Last month I pointed out a wonderfully disdainful essay from a milblogger about the Democratic Congresscritters’ kneepad response to the demand from Mr Bu$h for more money. Many thanks to OZinWinsconsin for telling me about this treasure.

Milo has gone off on various subjects since then, and his honesty and passion shine through with every word. Milo is not some DFH in cammies. When he's offline his wife Anne writes in the blog. He believes in what he’s doing and his angst stems from a society that is not participating in the struggle against a-Q and their cousins, the Taliban. This struggle is real. The fight in Iraq, tragically, is a mistake, caused by egos, vanity, and lust for power.

Milo operates within a combat environment and does what he’s been trained to do. I have no idea how skilled he is, but he seems to have the fire, and the emotions are real, at least to me. Here he is, flying in a Polish Mil-8 helicopter, into Injun country.

The adrenaline has set every nerve in my body ablaze. Sweet morning air gushes in from outside, and the hairs on my neck sing to me of sweat and wind. We pitch and jounce a bit, an everlasting moment curiously without sound, and at last the door gunner clears the hatch. The Poles leap to their feet. I hear SFC Jameson yelling, "Go, go, go!" I spring into action, following the man in front of me.

The darkness of the cabin suddenly gives way to ghostly dawn, and as my left boot steps out into air, I hear the slow-motion whump of the blades, and watch the grasses ripple in the wind as we hover some five feet above the LZ. A bit of downdraft rushes sweetly down the collar of my body armor, and in the moment before my boot thuds down upon the earth, I feel like the star of every Vietnam war movie ever produced. I feel like the Master Chief in Halo.

I feel like a cultural cliche, and yet nowhere in my memory do I ever remember feeling more alive.