RUSH: Here is Brian in Fremont, Michigan, welcome to the program, sir. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Oh, it’s an honor, O great one. How are you today?
RUSH: I’m fine, sir, thank you.
CALLER: From the great state of Michigan, contrary to the fact that we have two of the most liberal senators in the senate, you’ve got Levin and Stabenow. Sorry to report on that. Rush, the reason I’m calling, sometimes in the liberal media, it seems like every other day, with the troops in Iraq, they report how long they’re there. They’re there for six months, they’re there up to 13 months sometimes, and how dare they have to stay there that long in combat and battle. Number one, they did sign up. But my father was a veteran of World War II. He’s no longer alive, but that’s beside the point. He married my mother in Newport News, climbed on the Queen Mary the next day and was in the South Pacific for three and a half years without one day of R&R. And so I guess whether that was right or wrong at that time or whatever, I guess I get a little sick of the media reporting on that day after day after day.
RUSH: As a society and culture, we have elements who have become sissified, not nearly as tough. Life has become easy and challenges are not familiar, and hardships, we make ours up. I’m not saying we don’t have any, there’s some hardships out there, but we’ve got a wuss culture in parts of our culture. I’m not talking about the military. They’re not complaining. It’s the Democrats who are complaining, and they’re just bringing it up because it’s just another way to criticize Bush and to say we don’t have a good military. ‘Bush hasn’t built it up. We’re using it wrong. These poor soldiers. These poor troops. They’re in danger. They’re in a sectarian civil war. They’re not protected. Bush didn’t give ’em Humvees. Bush didn’t give ’em uparmored Humvees. Bush didn’t give them body armor. Bush hates them. Bush is Hitler,’ and all this. It’s a drumbeat that is never ending.
Meanwhile, the army, the military is meeting its recruitment goals. They might be short one month, but they’re not behind because in previous months. They outdid their expectations or their quotas on what they needed. So the people signing up, you’re right, they know what they’re getting in for, and even the Guard people. Look, I’ve been to Afghanistan, as you know, and I’ve flown around the country on a C-130 with a Guard crew from Texas. I spent a lot of time talking to these guys, and they weren’t upset about being there. This is what they could do to defend their families and defend their country. They were thinking they might get sent back after their first tour but they weren’t whining or complaining. Now, they knew that I had a microphone and they knew that I’m a media guy, but they were not whining or complaining. There was not a superior officer around ’em when I was with them. I went all over the country. The only place we didn’t get was to Bagram Air Force Base because of a problem with the C-130. It took off and we had an engine failure, had to turn around and land. But I talked to a lot of these people, and officers, too. I didn’t find any of these people complaining.
Now, this is some years ago. The only complaint they had was how come we’re not getting news coverage over here on how successful our operations are? Because they do have cable television over there, they see CNN and all this, and they saw all the criticism going on of the soldiers and the operation in Iraq. They didn’t see anything about their successes and I told them it was because, ‘What you’re doing over here that’s successful is not considered newsworthy, doesn’t fit the template that America is failing and that George Bush has got us mired in a bunch of screwed up, horrible policies and so forth.’ So I’m glad you called out there Brian, appreciate it very much.