Letters to the Editor
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Re: The Weekly Standard's "9/11 Generation"
I think that any comparison of numbers between Viet Nam and Iraq needs to spend time reviewing the effect of the draft more completely. There were a lot of young men who did not have a choice and who knew they were going into a meat grinder of a war. The difference today is that Iraq is also a meat grinder, and many young men know this and that they don't have to go. How anyone can interpret this as some kind of patriotism just because they don't march in the street is either a mistake or an intentional oversight.
Many of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq joined because they didn't have many occupational choices, and many of them would leave the military tomorrow if they could. The Weekly Standard is engaging in sheer propaganda based on selective facts, and that needs to be pointed out.