Blogoland

12-Star-Lt. Col Ralph Peters holds a couple trump cards over us keyboard jockeys: He's been in the Army, he's seen things and, therefore, it allows him to write articles about how despicably un-bloodthirsty we've become [also: Treason! And: Crazy!]. But Fred Reed, Vietnam combat vet, former Washington Times reporter, and writer for Soldier of Fortune calls bullshit on all that:

Ralph believes that Americans have become too comfortable, have lost their taste for war, no longer want to pay the butcher’s bill. Ralph is for war...

[...]

Ralph, a doubtless well-paid commentator on television, complains that our elites do not fight in the country’s wars. True. Neither do our Ralphs. Relying on his biography in the Wikipedia, I find that he was born in 1952, making him of military age in 1970. The war in Viet Nam being at its height, he went to Europe for ten years. Rough duty, it was. Cirrhosis always looms in those beer gardens. He retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in intelligence. (Officers usually being peters, it is not surprising that Peters was an officer.) In the Marines we referred to such people as “admin pogues” or “REMFs,” rear-echelon motherfuckers. I confess to a loathing for those who shelter safely behind the lines yet send others to fight, bowwow, grrrr, woof. Still, his record is not irrelevant to his views. War looks exciting to office
workers, but has less appeal to those who are forced to fight. It has even less appeal for those who are hit.

Whoa.