Each Veterans Day, I am reminded with pride that my father was a WWII veteran, sent away for 3 years to the Pacific theater.  He was in the army, a combat engineer infantryman.  He island hopped in the Solomons, at Leyte, Luzon, and Bouganville among others. 

This year, the eighth year of the Afghanistan war, Veterans Day occurred among the harsh reality of one man's war against America, right in our own back yard.  I don't like the way it unfolded, the way it was handled before the psychiatrist snapped, or the way it's been treated since his selfish snatching away of lives.

I heard some pundit on MSNBC Tuesday try to explain the murderer did nothing illegal until he murdered, even though it is now known he was in touch with a known terrorist.  He agreed with the shooter that conscientious objectors of Muslim faith not be forced to kill other muslims.  The phrase "conscientious objector" is an oxymoron in  the all volunteer  armed forces.  Secondly I would think the objector would be against all killing, not just picking and choosing faiths to not  fight.  So it defies logic to excuse away this type of hatred. 

Let's just get this big elephant out of the room right now.  In an all volunteer Army, there should be no conscientious objectors.  No one forces a soldier to sign on to deployment.  If anyone has a problem with it, don't join.  Let's not muck up a mass murder of innocent people with the killer's feelings and stress and emotion.  Murder is murder.  And anyone who thinks his faith had nothing to do with it is kidding himself.

Nor has it been lost on me that the killer was a graduate of Virginia Tech.  So once again, blood has been spilled by a murderer associated with Tech.  A few years ago, alumni created an uproar when Tech separated men and women in different classes , all muslims, to accomodate sensitivity to their beliefs during a summer program.  This alumnae became unglued.  The university apologized and referred to it as a cultural misunderstanding.  

We have carried sensitivity and diversity too far in this country.  When colleagues are afraid to point out a cultural head on collision, it's time to stop and ask ourselves what is more important:  hurting one's feelings or saving the lives of the victims at Ft. Hood, TX. 

May his superiors be held accountable.  Let them ponder where their sensitivity training got them and face the families of all the victims.   I believe in equality but I also believe political correctness can be thrown out the window.

I am a Democrat, a liberal thinker, a realist, and tolerant of opposing views.  But I won't be sold down the river over one of our soldiers in touch with an imam involved with those who declared war on our country.  And I conscientiously object to worrying over a murderer's feelings or having sensitivity towards his frustration.