I could not have said it better myself ...

in response to the "American Gulag" comments seen so prevalently on the nightly news of late ...

and so i will quote at length someone who said it all a whole lot better ...

"Men volunteer to fight, bleed and die for the United States of America because she is the last, best hope for peace and freedom on earth," he said. "They consider the evidence that America has pushed back the veil of tyranny and saved countless millions of men, women and children from imprisonment, torture, starvation, humiliation and brutal death. And they act on that evidence, knowing that the blood of free men is always the price of freedom. While critics jabber about global diplomacy, these men step into the breach to shield us all from the peril of our naiveté about the so-called 'basic goodness of humanity'. These men don't think America is perfect, because they know the evil that lurks in each of our hearts. But they devote themselves to preventing untrammeled wickedness from roaming the earth. Their heads are clear. Their hearts are steadfast. And their sense of duty has shut down gulags, death camps and dictatorships for nearly a century."

and send my grateful thanks as one of those "men" many years ago who didn't do it for the money and the glory because there wasn't much of each of those things anyway ..

please visit http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/002220.html for the complete and unedited original .....