Guess we have to face it: Patriotism is alive and well. Soldiers believe in the Army, and they believe in their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They love their comrades, too. And yes, the word is "love." They would die for the man or woman serving beside them. They're risking their lives to save a broken state, to give tens of millions of human beings a chance at decent lives, to do the grim work that no one else in the world is willing to do.
Their reward? The Cindy Sheehan Extravaganza. Predictions of disaster. The depiction of Michael Moore as a hero and our soldiers as dupes. And a ceaseless attempt to convince the American people that there's no hope in Iraq.
The ugly truth is that much of the media only cares about our soldiers when they're dead or crippled. That's a story.
The eagerness with which the Left embraces any bad news should embarass them. It does not.
And the media too, for that matter. Based on their circulation numbers, they are having quite the recruiting problem themselves. Wonder why? Pretty soon the only subscribers the NYT will have are LAT employees, and vice versa. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys as far as I'm concerned.
UPDATE: I was right to hesitate a bit by wanting to see the numbers. The story isn't quite as good as Peters makes it out to be. While retention is great, I don't think new recruit shortfalls will be made up by retention. Still, it is true that the economy and greater goals are the main reasons for the shortfalls in recruiting. Soldiers, especially combat veterans, are reenlisting proudly. And recruiting shortfalls are heaviest generally in the reserves. This makes sense since those who join the reserves can probably count on being called up once and if you want to go on active duty you'd join the active components and not the reserves. I should look for the new recruiting numbers for 1999 and 2000. I bet they are lower than for 2005.
