Republican response to Kerry is insulting/CLASSIST!

[gully]

Kerry stated the facts -

1. Those who sign up for the military are often those (poor) without educational options.

2. Those who enlist do so for based upon the "travel and get an education" sales pitch. The wealthy can travel and become educated, without joining the army.

Why do you think the R's cut educational funding? It's to "keep the military strong."

This makes me furious. My father served in Vietnam, and you can bet your ass that if his mother could have sent him to college, he'd have had a student deferment just like Limbaugh and other outraged rich white boys who are pissing on Kerry today.

ARMY SALES PITCH.

http://www.goarmy.com/life/a_soldiers_future.jsp

TRAVEL

Armed Forces Vacation Club (AFVC)

The AFVC is a "Space-A" vacation condominium rental program developed to benefit members and employees of the US Uniformed Services, National Guard and Reserves.

Condos at privately owned resorts normally sit empty when the owners aren't using them. Now, rather than let these condos go unoccupied, AFVC makes them available to eligible individuals for a flat rate of only $249.00 per week!

EDUCATION

Use Your VA Benefits for College, Trade Schools, and other types of education programs.

There are many benefits to becoming a Soldier in the US Army, including programs to help with your college education now and in the future. Programs include:

• Army College Fund (ACF)
• College Loan Repayment Program
• Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB)

MONEY

Buying A House?
Or Refinancing?

Get a mortgage backed by the VA. It's as easy as following these five steps

• Determine Eligibility
• Sign Purchase Agreement
• Order VA Appraisal
• Apply For Mortgage
• Purchase House

Before arranging for a new mortgage to finance a home purchase, veterans should consider some of the advantages of VA home loans.

*Check out the military pay scale. An enlisted Service members grade (usually the same as rank) and years of service determines the amount of basic pay received.

There is a REASON Limpballs and Bennett and others did not serve. It's because THEY DIDN'T F-ING HAVE TO!

Note at the top of this page > www.army.com - the options: "TRAVEL, EDUCATION, MONEY." Where is the "BATTLE IN IRAQ" tab?

Edited for grammar. ;)

[BattyDem]

1. I know two guys currently serving in Iraq because ...

they couldn't afford college any other way. :-(

[gully]

2. And unfortunately, that is the make up of most kids in Iraq.

nt

[cautiouslywaiting]

3. Actually

Rush had a medical deferment, not student. And my father had a medical deferment too so I'd appreciate avoiding the implication that there's something wrong with my dad.

[gully]

5. Rush had a student deferment turned "ass pustule" - medical deferment.

:eyes:

Claim: Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh was disqualified from the Vietnam-era draft due to a pilonidal cyst.

Status: True.

When Rush Limbaugh first came of draft age he held a 2-S (college deferment) Selective Service System classification as a student at Southeast Missouri State University in 1969-70, but after he dropped out of college at the end of his first year he no longer qualified for a student deferment and was subject to being reclassified as 1-A (available immediately for military service) and drafted. Selective Service System records show that Limbaugh was reclassified as 1-Y (qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency) on 24 November 1970, which effectively ended his draft eligibility and ensured that he would not be called for service.

What was the basis of Limbaugh's 1-Y classification? The Selective Service System records still available indicate that the classification was not assigned on psychological or moral grounds, but because of a physical problem. And since there are no records indicating that Limbaugh was ever examined by a physician at an Armed Forces Entrance Examining Station (i.e., he never underwent a pre-induction physical), the 1-Y classification was almost certainly assigned based on a report Limbaugh had his own doctor prepare and submit to his draft board. (No implication that the report was fabricated is intended; the point is merely to note that Limbaugh's deferment was based upon an examination conducted by a private doctor, not one administered by an Armed Services physician.)

What was the physical problem that disqualified Rush Limbaugh from the draft? Limbaugh biographer Paul D. Colford notes that:

As for Limbaugh himself, the broadcaster stated that he was not drafted during the Vietnam War because he had been classified 4-F after a physical found that he had an "inoperable pilonidal cyst" and "a football knee from high school." He added: "I made no effort to evade it or avoid it."2

However, that Limbaugh did indeed have a pilonidal cyst seems indisputable, as he himself, his mother, and his brother all maintain that he did:

Yet, for all his father's patriotism, and deep-rooted fear of Communism, Rusty (Rush) did not enlist to preserve those ideals. The official explanation, David Limbaugh said, is that Rush had a student deferment and, like his father, had a pilonidal cyst on his ass which qualified him for a medical deferment.3

Limbaugh's mother said in 1993 that she did not know if her son had a physical or not, but she added that he did have a pilonidal cyst like his father.2

http://www.snopes.com/military/limbaugh.htm

I guess Rush had the money to by a doctor that would claim his ingrown ass hair was enough to keep him out of the military? Did your dad have an ass cyst as well?

Interestingly enough, Rush is still buying off doctors today.

[Virginia Dare]

8. Unless your dad is a right-wing media blowhard....

I wouldn't worry too much about the implication that something is wrong with him.

Welcome to DU!

[cautiouslywaiting]

9. My dad didn't want to go to Vietnam.

Which I certainly don't blame him for. But he didn't actually have anything wrong with him. He just found a doctor who was willing to claim he did. I'm very glad he did because I expect he wouldn't have made it back if he had gone.

[gully]

10. Sounds like a Republican?

My family didn't have the luxury to buy doctors.

[cautiouslywaiting]

12. My dad didn't buy a doctor either.

He just found a really nice one. My dad was teaching at a little college in Virginia. He didn't have any money.

[gully]

13. He was teaching when he was deferred?

Interesting. Glad for the nice doctor, my Dad didn't shop for one. He still suffers from PTSD and gets about $700 a month to live on between social security and vets benefits. So much for "supporting the troops."

[cautiouslywaiting]

15. Yep.

My dad said when he first started teaching, he was exempt from the draft. Later they decided he wasn't. I'm sorry that not everyone could get a deferment. No one should have been over there. But I will always be grateful that my dad was spared.

[Bridget Burke]

16. Was your Dad against the war in Vietnam?

The problem was "chickenhawks" who supported the war but conveniently found deferments. Now, they're usually fans of the war in Iraq. If they've got kids old enough--those "kids" are far too busy to serve.

My brother used his deferment back then, too. Our father served in WWII, was called back for the Cold War & died in a plane crash. It's the "Sole Surviving Son" deferment.

[cautiouslywaiting]

17. Yes.

He was against the war. I understand the argument. It just bothers me when people don't clarify that not everyone who used a deferment was doing something wrong.

[judaspriestess]

4. very true

because this admin can't attack social programs frontally. They can use the excuse; See all are monies are tied up in the war, defense, tax cuts and so on, so we just don't have the money to fund education, drugs for the elderly through medicare etc. The countries money is all tied up going after the bad guys because we have to keep America safe. All the while, we rot from the inside.

[Lexingtonian]

6. Aren't Republicans always insulting and classist?

I mean, aren't their two true constituencies the Inner Sociopath in little guy "conservatives" and the people who want there to be (er, remain) an economic caste/class system?

[gully]

7. Yes they are.

And it's time they were called on it by the classist media dang-it!

[insane_cratic_gal]

11. He's right 100 percent just ask my Hubby

who does public affairs for the Navy and who they target with those paper ads for the newspaper employment section he's required to post.

Convenient that the republican congress cut all of the college pell grants and funding too for kids, making it more difficult to go to school once again.

[gully]

14. Indeed that is a convenient

coincidence.

"Convenient that the republican congress cut all of the college pell grants and funding too for kids, making it more difficult to go to school once again."