This is Interesting....from Kathy from MO

After you read this op-ed from the April 3 Chicago Tribune, you might want to forward it to friends and family and even a few Republicans you might know. I found it very enlightening and the authors a bit surprising.
Kathy from MO

Subject: Well now... this is interesting.

From yesterday's Chicago Tribune:

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Factor military duty into criticism

By Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss

April 3, 2008

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F.
Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and
voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the
Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical
assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and
became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the
Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the
commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson
after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the
White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy
not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President
Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five
deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one
for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,
both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student
deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active
duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve
his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system?
Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who
merely talk about their love of the country?

After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American
finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a
minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest
cities.

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United
Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last
three decades.

Since these comments became public we have heard criticisms, condemnations,
denouncements and rejections of his comments and him.

We've seen on television, in a seemingly endless loop, sound bites of a
select few of Rev. Wright's many sermons.

Some of the Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and should
be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic," let us not forget that this is
a man who gave up six of the most productive years of his life to serve his
country.

How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name
but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous
circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst
of a civil rights struggle? Not many.

While words do count, so do actions.

Let us not forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over the
last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.

Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss are, respectively, Navy and Marine Corps
veterans. They work at The Center For American Progress. Korb served as assistant
secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.