Say Anything Blog

I had to chuckle a bit when I received this rather strident email from some liberal who apparently is actually taking himself seriously.

Hello Rob,
After reading your post “Are we becoming a society that doesn’t fight back” in the wake of the campus shooting you struck me as a good candidate to serve in Our Nation’s Armed Forces. 
If you could please answer the following questions it will be greatly appreciated. 
First, are you a veteran?  [If so, thank you for your service.]  Are you in ROTC/OCS/something similar?  [If so, thank you for your commitment.]  Have you previously contacted a recruiter, but were not accepted for enlistment?  [If so, thank you for stepping forward.]  Do you know that you are not eligible to serve in our military, and therefore don’t want to waste a recruiter’s time?  [If so, please let us know and we won’t seek to contact you again.]
Otherwise, it would appear that you are eligible to serve in our military (healthy heterosexual well under 42), but have not.  Have you at least considered it?  What resulted from your deliberations?  If you haven’t even considered it, why not? 
We welcome your response for publication on our blog. 
Sincerely,
Erik Wekerle of
Operation Yellow Elephant
—
Operation Yellow Elephant is a nonpartisan grass roots citizens initiative to Support Our President by encouraging his strongest supporters, if qualified, to consider military service.  Because only healthy heterosexuals 41 and under are eligible, we are focusing on College and Young Republicans.  If a particular patriot is not accepted for enlistment, Your Country Thanks You for stepping forward.
http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com/
After all, if President Bush cannot convince even his strongest supporters to volunteer, how can he possibly lead our nation, and the international coalition, to a successful outcome of the Global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere?

I’ll respond publicly: No, I have not served in the military.  No, I’m not in the ROTC or any sort of military training program.  No, I have no plans to sign up with the military at any point in the future.  No, I’m not particularly ashamed or troubled by any of this.  And yes, I am wondering why my post on a school shooting has anything to do with questions about my service in Iraq.

These answers will no doubt get me branded a “Yellow Elephant” over at Mr. Wekerle’s blog, but whatever.  After nearly five years of the chickenhawk argument I’m not sure anyone really takes it seriously any more.  After all, one need not be a police officer to oppose crime or be a fireman to think that fires should be put out.  It’s not logical.

Not that “logic” and “reason” are what the folks at Yellow Elephant are after.