Kevin Gowen wrote:
> On Feb 28, 7:25 pm, mtfes...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
>> Kevin  Gowen <kgo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 28, 9:19 am, mtfes...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
>>>> Kevin  Gowen <kgo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> The military is a good place for directionless white trash who think
>>>>> that HONOR and VALOR and EMPTY BUZZWORDS flow from a contract with the
>>>>> government. If you think someone's willingness to kill whomever they
>>>>> are told is a moral good, the military might be a good place for you!
>>>> Actually, I've always thought that military service  should have been a
>>>> requirement to be elected to Congress or the Presidency/ After all, if
>>>> one makes decisions about people going to war, one should have some
>>>> experience with the organization leading the war.
>>> The President and Congress also approve budgets and make policy about
>>> myriad matters such as energy, education, labor, the economy, and
>>> others. What compulsory experience should we have in those areas?
>> Perhaps your part of the country doesn't have any experience with labor,
>> or economics, much less require an education, but we have all those
>> out here on the West Coast.
> 
> Well, I am sure you have lots of military bases out there on the West
> Coast as well, so I guess it is good enough that the lawmakers simply
> live somewhere in the general vicinity of at least one of them.
> 
>> Also, typically, none of these issues traditionally revolves around
>> sending other people's sons off to die on foreign soil.
> 
> Tough break for all of those sons who volunteered. No one ever cries
> very much for the commercial fisherman or electricians who have a
> higher job mortality rate than the military.

In the current war, it isn't just sons who volunteered.  Lots more 
husbands and fathers than any time since 1941.  Have you checked out the 
average age of the casualties?  In Vietnam it was 19 years, but it is 
well over 25 for Iraq.

Statistics are funny old things aren't they.  Strictly speaking, the 
mortality rate for humans is 100%.  And as far as more commercial 
fishermen and electricians dying than military personnel -- which I 
would guess is a percent of all registered or something similar, if 
you're comparing like with like --  it just shows who has the better 
safety and training program, doesn't it?

As long as we're on the subject of statistics, anyone want to hazard a 
guess exactly what percentage of military service personnel are in 
actual combat assignments and what percentage are "support"?  Another 
one that amazes people who don't know anything about it -- Which branch 
of the US military service has the highest percentage of post-BA and 
post-doc degrees among their active duty members -- a stat that is 
roughly 4x the American population?

>> Just a heads up, in case you ever DO encounter labor, or an education.
> 
> I got a classy education so I wouldn't have to encounter "labor"
> types.

One of the great tragedies of our time is the large group who mistake a 
degree for education and a having a diploma from a school of a 
particular name for intelligence.  The current Administration should 
have disabused people of that notion, but, sadly the lesson has not 
penetrated to the extent it should have by now.

-- 
CL