CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, February 20, 2006

Washington Huskies reject Duty-Honor-Country

Some polls say about half of the American public is not aware that we are at war. When your faithful observer reads that some student leaders at the University of Washington do not want to see an on-campus memorial to U.W. graduate and Medal of Honor Winner, Colonel “Pappy” Boyington, then maybe isolationism, pacifism and appeasement are in and Duty-Honor-Country are out.

For those who missed the TV series “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” “Pappy” Boyington was the Marine’s leading fighter Ace whose squadron defeated scores of Japanese aircraft before Boyington was shot down and spent 20 months in a Japanese prison camp. After the war, he wrote Baa, Baa Black Sheep. So named because some of his squadron’s off-duty antics were, shall we say, so “unconventional” as not to please what are known in the military by that highly technical and (in family newspapers) untranslatable, acronym : REMFs.

So, why are these privileged college youth set against a monument to the memory of Colonel Boyington and the exploits of his fellow pilots and mechanics? Obviously, none of them are about to go to the trouble to serve their country in uniform or even break a sweat on behalf of the defense of liberty and, for sure, are not about to extend themselves in aid of the liberty of others.

But isolationism, pacifism and appeasement are not unusual throughout history. At the time of the American Revolution, some colonists would not fight to be accorded the same rights and privileges of their English cousins. They were called Tories. Many fled to Canada or to the Caribbean or to England. Others would neither fight for American independence nor would they help King George III maintain his stranglehold on the Americans. They were called: Trimmers.

Some of military age claim to be “conscientious objectors.” Their conscience or religious belief will not permit them to bear arms. During my military career, I knew several conscientious objectors; however, they were willing to be unarmed medics and displayed extraordinary bravery in the face of enemy fire. But something tells me the youngsters objecting to the Boyington Memorial would not help a wounded comrade. So, we are better off without them.

But the kind of thinking that tries to dry up military recruiting or denigrates those who want to serve in uniform or have served is very dangerous during a war in which those who would destroy us know full well they cannot defeat us on the battlefield. Yet the Islamo-fascists know that they can defeat us by skillful manipulation of youth who don’t want to be inconvenienced by national defense, by manipulation of left-wing academics, by manipulation of left-wing politicians, by a public than gets its news (when not watching “American Idol”), from the Sinistra Media and by presidential aspirants of both parties whose ambition blinds them to anything save their own advancement.

The Islamo-fascists make no secret of how they plan to destroy us. They believe they will win the media war, and we will submit to their will and their ways.

While it was probably easier to comprehend the danger from British Redcoats or from the Hitler’s jack-booted storm troopers or Japan’s treachery at Pearl Harbor or even Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, some Americans just don’t understand the foe we face.

But, in 1899, one young Englishman understood them quite well: “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science…the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” – Winston Churchill.

Today, not even the University of Washington is “sheltered in the strong arms of science.”

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist, a featured commentator for USA Today and self-described “recovering lawyer and philosopher,” is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.

©2006. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com