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Nothing unexpected here. Yes, we buy our military “volunteers”, and some do profit from it, while others flounder and are wasted in one way or another. And cost the rest of society dearly.
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<div class="">And a belated thanks for your letter.</div>
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<div class="">Mort</div>
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<div class="">On Jan 19, 2019, at 11:15 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold;" class="">Military service a positive experience</span></div>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">Our local iconoclast and critic of American life, David Green, writes that our armed forces are predominantly drawn from the economically underprivileged “to serve as potential
cannon fodder and cops on the beat.” He concludes, “these predominantly working-class individuals serve … the interests of the capitalist class and sacrifice only to the latter’s benefit.”</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">First, I dislike “working man/working-class” terminology because, while long employed in management and thereby disqualified as a “working man,” I consistently worked more
hours per week (including every Saturday and Sunday) than the typical Monday through Fri-</span><span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;"> day “working man.”</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">But that is not my primary dispute with Green’s views. To realize that military service offers many positives to “working-class individuals,” one has but to read what Seon
Williams, this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King Outstanding Achievement Awardee, said about his six-plus years of service: “It was the best thing I could have ever done.”</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">Williams credits his success as an entrepreneur to the “discipline, responsibility, initiative, leadership and positive attitude” he learned in the service.</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">Thousands of oncedisadvantaged men and women have been positively impacted by their valued service to their country. To many, our armed forces offer employable skills and
self-confidence as alternatives</span><span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;"> to a life of poverty</span><span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;"> or crime.</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">Honoring veterans is</span><span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;"> anything but “propaganda” and “manipulative promotion.”</span></p>
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<span class="ydp1e6ddd99Fid_9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: normal;">PETER T. TOMARAS Champaign</span></p>
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