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# No guarantees for soldiers
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/no-guarantees-for-soldiers-editor/
- Published: 2007-03-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:15:26.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By James Zeruk jr. Veteran, USAF*

This is in response to David Pisarra’s piece (“A picture tells the story of a life lost,” March, 13, page 4) where he laments the death of Army Reserve Capt. Brian Freeman, who was killed (executed) in Iraq. Pisarra says he doesn’t know how presidents sleep at night knowing others are doing their bidding and dying. At the end of his column, he says he’ll never be president because, “... I cry over the death of a man I’ve never met... and whose sacrifice is beyond me.”

Mr. Pisarra assumes that presidents are automatons devoid of emotion — that a Commander in Chief takes so cheaply the lives of our troops that sleep comes easy and tears are not shed. This is an insulting assumption. He confuses our leaders and our presidents (Republican and Democrat) with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and the current terrorist leaders who send their young zealots out as human bombs to purposefully target innocent women and children at markets, cafes and public squares. These are (were) the true leaders and presidents without restless sleep and heartfelt tears.

During President Reagan’s administration, no males ever entered the Oval Office without a jacket and tie because he considered that room a “holy place” from which this country’s finest were ordered into harm’s way. No American president ever took, nor will take, these things lightly. History and eyewitness accounts of those closest to all our presidents bare this out.

In the middle of his piece, Pisarra also says, “I cannot wrap my head around how these leaders are able to ask men to die for them. It makes no sense to me.” Allow me to help: The thing he should wrap his head around (and try to make sense of) is this... How are our young men and women able to muster the courage to volunteer to serve this country, knowing full well they might not come back whole or alive, and why do they do it?

As a veteran, let me first tell Mr. Pisarra about the “how.” It comes from that corny, flag-waving, patriotic, I love America-part of the heart; a heart that drives a sense of duty into action and keeps it there no matter the danger; no matter how crummy the food, pay, or weather is, or even who the president may be.

But there are other ways to volunteer and patriotically serve America without being a warrior, so then, why the military? This is the “why”: Because priests and rabbis don’t guarantee freedom of religion; because writers and poets don’t guarantee freedom of speech; because reporters and columnists don’t guarantee freedom of the press, and because activists and ACLU attorneys don’t guarantee the right to peacefully assemble and petition government in a redress of grievances — soldiers do; sailors do; airmen do; Marines and Coast Guardsmen do. The U.S. Constitution, a cherished ideal of inalienable rights recorded on parchment, guarantees these freedoms only because our armed forces stand between those ideals and tyranny.

Perhaps if Mr. Pisarra had spent more time reflecting on the irony of the last name of Capt. Brian Freeman rather than worry about the president’s sleeping habits, then maybe, instead of misspelling the captain’s first name (it’s Brian with “i", not “y"), he would have been able to wrap his head around the idea that this brave and great American patriot volunteered, served and died in uniform so people like us can be free men.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 17, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031707.pdf?ref=smdp.com)