"I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter."

If you think these are the words of a National Guardsman or reservist, explaining why their deployment to war would put a hardship on their families, well, you'll have to guess again.

They were written by Jonah Goldberg, an editor at the National Review and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Goldberg was defending himself because, an avowed hawk, he had written numerous pieces enthusiastically endorsing the administration's plan to go to war in Iraq. However, some thinking individuals had complained, pointing out that, if he was so hot for this war, then why didn't he volunteer to go fight it himself?

Hence, the excuse, "I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter."

I seem to recall similar excuses--FIVE of them being offered up by the meanest hawk on Capitol Hill--Vice President Dick Cheney--back when this nation was at war in Vietnam. Our commander-in-chief didn't have to make excuses. His congressman daddy could pull strings and get him a choice slot in the Air National Guard, where there was a lengthy waiting list. The Texas congressman's son was able to be squeezed into the crowded flight class along with the son of Texas Senator Lloyd Bentson. (I guess whoever got bumped from the regular waiting list wound up going off to fly jets in a real war.) And although our esteemed Secretary of Defense, Daniel Rumsfeld, did a stint flying jets for the Air Force, he never had to do it in a place where there was any kind of chance whatsoever that he could actually be SHOT DOWN.

None of the Big Three who sent more than a hundred thousand troops (not counting the last war Cheney and Rumsfeld fought, the Gulf War, which sent in half a million)--anyway, not one of them has ever once in their lives been in a position where they've had to dodge a bullet.

The only member of this administration who DID, General Colin Powell, presented a number of sound arguments as to why this war was a bad idea. Consequently, he was ignored, manipulated, cut out of serious policy discussions and eventually, forced out.

In fact, anyone who DARED to say anything against this war back in the spring of 2003-- especially if he or she had the supreme misfortune of running for political office--were hacked up into little pieces by their opponents and presented as haters of their country. Max Cleland, who sacrificed both his legs and one arm and who once ran the Veteran's Administration under President Jimmy Carter, was defeated for his Georgia congressional seat when he was portrayed as unpatriotic, because he opposed the war in Iraq.

Unpatriotic.

So we went to war. National Guardsmen and women, who had joined the Guard because the commercials promised money for college and who thought they'd be doing things like riot control, hurricane relief, and fighting forest fires, found themselves shipped off to war. Reservists, some of whom had been on inactive lists sometimes for twenty years and were in their forties or even FIFTIES, were called up and given little time to settle their affairs before being deployed.

Often, the families of these troops were placed in severe financial hardship during that time, some having to sell their homes or go into foreclosure and many filing for bankruptcy. Divorces have been higher than ever.

They went without proper armor and had to buy their own from private companies charging up to $2000 per set. Once in-country, they had to jerry-rig armor for their Humvees, scavanging tin and plywood from trash piles and wreckage. Even as a Marine, my son on his last deployment had to do similar things.

And, by the way, did you know they have to buy their own medals? And extra sets of fatigues and boots? You old soldiers may not know that, but none of that stuff is issued any more. They have to buy much of the gear (on private's and corporal's pay) that they will need to fight this war.

Too damn bad they didn't go to work for Halliburton, eh? They'd have all they needed, then.

Anyway, if a Guardsman-woman or Reservist were wounded, they were usually pretty surprised when the hospital bill came. See, the National Guard and the various reserve units don't have the same military health care coverage as the active military.

Let me repeat that. Guardsmen and women and reservists who were wounded while fighting for their country in Iraq and Afghanistan had to pay their own hospital bills. I don't know if that is still the case, but it damn sure was for at least two years.

When a soldier complained about this sort of thing to our esteemed Secretary of Defense, he was brushed off with, "You fight a war with the Army you've got."

(Or the Halliburton you can buy.)

And if any troops were killed, well, they were flown in under cover of darkness, late into the night, and if anyone tried to photograph their flag-draped coffins, they were fired.

After all, we didn't want any depressing news coming along about this war that might upset all those Goldbergs out there who were busy supporting our troops!!!

Most of whom were in their twenties and thirties, with babies at home, or in their forties, with pre-teens and teens now left motherless or fatherless.

Oh, and when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita blew away half the Gulf Coast, where was the Louisiana National Guard?

Why, fighting in Iraq, of course.

Which brings me back to the hapless Goldberg. In a piece called "Another Chance for a Chicken Hawk," in Salon.com, Tim Grieve writes that the Army is having so much trouble recruiting people willing to fight and die for their country in this war that they've had to raise the top age for military recruits from 35 to 42.

A "chickenhawk," in case you're unfamiliar with the term, is someone who's very hawkish about going to war. They wave the flag and get all teary-eyed during patriotic songs and rant and rave about "our enemies" and how, if we don't want to be destroyed by them, we must fight! fight! fight!

But see, they're chickens, on account of how THEY don't want to be the ones to do the fighting. The bleeding. The dying.

But there's good news for the Jonah Goldbergs and the young aspiring Dick Cheneys and Karl Roves and George Bush's who worry that they might have missed their chance to fight! fight! fight! for their country.

As Grieve writes, with the new recruiting age of 42, "That gives Goldberg and other chicken hawks his age six more years in which they can sign up for the war they've been only too happy to have others fight.

"But really," points out Grieve, "why wait that long? Forty-two U.S. soldiers (and Marines) have died in Iraq already this month, and recruiters are waiting by their phones to hear from their replacements."

God bless America, eh Goldberg?