The Patriots' Lapel Pin Battle: Fighting the Good Fight

Only in 21st century America, land of the soft, spoiled armchair warrior...
We've been bogged down in a war with and occupation of Iraq for nearly five years now but, unlike, say, WW II, this nation is not fully engaged. Far from it. We sacrifice nothing. No rationing of sugar or gasoline, no maps on our walls with pins marking the front, no families gathering around the radio every evening for war news.
While 1% of the population--the military and their families--bear the entire bloody burden of the real war, the other 99% of us are busy Shopping for Freedom. And we've had our own tidy little battle making headlines lately: Partisans declaring war on Barack Obama for failing to sport the tiny American flag pin that is surely the measure of both patriotism and fitness for office. No red, white and blue lapel pin, no support for our troops. To his credit, Mike Huckabee says it's a non-issue. He doesn't fly the flag on his suit all the time either. His patriotism, however, is unchallenged.
As the Lapel Pin War raged in the media and good Americans fired off rounds of deadly condemnation, a military family in the Midwest spent every ounce of energy they had cramming in as much happy time as possible while their loved one, a veteran of fourteen years in the military, was home from his fifth tour in Iraq. He expects orders for his sixth deployment very soon. He's spent the bulk of his late twenties and early thirties at war. His family has spent those same years living in fear.
This proud military family will not be voting Republican in 2008. They like Barack Obama. Unless something changes between now and primary day, they say they'll vote for him. The political banner on their wall might read: "It's the War, Stupid!" Obama's judgment in 2002, when he spoke out against the pending invasion of Iraq as rushing into a "dumb, rash war", one that would leave our troops stuck in a bloody quagmire with no way out, with inconceivable consequences and at unimaginable cost, has proved prescient. They like his plan for phased redeployment. They don't care what trinket adorns his suit coat. Symbolism is a cheap commodity when bullets, RPGs and IEDs are real threats to real soldiers--and one of them is your son, your daughter, your husband, wife, father, mother.
This military family, like too many others, has sacrificed enough. This military mom says, "How many times will [my son] and his comrades be sent back there and how many times can he be sent before the odds catch him? He doesn't deserve this, nor do his troops and their families. I favor reinstatement of the draft...to spread the responsibility, the sacrifice and pain, around equally. We should have done it years ago when we saw we were being spread so thin and that this war won't be 'won.'"
Our troops don't have the luxury of time to fret about who's wearing a lapel pin and who's not. That's not their war. Tragically, there's a time when too many of them wear the American flag, big and bold, for everyone to see. It's draped on the coffins of those who, after one too many deployments, find their luck has run out. They get to come home then. To stay.

Linda Hansen,
columnist