Yes, yes, yes. Cheap shots have been the norm recently

Very cheap shots applied stateside.
I'm a fan of the US of A
I realise that the last few posts have been maybe a bit easy in the sense that the target presents ample opps for derision.
Yes "Sandra" (see comments from previous posts)
poo,poo on me.
It is shocking however that the football player ( college graduate) didn't know they speak English in London.
I do think it would be hard to find anyone in England who didn't know they speak English in the good old US of A.
But may be wrong on that.
Regardless I have yet again been humbled by some statistics flowing across the bottom of my TV screen.
Watching the news at 1 am tonight, I'm reminded of a rather poignant event in my life.
BBC news 24 just reported that 4 Brits and 7 Americans died tonight in Iraq.
2 Brits and 4 yanks died in Afghanistan.
Just a ticker tape, not a story. just a mere mention.
Fuck.
Its an endless conveyor belt.
When I lived in HongKong I visited the Canadian cemetery and was shocked to see the headstones of 17 year old kids from places like Battleford Saskatewan.
They'd probably never seen electricity before joining the army.
They were children who died a long time ago in a place they had no association with.
Some of them died for some terrible misplaced loyalty to an "Empire" that would soon cease to have any meaning soon after the war.
The fact that the Brits sailed out of HK harbour as they sailed in knowing full well it was about to fall is disgusting but besides the point.
Let me get back to the point.
Cheap shots at ignorant yanks, who are sacrificing their youth in a crap conflict of which they have no understanding is a rather poor attempt at being the clever mind that I have pretensions of being.
Make no mistake about it;
It's not the flower of Harvard , Yale , Cambridge or Oxford who is in the center of this conflict.
Like always, it is the folks who have no choice.
The NFL stars have stopped volunteering.
They're recruiting in shopping malls.
Kids who need counselling not guns..
To be honest it's those kids who always bear the burden when the shit flies.
It's to those kids that I tip my hat.
Ignorant or not, they are, to a man, better than myself or anyone I know.

Solid and true.

Willing ready and able.
Noble.
Deride them at your peril.
Corny sentiment?
So be it.
I stand accused, convicted and readily confess, that's what I believe.
In all my cynical, world weary self, I say that these kids are heros and I don't really care whether you think I'm being naive and stupid or not.
I just wish we could elect some folks who wouldn't be so flippant with their lives.
They are true hero's cause no one gives them any real credit. The war has taken on a background noise quality .....but its still there and all of us are letting it carry on.
Pull out now?
Well no that can't really work.
Draft the sons of senators and MPs and see how quick someone comes up with an exit strategy.
Why don't we try that?
No more cheap shots.
The US is doing more than its part.
It does far more good than bad and does so with kids who deserve to be applauded cause they're serving on blind faith.
You may think that's a symptom of a sick society.
I'd argue that it shows a measure of moral strength lacking in Paris, Madrid or Berlin.
If you doubt that just look back in history and see the times they've relied on such faith when their own people let them down.
Yes Berlin.
What would have been it's fate post 45 if not for the much derided yanks?
Sermon over.

T