The "Astronaut Conundrum"

The title is a bit misleading, and I'm probably butchering the actual idea's name. But right after Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas with all crew lost, people were openly questioning the idea of Manned Exploration of Space. The idea that was passed around was that if these people are truly our best and brightest, whey the hell are we putting them in the riskiest situations known to Man?

This got my dander up a little, because I knew that is what they wanted to be doing. That is where they wanted to be. I'll date myself because I saw all the teachers at my elementary school cry when the Challenger blew up because they all thought of themselves as Christa McAuliffe. I knew better, they weren't nearly as good as her, and that is exactly where she wanted to be. Did she want to die that day? Of course not. You assess the risks and you take your chances. It's the same thing that you do when you sign your life over to Uncle Sam for a period of time. Mine was 6 years, your mileage may vary.

So what made me think about this was an interview that Jake Tapper did, who has covered War Zones, but has never actually been a combatant. He made an offhand remark in an Interview with Marcus Luttrell. Most people would discount the remark, but if you watch the interview (below the fold) You can see Marcus lock on to him when he said these blithe remarks. Most people would have discounted them as what Charles Cooke would say well, as "Mellifluous Bullshit". Marcus Would not let that shit fly, because He, Like any one of us, who felt a purpose in life and trained for YEARS to do what he and his "brothers" did, would not say any of it was "senseless". They put their cards down and went in head first. They gave better than they took. Gunfighters play for blood.

I have not seen the movie yet, but The Book is a must read.

Blaze link for text

I saw this as I was typing this up Daily Caller Twitter exchange thingy with Tapper

I wanted to include this for any Moron that hadn't seen the video from the Cspan link that I watched that made me want to buy the book...And I can't find it. If someone links it in the comments section, I'm sure a Coblog will add it for me. It's the first one he did in Washington when the book first came out.

posted by Gang of Gaming Morons! at 11:26 AM

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