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"And regarding your estimation of me as a product of our country you are partly right. My concept of right and wrong and of duty in that year of _____ was influenced less by what I learned in the Army than by what I saw happening in America. I found it difficult to do my duty to a country that wasn't doing its duty to me. The essence of loyalty, Colonel, is reciprocity. A citizen or a soldier owes allegiance to the state in exchange for protection, for the state's allegiance to and duty toward the individual. That is an implicit social contract. I may not have put it so well in ______, but in my guts I felt my country had abandoned me and my men and in fact the entire Army in _______."
--Nelson Demille, "Word of Honor" 1985
The blanks included the year 1968 and the words Southeast Asia. When I read this passage my mind jumped ahead 17 years and easily imagined a veteran of today expressing this very sentiment with the year 2007 and the words Aghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East. I have encountered far too many people denying contemporary parallels to the political morass and military quagmire that was the Vietnam War. This character was not talking about war protesters, he was talking about the men in power who crossed that line between government and military Olbermann described so eloquent just a few days ago.
This administration and Congress are not upholding their end of the social contract. They do not support the troops, they clearly betray them. I will continue to use that word with no sense of shame or regret and no effort to appease.
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