Reply #6: Barbara and Jenna belong to a privileged class.

[rullery]

Thanks for your input, Darby. I certainly did not mean to ridicule the twins. They have successfully completed college and earned their degrees, and I wish them well. I do honestly believe that it would be to their benefit to spend some time in the military though. It is a maturing experience. Yet I doubt that these young ladies would even consider it.

In my letter I meant to point out that the twins enjoy some privileges that many others do not. It is mostly young people from less affluent families who enlist in the military, some to earn tuition benefits, and others because the military offers better jobs than they can get as civilians.

President Bush seems to have no qualms about sending these young people to bleed and die in Iraq. After all, they do not come from any of the families in his own social circle. Perhaps he even considers their lives to be expendable. It ties in with his own experience as a young man, when he did not have to go to Vietnam. Others had to go and serve in his place, because he is a Bush.

Kerry also comes from a privileged background. Yet he did not take advantage of this. He showed his character by volunteering for a very dangerous assignment in Vietnam. For Bush and his gang of draft-dodging cowards to attempt to belittle Kerry's heroic service to his country through their surrogates is truly beneath contempt.

I hope that people will wake up to these facts. My open letter to the Bush twins is an effort in this direction. Again, I do not mean to criticize them, for they did not get to pick their parents.