In the Navy, You Can't Put Your Mind at Ease

Because you can't expect your wife and baby to be there when you get back.

A US sailor on his third active deployment is a little upset:

"Defending the country that's trying to kick my family out is a thought that always runs through my mind."

--From CNN.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Kicking Out the Brown Folks ... sorry, I'll read that again: ... of the Center for Immigration Studies, is okey-doke with that:

"What we're talking about here is letting lawbreakers get away with their actions just because they have a relative in the military.

I'll bet a six-pack that Krikorian has a "Support the Troops" bumper sticker on his SUV, right above the "David Duke for President" sticker.

Ludicrous. If they deport Gonzalez' wife and baby, he should desert immediately. And I'd welcome him here.

I dislike deserters. One local town has become a byword for soldiers from the US who desert when they find out that the recruiter was lying and no, Iraq isn't safe. They are usually deported to face charges. I have no issue with that.

You sign on the line, you're agreeing to fight your country's wars, regardless of how addle-pated, unfair, irrelevant, or patently stupid they may be. You give up a sheaf of rights, in exchange for bucks, beans, and fighting in a cause you believe in. From the soldier's point of view, the cause is "my country right or wrong."

But in Eduardo Gonzales' case they're telling him that the people closest to his heart--the ones he fights to protect--are not Americans; that the United States is not his family's country.

So why should he offer to shed his blood for it?