Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Why We Win.

While running errands today, I was listening on the radio about a new book out by a professor at the University of Dayton, Larry Schweikart called "America's Victorie's: Why the U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror."

The author was dispelling a few liberal myths that I found fascinating. He spoke about the apitude test that one must pass in order to join the military. It is not an easy one. The left's insisting that only poor rural ignorant young men and women join because they have no other viable options is simply false. He said that in his research he found that the military is from every conceivable zip code in the United States, lower, middle, and upper class. Even the infamous Beverly Hill's 90210 zip code.

But the most fascinating thing he said was dispelling the myth that the sons and daughters of our Representatives don't serve. He said that in fact the sons and daughters of our Representatives serve in greater numbers proportionally than the general population. Well, how about that? Is nothing the left says true?

(I have an e-mail in to Dr. Schweikart to get the exact numbers and where he got them and I will update when I get them. Or.....I may have to just buy the book;-)

I haven't read the book yet, but in the reviews I've read it says that Schweikart reviews 200 years of American military history and illustrates that U.S. troops, under even dire circumstances,- "have whipped the British Empire (twice), beaten a Mexican army (against all European expectations), fought a fratricidal civil war that resulted in higher casualties than all previous wars put together (due to the fact that officers and soldiers on both sides were deadly effective), and rushed the Plains Indians with a minimal number of troops. American forces then dispatched the Spanish in less than a year (when again, most Europeans thought Spain would win), helped the Allies evict the Germans from France, and dominated an international alliance that simultaneously beat the Nazis, Japanese warlords, and Italian fascists."

Maybe it takes a book to tell us what we already know- Our military rocks and always has. We have the best fighting machine ever known to mankind. While it seems the media insists on painting our soldiers in a bad light due to a few bad apples, the truth is that our military is honorable, disciplined, and the best in the world.

Whenever I read a discussion on the left bashing our military I think of the irony that it is because of that very military that they have the freedom to rant.

As Greyhawk at Mudville quotes:

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."le