From J.J. Johnson - 04.27.01
If by chance you younger folks are thinking of joining the military and maybe scratching your head over hearing some yellow-bellied former Senator whine over what happened in Vietnam, please don't let it confuse you.
You see, it was war back then. And when you're in the military and at war, there is no such thing as innocence. It's called kill or be killed. Some of you may think you put on a uniform just to go to college, run for office, or impress your girlfriends while sinking Japanese fishing boats, but it's not. It gets real ugly.
Problem is, in the days of political correctness, revelations about simply doing your job as a Navy Seal can get you in political hot water. If you listen to the news-speak of the day, war is a neat and clean operation, where we only kill the bad guys who shoot at us first - if we can't bring them to trial. Please, if you're enlisting soon, this is NOT the way we fight and win wars. What that worthless chump Kerry is all choked up about is EXACTLY how we (the taxpayers) want you to perform if you ever find yourself in the same dilemma. If and when you want to blame someone for your lethal actions during war, so long as you followed orders, and did what you thought was best to achieve the objective, just blame the politicians who sent you there. Heck - for that matter, go ahead and blame us.
And if down the road you or your buddies do something like this, we as Americans frankly don't want to hear about it. Just kill the enemy (without mercy), win the war, don't bring any weird diseases back home, and don't leave any orphans over there. This is the real definition of "don't ask -don't tell". We'll add one more: Don't miss.
To put it bluntly, young folks of America - THIS AIN'T A DAMN NINTENDO GAME! God help us if we have to go into a serious war and these damn politicians have to send you out there with weapons you don't know how to use, and better not even LOOK at while you're here (unless you're over 21, go though local, state, and federal background checks, fingerprinting, etc. Your only hope is that if you're white, these stupid idiots in Washington will probably get women and minorities killed first as part of some stupid military affirmative action program (don't let that happen, either). We beg you, if we have to send you to war, please - PLEASE forget all the crap you were taught in school. You get reminded each day about the horrors of Columbine? That's what war is. That's what you will need to do to the enemy - not your classmates.