9/11/2001 + 10: Support Our Troops: Enlist!

The 9/11 10th Anniversary press releases are hitting the streets, with a wide variety of organizations strongly supporting victory in the global war on terrorism.

In addition to the standard boilerplate about Supporting Our Troops, however, any organization - of any nature - needs to address these obvious questions in its public statements:

-- Consistent with its mission, is your organization doing everything it can to Support Our Troops? If not, why bother with mere platitudes?

-- Have you encouraged your members at least to consider volunteering for military service [if personally eligible]?

-- Have you urged your members, not personally eligible to serve, to encourage their eligible relatives and friends, their circles of influence, at least to consider serving in our military?

-- If you are a business, are you treating our servicemembers and their families fairly, both during a deployment, and later? To the maximum extent possible, are you trying to cut them some slack, if they need it? If not, you need to fix this - pronto. Please stay quiet until you have.

-- If you work in government, do you have an appropriately senior [i.e., empowered] person directly assisting those affected by a combat deployment or, worse, casualties? [We do.]

-- Are you looking out for recent veterans, who actually answered our nation's call, now that they're back home, undoubtedly different from who they were when they deployed? Do you recognize their needs, including, as appropriate, tough love, as they return to civilian life following honorable service to our nation?

And we have questions for the American people:

-- Do you personally know any enlisted servicemembers or junior officers [those most at risk in combat] or recent veterans? If not, does that bother you? It should.

-- Even if you don't personally know anyone, are you doing everything you can to make things better for them, according to your walk of life? [Again we thank Sen. Joe Lieberman [I-CT] for leading the Senate in repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell.]

-- Finally, if you are a healthy male 17-34, please at least consider serving in our military. It will change your life.

Thank you.