I saw the presentation of your book, “AWOL”, on CSPAN and was impressed to see a good man, even though I disagree with you on several key points and decided to write this e-mail.

By focusing on the group of privileged, who are more than ever avoid their obligation of serving in the military, you are confusing the real issue of why the military values are so out of balance with what happens in our society.
First reason, and the reason I’d rather go to jail than to serve in our military today, is that the military is no longer recognized as the Noble service to the Nation but rather the service to the president and his cohort. They decide to supply our soldiers with inadequate equipment, forcing military men and women to buy their own protective gear to stay alive. They decide to attack a country with inadequate number of soldiers and then, for several years, continue to ignore and deny the real tragedy of not having sufficient numbers of military personnel:
Borders in Iraq that are left unprotected, allowing the terrorists to come and go as they please.
Iraqi towns with civilians that our forces have to abandon, to move the contingent to another “hot spot”, since our military simply doesn’t have enough resources to protect every region. (How do you suppose it makes our soldiers feel when they have to abandon the people whom they came to liberate and protect? How do you think this makes the Iraqi people feel about us? Put yourself in their position and you will see why we are not too popular in that region and so many other places around the world.)

And please don’t try to limit the “honorable service” of our soldiers to “protecting the life of a soldier who is standing next to them” – that is only part of the truth.
Did we come to liberate and rebuilt the country or simply ravage and delegate the rebuilding to Iraqis? Do you think that our soldiers can be proud of doing half of a job?
They protect their friends, save thousands of civilian lives, risk their own lives each day. But do you suppose that it somehow absolves them or us of what happens when our government makes atrocious decisions, which result in continuous desolation of a country and the otherwise preventable deaths of our soldiers, as well as Iraqi civilians?
And you are not doing your son and other soldiers like him any favors by sidelining them on these critical issues. I think they are better than that and it causes them tremendous anguish to see their buddies being killed and so much carnage caused by – I repeat – continuous arrogance of our government.
And, by the way, I strongly believe that attacking Iraq was the Right and Decent thing to do! But not what happened since!

The second point on which I disagree with you (and here is where I believe you can and must use your position to make some progress), is the feeling of complete and utter disregard, in our society, towards our military men and women.

How often do you hear about our soldiers coming home to their old good paying jobs, only to find out that they are gone, and all that is left – $8 an hour betrayal? How often do you hear about the families of our soldiers who are unable to make the ends meet, while their loved ones are fighting the war - for us?
Even after they graduate from college, our former soldiers have to compete with those who did not ‘waste’ 4 or more years of their lives in the military but worked in the corporate world. And let me say that the Values that our soldiers absorb in the military have no value in the real, ugly and competitive corporate world! That’s why we see so many of our soldiers unable to fit in, after coming home, where “helping the person standing next to you” is not appreciated nor rewarded.

May be instead of focusing on those who are unwilling to join, you need to focus and demand - on behalf of the little Humane Race, that is still present here in America – that every military man and a woman, after the honorable discharge, has a good paying job waiting. And their families are looked after, while they serve our Nation. That every company must reserve their best positions and training programs for those in our society who truly earned it!

And if we succeed, then the military might just have to raise the bar of standards for the new recruits, because there will be too large of an influx of volunteers, wishing to serve this country and its people.

May your son be safe and come home soon. Best wishes to you and your family.

Frank Schaeffer's web site: http://www.frankschaeffer.com/