ISU Lecturer: Patriotism Excludes People At Bottom, Troops Don’t Need Care Packages

Thomas Walker, lecturer in the intensive English and orientation program at Iowa State University, is disgusted over all this fawning over “the troops.” And so, to vent his disgust, he took to the letters to the editor pages of The Iowa State Daily. What Walker gave us is yet another screed from an extremist, left-winger being paid our tax dollars to “teach” our children his brand of hate for America.

What stirred Walker to spit his venom was a generally benign little program to assemble care packages for our soldiers overseas put on by ISU’s college Republicans. For five years the college Republicans have raised funds to buy socks, wet wipes, shampoo and other sundries for the troops. This year they raised the second highest amount of all the chapters.

But this feels-good story didn’t warm Thomas Walker’s heart, nosiree. University lecturer Walker was filled with disgust at the display of concern for our soldiers. So, Walker took to his pen — and his Thesaurus — to lambast this horrid display of patriotism perpetrated by these nasty college Republicans.

To get the full flavor of his bile, one must see the whole letter.

I read in Tuesday’s Iowa State Daily that the College Republicans have begun collecting sundries for U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Doesn’t the U.S. Army victual its soldiers? Don’t their families send them yuletide goodies? Aren’t GIs paid enough to buy what they need, and even what they want?

“As Republicans we believe in charity,” stated Jeremy Freeman, a member of the College Republicans. Donating toiletries, boxed and canned foods, socks and beanies to U.S. soldiers who can already deodorize themselves, who eat better than the poorest Americans and who are gallantly garbed, is an eleemosynary travesty.

Necessities should be doled out to people who really need them and who might get them if not for the hundreds of billions of dollars being funneled to the Pentagon in the greatest squandering of money on the planet. If anything, Republicans should sympathize with veterans struggling to find employment, a challenge that may daunt the discharged soldier, who might wish he had reenlisted. Soldiers are to Republicans as fetuses are to them: prized. But once out of the womb-like army, Republican solicitude for hapless veterans goes where extracted zygotes go.

“We get to show the troops we still appreciate what they’re doing for us,” said another College Republican. What are they doing for us? Nothing. But against us they’re doing a lot: creating anti-American terrorists in the countries they occupy. Said the same College Republican, “It can’t be fun to be away from your family for the holidays. As if American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had been conscripted? They chose to leave home.

Why do Republicans care so much about the military? Because the military-industrial complex is dear to their simplistic laissez-faire fantasies: a bottom-line patriotism that excludes the people at the bottom.

Wow. He compares our solders to aborted fetuses and he denies them comforts, he disparages patriotism, and castigates all Republicans as simple-minded automatons for the “military-industrial complex,” one of the left’s favorite knee-jerk mantras. And, “eleemosynary travesty”? Really?

Thesaurus abuse aside, this couldn’t be a better demonstration of the hate that lurks in the minds of so many members of our miseducation establishment.

It doesn’t seem that Walker is being allowed to go without disapprobation, though. The American Legion posted a pretty good fisking of this venomous attack on our troops. “Either way, for every one of you that says something asinine like this letter,” the Legion post goes, “there are 10 more great Americans who will leap in to fill the void.”

Just so.

The college Republicans also responded saying, “Through his blatant disregard for our nation’s heroes overseas, Walker’s letter exemplifies the intimidation tactics used by the left to bully young conservatives out of any form of activism. Sadly, yet ever more predictably, this response comes from a state-employed educator at one of Iowa’s public universities”

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy replied that he supports Walker’s right to free speech but does not subscribe to that negative, anti-military point of view.

Please understand that Mr. Walker’s opinions do not in any way represent Iowa State University, and as a military veteran myself, I strongly disagree with his comments. There are many people in the Iowa State community — on campus and elsewhere — who also disagree with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Walker. I do however respect every individual’s right to freedom of speech, which is so highly valued in our nation, and which is one of the cherished values that our troops are fighting to defend in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’d note, Mr. Geoffroy, that Walker would not have been denied his “freedom of speech” to have his disgusting display of vitriol denied a forum in the Iowa State Daily! Still, it’s good to know that President Geoffroy does not support the anti-military sentiment that most of his underlings likely do.

Come to think of it, one wonders if Mr. Walker ever went after college President Geoffroy for not supporting “the poor,” by the way. After all, ISU’s prez made $423,316 in 2009. Seems to me that Walker could find “richer” targets than the young Republicans to carp about, eh?

Sadly, our universities and other institutions of education are filled to the brim with these haters and we subsidize their hate with our tax dollars.

So, I’d like to say this to Mr. Walker: Sir, I have your letter in my hands right now. I’m reading it in the smallest room in my house. Soon it will be behind me.

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