Why I Quit... Desert Storm Vet Explains Decision To Leave Air Force After 22 Years

by Mike Banzet - November 7th, 2010 - Daily Inter Lake

You’ve elected officials who, for partisan points, spoke openly that the “…war is lost.” I happened to be in a dining facility in Baghdad that day, filled with the (mostly) young faces of (mostly) Army men and women. CNN was on the TVs, and things got very quiet when this elected official continued on, railing that the mission that some of these very people were here to do, had “…failed.” Yet, they would be donning their body armor, strapping on med kits and weapons, mounting HMMVs or MRAPs and heading outside the wire, ensuring that the newborn democracy in Iraq, purchased with so many lives, would be safe another night. The newly re-invigorated insurgents would be waiting, teeth bared back in a hateful smile, gripping the IED detonator, the RPG launcher, or the AK-47s to ply their trade with new energy, because the Senate Majority Leader had said they were winning.

You elected officials who continually defame and berate military members, whether it is the observation that if you’re not too bright, you’ll get “…stuck in Iraq” (this from a guy who has two Purple Hearts for self-inflicted wounds, and known for throwing someone else’s medals away in protest), or the calling of combat Marines cold-blooded killers (in a war; before trial). You’ve elected officials in the role of commander-in-chief who “loathe” the military, while using ROTC deferments and special treatment to avoid military service that the less “connected” take as a responsibility. On the basis of “change,” you elected someone who had close, ongoing associations with people who were part of an organization that tried to kill us [U.S. military] on our own soil.

Read this article. I know that some of you will read it and react with anger that this man would show such contempt for your "desire to help others" with what Margaret Thatcher called "other people's money". I didn't react that way. I sat down and cried. I realized immediately that having a majority of his constituents re-elect Harry Reid proved beyond doubt that the nation this man spent 22 years defending may well no longer be worth defending.

He is not alone. Resignations among officers are up. Re-enlistments are down. Some of us here in America did not see the recent election cycle as a victory, but another chapter in the slow slide of America down to a nation of squalor and greed, just like Haiti and Zimbabwe and all the other nations where class warfare is the tradition. Democrat support groups like Code Pink are openly giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to terrorist groups to kill our soldiers and not only does no one protest, Nancy Pelosi brings their leaders on to her campaign platform and praises their efforts.

This article is by a good man. However men such as Mike Banzet are no longer the norm in America. They were not rare once but that time has passed. Mike Banzet is a man of courage and intelligence in a nation of welfare greed and government corruption. That he is so rare is cause for all of us to cry for our nation. That he is giving up defending our nation is reason for depression.