When we entered into the first Gulf War, our active Army strength was around 760,000. It was well equipped, well trained and powerful enough to actually maintain the world peace that progressives and beauty pageant contestants so desire. Even as this force pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the liberal media was questioning out loud whether Americans were ready to see the body bags.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, politicians decided we no longer needed such a robust force. There were no more enemies requiring us to maintain it. No more large force on force battles ahead. We had to reduce it. Drawdown commenced. Or as cheerleaders inside the services and Pentagon called it, a builddown. Word out of Washington was a windfall was upon us. We would reap a peace dividend. All of the money we would save by cutting the size of America’s national defense structure could be used to fund other necessary things. Social programs.

I watched Lone Survivor yesterday. From reading the book when it came out, I fully expected it to be gut-wrenching. And it was. It is a well done movie. Go watch it. Sadly, most Americans never knew the story. Still do not. Even when the Congressional Medal of Honor was presented posthumously to Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael Murphy, the first person to receive it in the Afghan War, it was barely a media blip. You see, it is not the kind of story that interests a progressive media along with the fact that it was presented by President Bush. Never willing to shine a good light on anything military, they were more interested in the propaganda pictures provided to them by the Islamists.

The progressive media prefer the story of down trodden and poverty stricken villagers being brutalized by the U.S. military. Poor people who are driven to terrorism because of stark poverty. Their wealth of course was stolen from them by whom else but the capitalist west led by America. It was the same song they sang throughout the Viet Nam war. I am certain you remember Genghis John Kerry’s famous lies about American Soldiers in Viet Nam burning and pillaging villages. And Hanoi Jane’s radio broadcast. Well, war hero John is at it again. The poor and poverty stricken are driven to war.

When President Bush was in office, the body count was high priority in the media. Boys the media called them or American kids. Anything to pluck at American’s emotions. We would get it daily. There was even speculation about when it would surpass one thousand. The media appeared anxious for that moment. They even went to court looking for permission to photograph the caskets as they came home. Nowadays, it simply is not an issue. You may hear in passing of some “NATO” casualties in Afghanistan. By what we hear in the news, one would think that nothing is happening there. You most assuredly would not know that nearly 75 percent of American war deaths in Afghanistan have occurred under the watch of Barack Obama. The progressive media wing does its job quite well.

While a man like Marcus Luttrell and his team fights and sacrifices and does what their country asks of them to preserve the peace and ensure freedom at America’s front door, Washington’s politicians are giving both away at the back door. Washington is proving once again that it has little thought of the trials the military and their families have endured during 13 years of war.

Beginning with the Whitehouse and right on down through the halls of the United States Congress there appears little concern for the military. Illegal immigrants are more important that Soldiers, Veterans or their families. There is the big budget deal out of Washington. Then one that will keep the government open. It saves a relative few pennies when considering trillions of dollars of debt ($6.2 billion over 10 years) by reducing military pensions, costing military retirees as much as $120,000.00 over a lifetime. Have to love those peace dividends. With a straight face, Washington laments how important it is to cut military pensions to save the budget, while absolutely refusing to close a tax hole that has allowed the Internal Revenue Service to pay out over $14 billion dollars in refundable tax credits to illegal immigrants – the people we supposedly cannot find because they only exist in the shadows.

I was listening to some banter on a talk radio program the other day. Conservative media view versus a progressive one. The topic was Obamacare and how in the world will we ever pay for it. Without hesitation, the progressive said close 800 military bases.

Washington can only find passion these days for the military when it comes to social engineering it to resemble their Godless utopian world view. The next time they need Soldiers willing to sacrifice for their political blundering, maybe they can find a few brigades of illegal immigrants to do their bidding. They are certainly paid well enough. We can even embed them with progressive media.