Fraters Libertas

Really Making A Difference

Great editorial opinion piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Matt Pottinger, who recently left his job at the Journal to join the US Marines. Why would a thirty-one year old man give up a position as a reporter at the best newspaper in the land to enlist in the military? Why I gave up journalism to join the Marines (available to all):

When people ask why I recently left The Wall Street Journal to join the Marines, I usually have a short answer. It felt like the time had come to stop reporting events and get more directly involved. But that's not the whole answer, and how I got to this point wasn't a straight line.

But why the Marines?

A year ago, I was at my sister's house using her husband's laptop when I came across a video of an American in Iraq being beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The details are beyond description here; let's just say it was obscene. At first I admit I felt a touch of the terror they wanted me to feel, but then I felt the anger they didn't. We often talk about how our policies are radicalizing young men in the Middle East to become our enemies, but rarely do we talk about how their actions are radicalizing us. In a brief moment of revulsion, sitting there in that living room, I became their blowback.

The entire piece is well deserving of a read.