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Other Columns by Oliver North
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Buried in all the mainstream media coverage this week over new terrorist bombings in London, space shuttles that didn't launch, the trashing of Karl Rove and the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice was a little-noted item about reenlistments in the U.S. armed forces exceeding expectations. USA Today offered some prominence to the story, but it was widely ignored by most of the Fourth Estate. Perhaps that's because it's a "good news story."

According to the Pentagon, all of the services are meeting or exceeding their reenlistment requirements -- though the Army acknowledges shortfalls on new recruits. Through the end of June, the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard all "made their end strength objectives" and the Marine Corps actually went 2 percent over its new "accessions" goal. Enlisted accessions are those who are new additions to the enlisted strength of a military service. These are young Americans -- virtually all of whom are high-school graduates -- who have signed an enlistment contract and are beginning basic training. That's good news for the "All Volunteer Force" in what one recruiter called "a fairly hostile environment."

Unfortunately, all the "hostiles" aren't in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some are politicians, some are in the media and others are part of the old, anti-military, "Blame America First" crowd.

Last month Democratic California Senator Diane Feinstein's assessment of the war was "that everything seems to be going the wrong way." Illinois' liberal Senator Dick Durbin likened the men and women of America's armed forces to those of Cambodia's Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel actually proposed legislation to "bring back the draft."

The mainstream media has been even worse. The New York Times' Chris Hedges described those serving in today's military as "poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas [who could] not get a decent job or health insurance." CNN's Eason Jordan claimed that U.S. troops in Iraq had killed journalists after having them "arrested and tortured." And for months, the press beat the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo stories like rented mules.

Now, add to these insults new injury from the old left. Last week in Washington, the Center for American Progress hosted what they called the Campus Progress National Student Conference. Bill Clinton was there. So was my former media colleague Paul Begala. Other attendees included former Clinton chief-of-staff John Podesta, Congressman Barney Frank and a handful of conservative students from the Campus Leadership Program and Young America's Foundation. One of them kindly brought me one of the "publications" handed out to participants -- an anti-military, anti-American screed entitled "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: A Guide to the Demilitarization of America's Youth and Students."

The editors of this "enlightened" journal claim that the "glorification of the military ignores the fact that most positive change in the United States has come from people standing up to the government, big corporations, and other forms of organized violence and crime." It then offers tips on how to protest all things military.

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