For Veteran's Day

You have these nineteen-year-old kids with these huge hearts, they will do what you ask them. The issue is, are you asking them to do something worthwhile? That's up to the adults, and that's where the failure comes. The failure isn't the kids saying “I'm not going to do this!” because that's not the way they are built. Nineteen-year-olds don't know to take a raincoat when it's raining, that's why they're so good at being warriors. They'll do it. They won't even ask you a question. “Alright, we'll do it.” The responsibility is on the grown-ups to make sure they're not being wasted, because they'll do what they're told, and they'll do it well. - Karl Marlantes

I've been watching the Ken Burns / Lynn Novick Vietnam War series finding a lot of it just sad and frustrating. The novelist Karl Marlantes sums it up nicely in this quote, which is in episode 7. One can oppose war, the decisions made by the grown-ups, while still respecting those who go and fight honorably in your name and wanting the best for them, and that they get what they need when they come home.

Before knowing there would be no webcast today, I had put a couple of selections aside for Veteran's Day. I present them after the break...