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Patriotic duty

November 4, 2008 2 Comments

Veterans for Obama

This morning, I taped my “Veterans for Obama” sign to my front-door window. I did so to compensate for the fact that some asshole walked all the way up to the front of my house in broad daylight yesterday and stole my Obama yard sign. Fortunately, I’m pretty sure that the lack of signage in my front yard won’t have a substantial impact on Obama’s final vote tally tomorrow.

Though I served in the U.S. Army from 1988 to 1992, it took me a while to actually internalize that I am a “veteran.” Part of my inability to identify with that label on any meaningful level was the fact that I did not serve in a combat zone. I was active duty during the first Gulf War, and I am classified as a “Gulf War vet,” but my K-9 partner and I were patrolling a base in the Mojave Desert and doing narcotics searches in New York City, not ducking rounds in the Kuwaiti desert and wondering if we’d make it home.

My father served on a naval destroyer in the South Pacific during Vietnam. Both of my grandfathers served in World War II, one of them a Marine who experienced heavy combat on Iwo Jima and Saipan. They are the types of men I picture when I think of the word “veteran.”

That said, I have come to embrace my veteran status over the past eight years, largely because of my outrage over the fact that thousands of service members have been getting maimed and slaughtered as the result of a war I strongly opposed from Day One.

Many people who never served like to claim that “opposing the war” is synonymous with “not supporting our troops.” As a former soldier, I can assure you that this line of thinking is complete and utter bullshit.

Supporting our troops means not putting them in harm’s way unless all other options have been exhausted, and getting them out of harm’s way if a group of draft-dodging, chicken-hawk politicians with poor judgement and questionable motives uses them like disposable pawns in a preemptive, mismanaged war that never should have been waged.

I’m looking forward to voting today.

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Jon Zal @ The Capitol

I was born in 1970, raised just outside of Boston, and now live near Philadelphia. As a child, I thought I was going to be…
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Jon Zal
OfficialJonZal avatarJon Zal@OfficialJonZal·
17 Apr 1383257207257456650

Boozed up & listening to a playlist named “Grunge-o-Rama” comprising songs by bands whose lineups are now roughly 1/4th deceased & I am feeling every single bit of my mortality & every single pound of the emotional baggage of every one of my 51 years on this earth. How you doin’?

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OfficialJonZal avatarJon Zal@OfficialJonZal·
16 Apr 1383041748423835651

Correct.

Joe@Joedof7

Sean Patrick Maloney was on #MorningJoe months ago and had this same conversation with @JoeNBC . Asking the same question every other week to democrats as if it hasn't been answered ad-nauseum just because Republicans repeat a lie is carrying water for a party w/ no real message.

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OfficialJonZal avatarJon Zal@OfficialJonZal·
13 Apr 1382108162300518401

Nary a human has ever been more deserving of what’s coming for them than is @mattgaetz.

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