Now that Christmas and New Year's celebrations are behind us, most of us are ready for a vacation, or at least a long hibernation. There is much to do to include resting up for the remainder of the year. Some of us will be pouring through seed catalogs, planning summer recreation, preparing for renovations around the homestead, generally waiting for better weather to break so we can take care of all those chores we cannot do during winter.

We are not the only ones waiting and pondering things to do later in the year. If this winter and last fall are any indication, we can expect that the anti-war idiots have been plotting and planning for a couple of years and will be out in force this year. They have been energized by the elections. They are frustrated with so many of us who vocally oppose them. But, they also feel that their message has been resonating with the public. And they are correct.

The tactics that they developed during the 60's and 70's are working again. Not as well as they would like, and not without a great deal of effort on their part. They also do not have the full force of draft-eligible young men helping them. So, while they have had many successes, they are feeling the strain of not having a clear road ahead of them for their hate and rhetoric. They also seem to understand that there are many of us who will simply not allow them to demonize our warriors in the same ways that they have done in the past.

This just might be a very good time for those of us who sit behind our computers safely lambasting the idiots who do not support our military in any regard to recommit to some more direct action to neutralize those who would prefer that we lose a war than admit that a strong military is in the best interest of the United States.

Most, if not all, who read these musings have either served in the military or supported those of us who have. Entirely too many in this pack of Old War Dogs have been on the receiving end of those ranting, raving lunatics who spit, threw feces, blood and other projectiles and felt the sting of disrespect, disregard, or outright hatred from the cowards who call themselves supporting the troops. At the time this was happening in the 60's and 70's, the country seemed to react as one would to spoiled children: ignore them. Don't dignify their behavior by responding to it. Let it go. Forgive and forget.

It didn't work. The fools and cowards were only emboldened. They now sit in Congress and on the bench. They deliver your mail and own the liquor store down the street. Yes, some of them are in jail, and some now reside in cemeteries after that last OD. But entirely too many of them now feel that hatefulness and disrespect of our history and our veterans somehow serves our country well. Worse yet, many are in classrooms at all levels of education and are teaching our children and grandchildren skewed lessons, filling their heads with hate and disregard for not only history but common sense and decency.

Your system of ethics may require of you that you forgive those who transgress against you. That is fine, and even dandy. To forget is quite another thing. It is foolhardy to forget an injury one has caused any of us, particularly when they have shown no signs of having changed their ways. Those who have seen the error of their ways and asked us to forgive them are quite rare. Most of them still hate us and are still willing to hurt us, given the opportunity.

Those of us who have sworn to never allow "them" to do to another generation what they did to ours must do more than talk the talk. Yes, it is very important that we continue to spread the word using our computers. Yes, it is very important that we continue to write our members of Congress and other career politicians to let them know what we think and that we are not alone. It is certainly very important that we vote and encourage others to work for candidates (when we can find them) who really support our country and our military.

Consider this my personal challenge to every Veteran-American to do everything you can to counter the hate with displays of love of country, support of our troops, and gratitude for our veterans at every opportunity. Call your newspapers and other media outlets. Write to them. Make enough noise that we cannot be ignored completely.

Make signs and get together with some buddies to stand on a busy street corner in your community. Wear hats that show you are a veteran and carry signs that say something like "We support our Troops." This idea may sound really silly, or demeaning to you. Having done it many times, I can tell you that a group of veterans standing quietly and proudly at a busy intersection on a Sunday afternoon can generate more excitement than you can imagine. Especially if one of you has a sign which reads "Honk if You Support Our Troops!"

More of us need to find ways to infiltrate the anti-war crowd, or at least find ways to get intelligence information about their activities in our communities. There is no reason why we Veteran-Americans cannot produce a counter-rally for each demonstration they mount any where in this country.

The anti-America crowd has organizational alliances. Why don't we have any? Shouldn't we have coalitions with other like-minded groups? Are we sharing information, and nobody notified me? While I don't really expect the VFW or American Legion to proclaim a formal commitment to support the more radical of our efforts, there are many individual members who would join with us in supportive causes. Have we asked them?

Of course, not everyone is physically or emotionally capable of taking to the streets. All members of this pack are very involved in one way or another in efforts that vary from seeing that revisionist history is corrected to finding ways for treasonous members of Congress to be held accountable for their actions, among other things. There are many ways to participate.

While we are hibernating for the rest of this winter, we can surely each discover at least one way to counter the negative voices we hear aimed at our country and our military members. Can we each develop an action plan? Put another way, are we prepared to "Report for Duty" one last time? Is the alternative something we can even contemplate?

Contributed by Bobbie (OWB) on January 7, 2007 at 08:06 PM in Bobbie Craig | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Rurik

"Don't dignify their behavior by responding to it. Let it go. Forgive and forget."
Bobbie, this is really good, but you forgot two more important ones - "Keep to the high road" and "We must be better than that".
"Your system of ethics may require of you that you forgive those who transgress against you." Ever since the Christian Church gained political responsibility in the Fourth Century, and among the Jewish Tribes many centuries earlier, religious leaders have taught that private morality and public morality overlap but are not synonymous. The shepherd cannot afford the moral luxury of coddling the wolves.

Posted by: Rurik | Jan 7, 2007 9:34:11 PM

Posted by: mxdg

Fly the flag! On your house, vehicle or whereever you can. Walk up to any troops you see at the malls or on the street and thank them., hell buy 'em lunch! Wear your patriotism on your sleeve for all to see. You're likely to get some funny looks from people but who cares?
Look what happened when the Phelps group started their crap at the funerals of our fallen heroes.
http://www.patriotguard.org/
BTW, Quite a few members are non-vets, just people looking to do what they can to support and honor the troops and their families.
We're always gonna have the likes of Mikey Moore and Cindy Sheehan et al.

Posted by: mxdg | Jan 8, 2007 5:58:00 AM