The Soldier In Me by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga runs the Daily Kos, a website that's highly activist in its opposition to the American political right. In this May 3, 2006, American Prospect article, The Soldier In Me, Zuniga describes his view on his Army service and expresses much of the sentiment I hold towards my own Army service.

Excerpt: The military is perhaps the ideal society -- we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return. All our basic needs were met -- housing, food, and medical care. It was as close to a color-blind society as I have ever seen. We looked out for one another. The Army invested in us. I took heavily subsidized college courses and learned to speak German on the Army’s dime. I served with people from every corner of the country. I got to party at the Berlin Wall after it fell and explored Prague in those heady post-communism days. I wasn’t just a tourist; I was a witness to history.

The Army taught me the very values that make us progressives -- community, opportunity, and investment in people and the future.

I consider myself to be a progressive populist, and on that level, Zuniga and I see eye-to-eye on the practical community and social values of military service. However, due to his partisan political focus, Zuniga discourages young Americans from joining today's military. That's the main place where he and I part ways in his article. In my view, the "selfless service" of the military transcends the politics and partisanship of the day. Investment by individual citizens into the fundamental communal values of duty and service always matters, moreso in times like today when they are tested by uncertainty and adversity. Our nation depends on it.

Eric

Operation Iraqi Children at Columbia University Spring 2006

From OIC website - OIC in Action Providers: Click Here! to learn more about the efforts that have been undertaken by various groups around the world to provide School Supplies for the children of Iraq.

As the MilVets VP, I organized an OIC school supply kits collection drive at the end of the Spring 2006 semester. By the end of the project, my top goal was for OIC at CU to look right, and it did. I had the sponsors I wanted, we had up the large color flyers I wanted, I had the collection boxes in most of the places I wanted, and it projected the message I wanted. We even got a decent amount of donations, thanks to the General Studies community and Students United for America. I didn't get Spectator coverage, but we did get a solid plug (above link) on the OIC website and an official thank-you letter.

On a personal level, I carried out a project I wanted to do for its own sake. For MilVets, we checked the block on a community service project and worked with a range of political campus groups (hitherto taboo) on a pro-military apolitical campus project.

Here are the thank-you letters from Operation Iraqi Children and People To People International to MilVets for the Spring 2006 school supply kits drive.


Eric

Pat Dollard's Young Americans - trailer

I gotta admit, there are times I agree with the sentiment of this trailer. Not much so lately since I've been a civilian for so long, but definitely at the time I was getting ready to leave the Army, I felt a similar difference between me the soldier and civilians of my generation. I worried about it and wondered if we had the character to confront a deep challenge to our nation. Our military has been stalwart, but the jury's still out on the rest of our generation.

Eric

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed - hoo'ah!

Al Jazeera: Iraqi leader: Al-Zarqawi is eliminated

Good.