Moran's True Stripes
Mark Seavey, an Army seargent infantry squad leader recently released due to an injury, stood up to speak at an Arlington, Virginia town hall meeting. Representatives Jim Moran (D-VA) and John Murtha (D-PA) were taking questions at the time.
Take a look at this video. Listen to Seavey's comments on the troops' morale and note Murtha and Moran's reactions to the questions. More importantly, note their responses (or utter lack of response, to be more accurate). The transcription below was first posted over at the Dawn Patrol/Mudville Gazette.
"Yes sir my name is Mark Seavey and I just want to thank you for coming up here. Until about a month ago I was Sgt Mark Seavey infantry squad leader, I returned from Afghanistan. My question to you, (applause)
"Like yourself I dropped out of college two years ago to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, and I went and I came back. If I didn't have a herniated disk now I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops, three of which have already volunteered to go to Iraq. I keep hearing you say how you talk to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. (applause) The morale of the troops that I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back, despite the hardships they had to endure in Afghanistan.
"And Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just returned from Afghanistan. We never got a letter from you; we never got a visit from you. You didn't come to our homecoming. The only thing we got from any of our elected officials was one letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That's reprehensible. I don't know who you two are talking to but the morale of the troops is very high."
Moran – who is one of the few congressmen supporting Charlie Rangel's call to restore the draft – responded quickly: "That wasn't in the form of a question, it was in the form of a statement. But, uhh… let's go over here." And he took the next question.
Thanks to the Dawn Patrol/Mudville Gazette, Michelle Malkin, Tom Segel, and Rush Limbaugh for further propogating the story, else I might never have heard about it. God knows the mainstream media wouldn't latch onto a comment like this. Wait for Bush to mispronounce one word this week, however, and we'll hear all about it.
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