{"id":2193,"date":"2005-06-29T19:45:50","date_gmt":"2005-06-30T02:45:50","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2005-06-29T19:45:50","modified_gmt":"2005-06-30T02:45:50","slug":"great-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/29\/great-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the president&#8217;s <a href=http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/06\/28\/AR2005062801298_pf.html>Tuesday night address<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves.<\/ul>\n<p>Yes, great Americans like <a href=http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/doc.mhtml?i=20050711&#038;s=blumenthal>young Republican Collin Kelley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>Kelley told me he&#8217;s &#8220;sick and tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain&#8221; and added, &#8220;This isn&#8217;t an invasion of Iraq, it&#8217;s a liberation&#8211;as David Horowitz said.&#8221; When I asked him why he was staying on campus rather than fighting the good fight, he rubbed his shoulder and described a nagging football injury from high school. Plus, his parents didn&#8217;t want him to go. &#8220;They&#8217;re old hippies,&#8221; Kelley said.<\/ul>\n<p>Goddamn hippies, losing yet <i>another<\/i> war for us.<\/p>\n<ul>Munching on a chicken quesadilla at a table nearby was Edward Hauser, a senior at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas&#8211;a liberal school in a liberal town in the ultimate red state of Texas. &#8220;Austin is ninety square miles insulated from reality,&#8221; Hauser said. When I broached the issue of Iraq, he replied, &#8220;I support our country. I support our troops.&#8221; So why isn&#8217;t he there? <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know that I&#8217;m going to be better staying here and working to convince people why we&#8217;re there [in Iraq],&#8221; Hauser explained, pausing in thought. &#8220;I&#8217;m a fighter, but with words.&#8221;<\/ul>\n<p>But even in an age of greatness, a golden epoch of Bushes, Cheneys, and David Horowitzes, there are some men whose combination of cerebral prowess and intestinal fortitude makes them stand out.<\/p>\n<ul>By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania&#8217;s Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. &#8220;The people opposed to the war aren&#8217;t putting their asses on the line,&#8221; Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn&#8217;t he putting his ass on the line? &#8220;I&#8217;m not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country,&#8221; he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, &#8220;and I wasn&#8217;t going to pass that up.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. &#8220;We&#8217;re the big guys,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit.&#8221;<\/ul>\n<p>I tremble for my country when I reflect that God has a mean sense of humor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the president&#8217;s Tuesday night address: We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Yes, great Americans like young Republican Collin Kelley: Kelley told me he&#8217;s &#8220;sick and tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain&#8221; and added, &#8220;This isn&#8217;t an invasion of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}