The Dish

A reader writes:

That picture you posted features my son front and center.  I spoke to him last night and he expressed what a moving ceremony it was.  This has impacted him deeply and his unit was hit quite hard (3 of the fatalities and 11 wounded).  One of those killed, PFC Pearson, was in the same basic training class as Josh. 

I have been in constant contact with him since the day it happened and his spirits remain quite high, despite the circumstances.  He remains proud to be in the service (I sent him a text this morning telling him how proud his step-mother and I are of him this Veteran’s Day and his response was a resounding HOOAH!) and his resolve has strengthened somewhat about his coming deployment to Afghanistan.
 
Thanks for finding that photo… it was a wonderful gift to see the son I haven’t seen in almost a year standing tall and honoring his fallen brothers with a look of quiet, yet anguished, determination on his face.  I will be forwarding that photo on to everyone in our family.

The Dish has a multitude of odd connections and associations every day. It's the joy of the internet. But connecting this son to this father this way is a new and moving serendipity.

And thank you, sir, for your sacrifice and your son for his service.

Goldblog writes that "the military has a real and abiding need to recruit more Muslims, and not fewer, to its ranks, for all the obvious reasons — language skills and cultural knowledge, for starters." His follow up:

I want all sorts of Muslims (people of Arab descent, Iranian descent, Pashtun descent) in our military for all the obvious reasons, including, by the way, because the military can serve as an effective melting pot and break down barriers among different ethnic groups (as it has done so effectively for blacks and whites). But this doesn't mean that soldiers — of all backgrounds (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind) — shouldn't, or can't, be screened for dangerous behaviors or beliefs. Of course I want more Muslim soldiers in the American military. What I don't want is anti-American soldiers in the American military.

The purge of the last few Republican moderates intensifies.

A reader writes:

Those on Flight 93, in the towers, and in uniform at ground zero epitomize heroism because of the severity of their respective situations and their courageous responses to them.  They became heroes at a level recognized by the entire world.  But, as you wrote:

We rightly see servicemembers as special – because they make possible everything else. Without defense, we would have no secure country. And without citizens prepared to risk their lives, we would have no defense.

By this logic (which I completely agree with) the very act of enlisting is in itself a heroic act.  Maybe not on the same scale as those who risked their lives on 9/11, but to the enlisting individual's family, friends, and community, of course it is.  That thirteen of such individuals would lose their lives, not in combat, but on their home soil, is tragic.  They are victims of something we presently do not understand, but they are still heroes in their own right. Let's not split hairs here.

Another writes:

While the term hero was rightfully reclaimed on 9/11 to be reserved for those who do more heroic feats than hit home runs or score touchdowns, I agree that society is slipping back to using the term in a broader sense in recent times.  However, I disagree with taking the title away from those who serve in an all-volunteer fighting force at a time that America is fighting two wars.  Especially on today of all days.  Whether they died with a gun in hand or not, in the US or overseas, they were heroes because they served when we really needed them.

Responding to Reihan, Larison makes his pick:

What the war was for Democrats in 2004, health care legislation and bailouts will be for the Republicans in 2012. Romney fits the Kerry mold perfectly, and like Kerry he will be forced by the strength of the primary challenge from some Dean-like representative of the “Republican wing of the Republican Party” to run away from his record on health care and bailouts. In fact, Romney has already been trying to make people forget that he favored the bailouts when it mattered, and no doubt he will engage in some of his typical dishonesty when confronted with the question of his record of support for health care mandates.

Like Kerry, he will have zero credibility in opposing most of the President’s agenda, which means that Romney’s already fairly strange focus on foreign policy and national security may have to become the centerpiece of his campaign to distract attention from his record of signing off on universal health care in Massachusetts and endorsing deeply unpopular bailouts of Wall Street. For all of the ridicule he received, Kerry nearly won, but I doubt that Romney would be able to do as well as Kerry did unless economic conditions worsen severely.

Plus: Romney makes Kerry seem almost authentic.

Hard to parody.

Remembrance crosses for servicemen killed in the current conflict in Afghanistan sit outside Westminster Abbey after the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph on November 8, 2009 in London, England. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War and on Remembrance Sunday the country honours its veterans with the commemorations paying particular focus to the troops who have lost their lives in current conflicts. A British soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles, became the 200th British soldier to lose his life in combat in Afghanistan November 7, bringing the total number of British losses, including accidents and illnesses, to 231. By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

A reader writes:

A personal story: my girlfriend has a tumor on her ovary and no health insurance. She’s taking her last class for her nursing degree, but since she’s not going to school full-time, she’s not elligible for insurance through the school. She has two jobs bartending, neither of which offer health benefits, working nights so she can spend her days studying and taking care of her six year old daughter (who thankfully is on her father’s insurance).

I don’t know a person who works harder than her and who gives so much of herself to others.

It is a travesty that the country she lives in–the richest in the world–can’t provide her and people like her decent affordable health insurance. Arguments over funding abortion are trivial in comparison to the magnitude of health care problems facing millions of people every day in this country. As a supporter of reproductive rights, I’ll happily cede that ground to the anti-abortion zealots and fight another day, if it means people in the same boat as my girlfriend are able to have access to the care they need.

There is one, of course, The Holy Redeemer, smack bang in the gay district in San Francisco, and unmolested, respected, admired. Rod Dreher's conflicts are a fantasy of his own creation. The truth is that gays have long been amazingly tolerant of the churches that seek to strip us of civil rights. One ghastly exception was Act-Up's assault on St Patrick's Cathedral, but that proves the rule. If anything, gay men actually do more to support the church than attack it. A reader writes:

I am a non-Christian gay man dating a Catholic priest, and am struck by the Catholic Church's reliance on gays as priests. Many come from places and homes in which being a priest has been the only acceptable path for a devout gay Catholic boy. In answer to your question asking if it is bizarre that the Catholic Church finances a campaign to tell gay kids they cannot have a relationship like their parents: If those kids knew they could have happy, loving, same sex relationships, would they still choose to be priests?

There is something deeply, sadly sick about the whole enterprise: a nest of dysfunction and dishonesty and hypocrisy. I am peppered with emails asking me why I don't just leave or at least disassociate – especially since the anger on this blog is not contrived. It engulfs me at times – to my shame.

I do find it increasingly hard to attend mass after campaigns as in Maine that feel like an assault on my soul and others'; and a sense of exile – spiritually and psychologically – has marked my faith life since the sex abuse scandal broke.

Maybe I am too weak to leave and be done with it. But in my prayer life, I detect no vocation to do so. In fact, in so far as I can glean a vocation, it is to stay and bear witness, to be a thorn in the side, even if the thorn turns inward so often, and hurts and wounds me too.

I stay because I believe. And I stay because I hope. What I find hard is the third essential part: to love. So I stay away when the anger eclipses that. But the love for this church remains through the anger and despair: the goodness of so many in it, the truth of its sacraments, the knowledge that nothing is perfect and nothing is improved if you are not there to help it.