Campus Rads vs. Our Vets

[cato2]

Campus Rads vs. Our Vets
The antiwar unwelcome on campus.

By Wynton C. Hall & Peter Schweizer

As college students hit campuses across the nation this week, a new generation of young veterans will step off the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and onto the ideological battlefield of our university campuses. For those on the frontline in the war on terror, the antiwar hostility of liberal professors and campus activists will assuredly prove unsettling.

Just ask Marine sergeant Marco Martinez, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a full-time psychology major at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif.

A woman on campus had apparently learned I might be a Marine. When I told her I was, she said, You're a disgusting human being, and I hope you rot in hell!

Indeed, Martinez, who will be the first male in his family to receive a college diploma, says he is receiving more of an education than he bargained for . There are a lot of people who don ' t appreciate military service in college . Martinez said, someone asks me about it, and I think that they're not too liberal, I might tell them I was in Iraq. But I don' t tell them the full extent of it or anything about the Navy Cross.

The Navy Cross as in second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. Martinez, formerly of 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, is a bona-fide American hero and the first Hispanic American since Vietnam to receive the Navy Cross. During the Battle of At Tarmiya, one of Sergeant Martinez's fellow Marines had been hit in the legs and left for dead by five terrorists holed up in an adobe garden shed. That's when Martinez used his body to shield the dying marine from the terrorist before mounting a 20-meter frontal charge at the bunker with nothing but a depleted rifle and a grenade. With enemy bullets pinging off his gear, Martinez unpinned the grenade, slammed his body into the adobe building, and lobbed the device into the window of the structure, killing all the terrorists inside.

But as liberal professors and antiwar activists continue to wage a nationwide campaign to rid university campuses of military recruiters, in some cases going so far as to throw water bottles and scream epithets at them, it is easy to see why Sergeant Martinez would remain tight-lipped about being one of the nation's most decorated heroes.

Indeed, as one campus newspaper reported, the rift between young veteran college students and their civilian classmates has left those who have served feeling isolated from campus life, shunned because of their service.

Just ask Armand McCormick, 23, a student at the University of Northern Iowa.

While walking to class one day, McCormick stopped to listen to a speaker during an antiwar student rally. When he challenged the protestor's arguments, the peace activist sneered, The Iraqis don't want us there. If you think the war is okay, then why don' t you go and serve!

There was an obvious problem with the protestor' sretort: He had no clue who he was talking to -Silver Star recipient Marine corporal Armand McCormick.

I've had a few conversations about [the War on Terror] in the liberal classrooms I go to everyday, said McCormick. A lot of the time I just look at them and tell them that they don't have any clue what they're talking about, because all they do is listen to liberal news. I always tell them, If you don't experience something, how in the hell can you say what will happen?

As Corporal McCormick rightly points out, his classmates reliance upon the elite mainstream media all but ensures that they are unfamiliar with the jaw-dropping acts of heroism he performed on March 25, 2003, in Ad Diwuniyah, Iraq. Far removed from the breezy comforts of a college campus, it was there, inside an enemy trench, that McCormick, along with his two fellow Marines, captain Brian Chontosh and corporal Robert Robbie Kerman, was swarmed by what officials estimate was a company-sized element of between 150 to 200 Iraqi fighters. When the smoke cleared, the three marines had not only survived, they had eliminated scores of enemy fighters and regained key territory. It's the sort of incident the campus Left should think about the next time it proclaims how courageous it is in protesting the war.

The Left has adopted the mantra that it opposes the war but supports our soldiers. Those veterans visiting campuses tell a different story; the early fault lines forming on our nation's campuses do not portend hopeful signs.

For those who profess to embrace diversity and champion allowing marginalized voices to be heard, perhaps liberal professors, administrators, and students might learn something were they open-minded enough to listen to the heroes in their midst. Then, and only then, will they correct the tragic mistakes of the Vietnam era that valued politics more than patriots.

Wynton Hall is currently co-writing (with Caspar Weinberger) Home of the Brave: Heroes in the War on Terrorism. Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty and Reagan's War.

[ollie]

I never thought this would happen again. After four years active duty, I went to a small college in South West Virginia. I was 4 years older than my classmates and a bit wiser also being a veteran. During the summer, I wasn't acosted much but when the weather turned cold, I wore my peacoat with my DC crow on the sleeve and the snickering started. Not much granted but it was there. Especially with an Economics professor who had no use for vets.

Eventually, I made good friends with a marine and an army guy and we made it all the way through graduation together as History majors. We stayed within our little circle, we were all married and invited each other to our homes for dinner once a week. We all lived off campus so we didn't have to deal with the neanderthals calling us baby killers and such.

When will people learn what a valuable asset vets are?

ollie

[Woodmonkey]

Again?

[odannyboy]

Originally Posted by ollie

We all lived off campus so we didn't have to deal with the neanderthals calling us baby killers and such.

When will people learn what a valuable asset vets are?

ollie

Out of all the veterans I have met from Vietnam not one was ever called a "baby killer" or shown disprespect on returning to the U.S. (but I know some were)

When I hear people whine about anyone not supporting this mess in Iraq, and the bumbling ineptitude of our President, by referring to them as "radicals" or someone who would call veterans "baby killers", it seriously reminds me of those minorities who play the race card.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

Out of all the veterans I have met from Vietnam not one was ever called a "baby killer" or shown disprespect on returning to the U.S. (but I know some were)

A friend of mine is a Nam widow. Her husband was shot down over there. She went back to college to get her teacher's degree so she could support their children. As soon as people found out her husband was a Navy pilot and killed over there, they dared to ask her how it felt to sleep with a baby killer. They made her life hell, but they also made her mad. She refused to let them chase her off the campus.

When I hear people whine about anyone not supporting this mess in Iraq, and the bumbling ineptitude of our President, by referring to them as "radicals" or someone who would call veterans "baby killers", it seriously reminds me of those minorities who play the race card.

If I understand this correctly, you are referring to the extremes on both sides who call each other names?

[ollie]

Odannyboy said:

"Out of all the veterans I have met from Vietnam not one was ever called a "baby killer" or shown disprespect on returning to the U.S. (but I know some were)"

I was and right to my face. It was winter,1968 and I was totally stunned, since I was on the deck force of a search and rescue cutter, hardly a baby killer. It was said to me as I was returning from liberty waiting for the Staten Island ferry as I was going back to the ship. The moment is burned in my memory. Some hippie dude was trying to impress his girl friend. I went up to him in full uniform- chest to chest- and looked right in his beady little eyes and told him that me wearing this uniform was what gave him the right to say whatever he chose. Then turned and stepped into the terminal.


ollie

[Bluehawk]

Many people forget, or never knew, that much of the protest during VN came directly from and was constantly escalated by/among college students... which is an time-worn purposeful strategy of political agitators world over, having nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with propaganda being spread amongst people who are too young to fully understand the consequences of their behavior.

If memory serves, most of the "Baby Killer" talk that occured (and it most certainly DID occur) came after My Lai.

In any case, I do not yet perceive that the radical Left has had quite the success it did 30-35 years ago on college campuses... and I hope things remain at this relatively low level of dispute.

Ask any opponent of the war for their reasoning, and you will receive approximately the same identical list of grievances, which suggests strongly the effect of propaganda... as if people are not thinking clearly for themselves.