A voice of clarity rings out among the wilderness of military-stereotypes!  Thank you Wes Clark for revealing the often-ignored face of the many progressively-minded servicemembers working everyday to preserve integrity in our system by, of, and for the people.
I am also a soldier, having enlisted in the Army at age 19 for the very socialized benefits described in this clip.  I grew up in a military family, with a noble sense of hard work, personal accountability, duty to society and sacrifice for your fellow man.  There was a time when I thought these were conservative values.  My deployment to Kuwait during the first six months of the Iraq invasion began to reveal to me how much our "conservative" system has perverted and exploited the values of honorable people to generate profit and gain for a select powerful few.
I then revisited the original foundations of my beliefs and found that human dignity, equality, liberty, and social responsibility have been forsaken by so-called "conservatives" and those who embrace these ethical values are demonized as "liberals."  Neither of these bastardized words bear political meaning for me any more.  After all, I thought liberty was an American value worth conserving.
Amid the propagandistic catch phrases, let us never lose perspective of what every service member is truly working for by remembering the oath of enlistment.  We do not swear our lives to any person or political policy.  We swear only to support and defend the constitution of the United States, the living embodiment of the rights and liberties of every American citizen - possibly one of the most liberal documents ever written.

by silvernymph on 08/17/2007 12:02:41 PM EST