Op-Ed.: Midterms.

Constant listening to the evening news, reading of the journals, newspaper and internet, all of this can wear down even the greatest of optimists. In so doing, I write this week's opinion-editorial on the midterm election's greatest topic of all: the Iraq War. Sound off:

It is a majority of my generation’s age group that fights in the military today. They take their orders from those born of the generation that composed the majority of soldiers sent to Vietnam. They were, of course, sent there by politicians aged within the Greatest Generation, who were themselves children of The Great War. From this lineage, a pattern is difficult to overlook; but that does not stop people from trying. Especially those whom are looking more toward their personal future than to one that encompasses soldier, citizen and servant alike.

No matter how contiguous this looks, I cannot overlook the time-proven fact that violence brings further violence. Instead of listening to our past our nation’s leaders prove, time and again, that they would rather spend their time employed rationalizing their mediocre positions. Standpoints such as to how best to commemorate the fallen soldiers abroad. By defining the importance as to why they are sent to fight? With tragic reports of ambushes diminished to anecdotal tales to draw attention to the gravity of a quaint legislative action? Instead of fully appreciating the brazen choice made by a multitude of U.S. citizens to wear the uniform and to serve their country with integrity and honor, politicians today (old enough to have served in Vietnam) sling muck with odious mottos like “adapt-to-win” and “cut-and-run”. It sickens me in a manner that no therapy can fully cure.

It seems to me that this generation, gentlemen and ladies of public service, understand their duties clearly and fully. If you comprehend yours’ as wholly, you will take the blunt words of this generally humble man and form a strong opinion that the truest, and most adequate tribute to those that have fallen now and past, is the same as what you had asked for in your time. It is the same tribute as your parents had hoped for you a generation before: equip them with the finest of things, bring them home soon and safely, and honor their service with opportunities aplenty. This is the strategy, against which terror can never prevail; and that no politician can refute as partisan. Ignore it, and we shall surely repeat the process in generations to come.