Tom Toles for February 13, 2015

Buck privates, in the cavalry, still shoveling it.

Maybe one of them finally woke up the Prez after 6 months of napping on the JV Team.Let’s hope it’s not too late.

I wonder how many members of the House and Senate are veterans who have experienced combat. Anyone know?

When there was a draft everyone thought it was very unfair. I guess there is nothing you can do to make people happy. I am not sure having a congress full of vets would make them any smarter.

Uh, exactly what about mentioning Joni Ernst reminded you of castrating reindeer? Just curious.I was just looking at some data on Ernst. I not that she and her husband Gail are both veterans: she was a lieutenant colonel, and he was a sergeant major, now she is a U.S. Senator, is older and retired. Mean anything? Probably not.

I agree: bring back the draft. One critical condition: no deferments for any reason.

If it weren’t for the draft, we’d probably still be in Viet Nam. People recognized an unwinnable war that had no value, and didn’t want any part of it. If we had the draft earlier this century, we may not have invaded Iraq, no matter what the chicken-hawks in DC would have wanted.

If the children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren of the fossils in Congress got a draft notice, they’d be far less willing to rush headlong into stupid wars. This is why we cannot allow deferments.

Imagine how different the world might be if Dick Cheney had been required to serve in Viet Nam, for example.

feverjr: For that matter, Ronald Reagan claimed to have liberated a concentration camp when he never left Fort Roach. When the movie personnel discovered it was really a front to keep them out of combat, it was traditional to demand a combat tour: camera operators as combat photographers; special effect modelers making pre-invasion terrain models; stars for morale shows; etc. Reagan never did a War Bond drive – Carole Lombard was killed coming back from one, too dangerous. On the other hand, John Garfield joined the Merchant Marine, Clark Gable as a gunnery trainer and top turret gunner, Jimmy Stewart as B-17 pilot, etc. Even a civilian like Vera Lynn, who three times put on shows within the sound of artillery.

Ernst was a National Guard SUPPLY OFFICER, never close to any combat operation. Her talking of castrating pigs must have brought forth the bark in her bite supposition?

Billie HIll, you may not want to travel west where they still do sheep and calves the same “old fashioned” way on many ranches. Hmm, rocky Lapland oysters?

This is one of those areas of politics where I generally value the thoughts and opinions of actual combat veterans like John McCain, when he is not simply kowtowing to the powers-that-be in the Repug Party or the $$$ thrown at him by XYZ Inc. John Kerry too is worth listening to, or the former Sens. Jim Webb and Max Cleland, or Rep. Tammy Duckworth. People who actually know whereof they speak.

Richard Nixon, like Kennedy and LBJ were in the Navy during WW II. Reagan was in “special services” (there was no “special forces” then) and narrated training films. Many indeed in Congress were likewise in some form of service during WW II back in ’71.

It was the Bush family that drastically changed the role of the National Guard, making them for the first time in U.S. history “front line troops” in any appreciable numbers; specifically to make "W"’s service, even though he deserted, more “courageous”. (My best friend was in the Texas National Guard, and he readily admitted he joined to stay out of ‘Nam, like many others. I trained with some Texas Guard unit clowns in basic at Ft. Bliss, and they joked and laughed that we RAs or the USs were “cannon fodder” and they’d be relaxing at their nice Texas “private clubs” drinking to our health.)

^^ Shrillary was in “combat when sniper fire forced her to duck and hide”…… Lol

Republican Joni Ernst is being attacked for “overstating” her combat experience. However, any member of the VFW, as I am, knows that serving in a combat zone is exactly in order in what she claimed.

Our little man says, “they’re in for the long haul.” The reality is that these “think tanks” that are 501c’s, tax deductible social welfare organizations and pay their members $500,000 or more. They are not in it only for the long haul but also the big haul.