U.S. MARINE CORPS: "NO FAGGOTS ALLOWED!"

The Courage of Marine Corps Leadership on DADT

American Thinker ^ | December 18, 2010 | By Ken Ireland

In an age when many Americans do not recognize that we are at war, most Americans still respect the sacrifices that our military men and women make on their behalf. According to a Rasmussen poll last May, the military continues to have the highest favorable and lowest unfavorable ratings of any group or institution in the United States Whether it is on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, on the mean streets of a third-world hell-hole, or as a silent sentinel on the Korean border, the servicemen we place in harm's way perform with dedication and excellence. They do this under physical and psychological conditions that most Americans could not tolerate and cannot understand. Their service and sacrifice allow us to go about our daily lives and, as Churchill put it, "sleep soundly in our beds."

That our soldiers have to visit violence upon those who would do us harm is a sad reality. Even a novice student of history knows that battle-ready armies are the best defense against aggressors. While we may look forward to the day when the lion lies down with the lamb, until that occurs, we must rely on those "rough men who stand ready in the night."

Despite recent attempts to socially engineer our military, the bulk of the fighting and dying continues to be done, as through the ages, by young men. The bonds of men in combat cannot be replicated in any other activity, though our society likes to think they can. We loosely use the word "combat" on the gridiron or in the courtroom. Those who have served in combat will tell you that there is no physical or emotional challenge equivalent to actual combat. Those bonds between warriors, that brotherhood, that philia, cannot be replicated outside combat.

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