My Zen Arcade

Parents Keep Veterans From Giving Talk At School
A group, Veterans For Freedom is going around giving talks and whatever.  Anyhow, they were signed up to speak at a high school which was eventually cancelled due to the politics of the event.  Michelle Malkin has kittens.

Ms. Malkin quotes the Star Tribune, but doesn’t want to give all the information.

We have not endorsed a presidential candidate. We’re not in the business of doing that.” According to the Veterans for Freedom website, the national tour “is about supporting our troops, honoring their commitment and rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
When asked whether the part about “rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan” could indeed be construed as political, Hegseth said that the group agreed not to advocate about the “progress made in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“It’s Iraq and Afghan veterans talking about what they saw and what they did there, and about what it means to put on the uniform of your country,”

Exactly how are you going to talk about what you did and saw in Iraq without promoting one side or the other?  Especially given that this group has a political agenda, it seems pretty unlikely that they’d be able to avoid any kind of ‘rallying’.    And, even if they didn’t have an agenda, how can they possibly explain the horrors of war?  Of being shot?  Of losing a limb?  Its easy to describe the good.  The bad isn’t so much.  And given that these kids are, or soon will be, of age to sign up, I think a balanced report is required.
Here’s balanced.
“We went in to this village and cleared out all the bad guys.  We then stayed a few days to get the town water supply running.  Three women brought us their children to let them thank us for saving them from the terrorists and Saddam.  Unfortunately, during all this, one of my best friends was blown to pieces by an IED.  He spent a long time screaming as he died, his left leg no where to be found.  I still hear him screaming at night.”
They’d be happy to go on about the first part, but do you realy think they’d include that last part?
They might mention that people die, but I doubt they’d feel comfortable talking about it in equal detail to the help they provide.

One has to wonder, what if a group came around taking the opposite stance.  Oh, right, they’d obviously be traitors or simply bad soldiers, no matter how long they’d served or how much they’d lost. 

God forbid, though, that anyone has a frank talk about sex with these kids.  We don’t want them going off and having sex now.  Just give’em a gun.