...who has no arms.

And I freely admit that I'm a coward. I would be afraid to serve, to drive along a mined road. So, I served as I can, feeding homeless vets and chatting with blind vets. But why can't others admit their cowardice?

Why can't W say, "I was afraid during Vietnam?"

Why can't Romeny say, "My sons are afraid as I was afraid."

Admit that and you advance your humanness and tender all due humility to those who do serve.

Mr. Mason wrote: "Why don't you address the real issue. You seem to think that people can be sent into the military by their parents. If the draft were reinstated, they could be sent by caveat, but not by other individuals.

If one person can force another person into the military, how is that not slavery?"

Mr. Mason, you're being disingenuous. You're using "slavery," a loaded word, when there's already an apt word: conscription. However, "conscription" isn't saddled with emotive meaning, so you slip "slavery" into the discourse...to distract.

Here's what I think regarding the lack of the rich Republican offspring in the military: it's systemic. If the Bush daughters served and Mary Cheney, then Romney's sons would be less noteworthy, but because NONE of the neocon offspring serve, this lack of service is a systemic phenomenon. Therefore pulling individual choice as the get-our-of-war-card is, well, silly. And just saying you support the troops is meaningless. "Support" is a verb. It's not a notion. Either you sacrifice to mitigate their monstrous sacrifices or you STFU.

...children from war.

Mr. Tyler, conscription is a better term than slavery. Conscription is when an authority drafts someone into service. That authority is typically Uncle Sam, but it could be dear, old dad. Heck, the Army portrays dear old dads and moms as functioning as Uncle Sams. Haven't you ever seen their commercials where the father is teary-eyed because his son joined? The Army isn't frittering millions of dollars (borrowed from the Chinese). It's appealing to fathers to enlist their sons. The Army understands the sway that a parent has. Why isn't Romney swaying his sons? He has 5 of them. Is he so inept as a parent that he tried to sway all 5 and all 5 refused? Or does he believe that his sons, who are sons of privilege, matter more than the sons who come from double-wides? You know it's the latter. We all do. And every American who believes in equality should be livid at his inaction and the inaction of his cowardly sons.

Mr. Tyler, if you're going to employ "slavery" for the sake of hysterics and hyperbole, why not double the stakes and define a parent urging a child to serve as Holocaust Slavery?

"If you expect the Romney boys (or anyone else) to admit that they didn't join up because they were cowards then you are stupid."

So, you think I'm stupid? Hmmm. Interesting. I think I'd select another descriptor: provocative, perhaps. Maybe naïvely optimistic, since the Romney boys are members of a Christian sect and since "Thou shalt not lie" is one of the 10 commandments. Therefore, they should choose which commandment they'll break. Will it be, "Thou shalt not murder," which excuses them from war, but not their father from perpetuating war, or "Thou shalt not lie," which forces them to admit that they're cowards and support war only by beating the drum from the rear. They've chosen to die the cowards death, which, as the axiom tells us, is a thousand deaths.

Or do you call people stupid to win friends and influence enemies? I suggest charm school.

Mr. Tyler Mason (the man with two first names AND two last names): "I, on the other hand, will defend your right not to go."

Please don't. I want the draft. I want every coward, like the Romney sons and the Cheney daughters AND ME, to be drafted. I want this imperialism to end and as long as it's pieces of Southern boys from small towns and black women from inner cities being sent home, it won't end. It will go on and on and on. In this country, some people are more equal than others. I want you to go too, Mr. Mason. Whatever your age, you can drive a Humvee. You can bleed and die as well as a 19-year old. Or you can bleed and have your legs amputated as well as a 23-year old. Me too. So can Mitt's kids.

"The boys went to shopping malls and door-to-door with petitions demanding a repeal of the Mass Supreme Judicial Courts' decision allowing 'gay marriage.'"

Considering marriage inequality (no quotation marks: it you're going to use quotation marks, refer to Nancy Reagan as Ronnie's "wife" since Jesus was quite explicit about a man having one wife, forever and ever, and any remarriage is faux and foul, by Biblical standards) is the norm in 98% of the states, advocating for the vast majority requires no courage. I stand by their cowardice.