Wanted: raff and scaff

John Kerry, may his name live in infamy, made clear his opinion of our military when he made his awkward little “joke” about their lack of drive and intelligence. In the same way, NPR is typical of the mainstream media in its effort to attack the military by implying that its recruits are money grubbing fools or even criminals. In other words, the Left side of the political spectrum, the “support our troops” side, thinks that our military is the raff and scaff of society, ill-educated, greedy and often criminal. Well, let me just say that I’m proud to call this raff and scaff my own, especially after reading that these guys are doing things like this:

Marine Cpl. Saul Mellado could be back in California, finishing the final months of his enlistment in a safe billet at Camp Pendleton.

Instead, the 23-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Mexico is patrolling these war-torn streets only recently wrested from insurgent control — and bracing for an expected counteroffensive.

Mellado, a machine-gunner, knows these streets: the adults who eye the Marines with suspicion and the children who beg for candy and water. He was first dispatched to Ramadi in late 2004, a deployment during which 15 Marines in his unit — the 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment — died and more than 200 were wounded.

Under Marine Corps rules about “short-timers,” Mellado could have skipped this return to Ramadi six weeks ago. But like 200 other members of the battalion — a quarter of its number — he asked to have his enlistment extended. Unlike a reenlistment, the move earns the Marines no bonus money, no promotion and no promise of a job shift or posting to a favored duty station.

“For a lot of the guys, this is their first tour,” Mellado said as his Humvee moved slowly through the rubble-strewn streets. “If anything happened to them, and I could have helped them, I couldn’t stand that.”

Mellado’s wife, Kirsten, is pregnant with their first child, a boy. Mellado has no plans to take leave to see the birth, and it is unclear whether a webcam will be available so he can see the infant.

“I’m here so our sons don’t have to come here and fight someday,” he said.

In a teasing, sing-song voice, Lance Cpl. Abraham Saenz, 21, said: “He came out here to be with us. He just couldn’t stand to leave his boys behind.”

Officials say extensions are not uncommon among the Marine Corps’ 24 battalions, even as some return to Iraq for their third combat tour. In fact, they say, few records are kept because they are so common.

But Marine generals who review the manpower of all infantry battalions say the 200 from the Two-Five, the most decorated battalion in the Corps, make up the biggest group.

Read the rest here.

You all know my fondness for the Marines. (I have to admit here that it’s a fondness in the abstract because my Bay Area upbringing and residence mean that I don’t actually know any Marines personally.) This is just one more thing to make me believe that our military is made up of truly decent, patriotic human beings who do the right thing. I’d rather sit down to dinner with any one of these guys than with Sen. Kerry or the entire staff of NPR.

Hat tip: Flopping Aces