Radio Radio

From the Good Ol' Mailbag:

Sean,

Don had your back today on KIRO. The sad thing is I totally agree with you about it being more than time to open the military to Gays, but you hurt that message when you stuck your foot in your mouth and you need to do some serious soul searching, because I am not buying that there is “no part of you” that feels the troops are poor, uneducated victims of some trick. Some part of you said that with practiced ease this week. The only assumption I can draw from your Freudian slip was that you assume If THEY knew the truth you did, THEY would not be there. Any chance if you knew the truth THEY LIVE every day that slip would be impossible to make?

You’re in good company. Stephen King lost a lot of my respect earlier this year when he suggested the result of not finishing school would be going to Iraq.

Problem is both of you are working on assumptions and against facts.

FACT:
Through September 2004
99% of Army recruits and 98.5% of Navy Recruits had a HS diploma or GED level credentials vs. 80% of the general population
99.8% of the Marines and the Air Force had these credentials

That takes care of the uneducated part of your assumptions about the military.

FACT:
In 1999 18% of recruits came from the bottom 20% of incomes by neighborhood. That percent of has dropped steadily through figures available into September 2005, long after the WAR became unpopular.
On top of that the percentage of recruits in the upper 20% of income by neighborhood has gone steadily up from 18.6% in 1999 to 22.8% in 2004 and 2005. Economically the percentage of below average income recruits is down and the percentage of above average income recruits is up.

That takes care of the “poor” aspect of your assumption.

It’s simple… You don’t go choose to go stand in the dessert and be shot at for a low or average paying job, you do it out of a feeling of personal accountability for what you believe in. And I am sure that if you checked motivation no matter the income that he percent that are joining now out of duty or a desire to become something better personally is way up over “it’s a job” or “it pays for college.”

What you need to look for in your ACLU report, which I have not looked at yet, is what is documented by real statistics that show a pattern and what is documented by anecdotes that support what the ALCU wants to prove about the Military. There is not a system on the planet that is so perfect it can’t be shamed by its weakest members.

You’re a musician in Seattle, we all know that kind of comment over a beer makes you one of the cool kids at the table. The brave thing, if you REALLY believe what you said about respecting the troops and those in military service, would be to stop the conversation right there and say, “Excuse me, but those men and women, every single one of them, chose to risk their lives defending our right to be in Seattle and have voices like The Stranger, and we may not like this war, but you will not speak poorly of them in my presence again.”

And as unpopular as I know that would make you to have that kind of courage in this area and in your social circles, think about the courage it takes to drive an old lady 20 miles in the open dessert to VOTE in Iraq when the word is she and you might be targets of the thugs over there, or the courage it takes to be the lead truck on a road you know has IEDs, or to be the first one in the door of a room that might have armed opposition.

I have to say, kudos to you getting on the show today and being accountable for sticking your foot in your mouth. Being anti-war and even negative about the military is easy in Seattle. But you’re a writer for a paper that usually challenges easy assumptions. Spend some time figuring out how your foot got close enough to insert orally :) and maybe the result will be you choosing to go talk to some troops maybe even doing a USO trip to Iraq, come back and tell Seattle the Good and the Bad about Iraq and why many of these guys have re-enlisted and asked to go back to stand by their friends doing the hardest job on the planet.

If you do that you will be a better artist and writer.

My sources:
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/enlisted_accessions/education.html

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm They source their material too in this case I am using that material.

XXX XXXXXXX
Lynnwood, WA

Of course, I spent like two hours writing the archest, most piss-on-them-from-a-great-height response I could muster, then sent this:

Thank you for your passionate and informative letter.

Perhaps one day I'll post the real reply.

If, however, you're interested in hearing the "other" seattle curse my name (I know you're out there!), I recommend going all up in here.