of precious life to see Barbara Streisand in a train wreck called “Yentel.”
Isn’t it interesting that people like Hartley (ugh, I’m getting that feeling again) would have their heads cut off, or be imprisoned and tortured and raped and given over to all manner of unspeakable, ungodly, inhuman subjection at the hands of real evil if she wrote the exact same letter while living in reach of, oh, lemme see... Osama bin Laden or others in Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the presidents of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Somalia, Haiti, China, and at least several dozen other countries whose blood-ravenous leaders feast on dissenters such as she.
So, Ms. Hartley, you despise the U.S. military’s recruitment of America’s young adults, do you? Yet this same military is the guardian of the Ideals set forth by our Founding Fathers and so eloquently penned in our Constitution — particularly the First Amendment.
You will not be dragged away in the dead of night, Ms. Hartley; you will not be tried in a kangaroo court, or tortured, or sent to gulags, rape rooms, or dropped into machines used to shred live human beings instead of recy-clable plastic bottles, a la Saddam’s Iraq.
No, Ms. Hartley, none of these horrors shall befall you because of your misguided ideology and venomous pen. This is because you live in The United States of America and are protected in speech, in religious worship or lack thereof, in public assembly and redress of government. You see, it wasn’t people like you and your circle who served and oft times died to protect freedom and prevent the above horrors from ever happening here, it was men like me, and women like my dear friend Cheryl Strong, permanently disabled as a direct result of her service to you and the nation she loves. It was because of Major Richard Crocker (USMCR), a Santa Monica policeman who gave his life helping children while fighting terrorists during his third tour of duty.
Go ahead, Ms. Hartley, speak evil of me, or Cheryl and Rick — each of us recruited in a high school or college, each of us and our Band of Brothers and Sisters who volunteered to protect you while enduring crappy weather, low pay, and lousy chow for years on end in places you haven't heard of; speak evil of our military if it makes you feel smarter, more “progressive,” more uppity than the rest of us, but put your money where your snarling mouth is — bring your letter to the above mentioned countries in person, go ahead... I dare you. And if you do, don't be surprised if you're rescued by a guy or gal in a uniform sporting a shoulder patch of the American flag. Hoorah.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 26, 2007. Read the original PDF.