How the Left Sabotages the Literary Right by Jack Cashill
As many of you know, Terry's book, "Officer's Oath," is now available and shipping. Everyone who has taken the time to read the book is engaged and enthusiastic. You can read the reviews here. Yet, there are those who haven't bothered to read the book and have left comments like this: "Terry Lakin epitomizes all that is truly stupid about the Birther "movement" and the credulous fools they ruin" or, "Terry Lakin might just be the worst human being on Earth. First he betrays his oaths, both as a soldier and as a doctor to tilt at birther windmills, he really thought he would be some great hero," or, "A foul seditious scrawl about a cowardly racist, that basically sums it up." But those of you who know Terry know that his motives were pure and his issue is real. In this article Jack Cashill responds to Terry's critics |
By Jack Cashill
Originall Published in American Thinker
"My biggest complaint," writes "ebmlaw" in his Amazon review of Terry Lakin's new book Officer's Oath, "is about the parts where the author graphically describes being raped by a convicted child molester (or "ch'mo" as he calls them) while in prison." http://amzn.to/QlDUG4
For those who may not know, Terry Lakin is the medical doctor and former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, who, according to "Whiskey 35 Alpha," refused to deploy to Afghanistan because "he had concerns about that scary back (sic) man in the White House." Clarification is added by "J. Powell," who elaborates, "[Lakin] treasonously abdicated his duties - AN OBLIGATION HE MADE AN OATH TO FULFILL - to make a political point about our first black president which is based entirely on well-documented lies."
Having helped Lakin with his memoir http://bit.ly/NLyoIx, I am fully certain that none of these reviewers bothered to read the book. They, or people like them, occupy Amazon and haunt the pages of all conservative authors. On the subject of Barack Obama, "the back man in the White House," they are quick to impute racism even to people like Lakin who have not a racist bone in their bodies.
The role of these unseemly little saboteurs is to pull down the overall review numbers and sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of would-be purchasers. In the case of Officer's Oath, they slightly offset the great majority of five-star reviews with their one-star reviews to bring the composite review number down to four. I do not know if their efforts are coordinated or if devious minds just happen to think alike. Perhaps both.
I was particularly impressed by the creativity of ebmlaw. With seeming prudence, he cautions the readers, "Although I understand his need to describe that experience [prison rape], I think [Lakin] could have done so without so much graphic detail." Yes, Lakin did go to prison. Yes, there were ch'mos at Leavenworth, but no, there is not a hint in this G-rated book that anyone gets molested or raped or in any way abused, let alone Lakin himself.
How, I wonder, do these clowns psych themselves for such petty nonsense? I have grown inured to them in writing my own books, but I cringe for Lakin's sake when I read them. As Mr. Powell acknowledges, the military stripped Lakin "of nearly $2 million in lifetime pension and family benefits." To replace that money, S. Murphy assures us, "now [Lakin] comes out with this cheap piece of trash book in an attempt to squeez (sic) out a few odd birther bucks to help replace the pension he threw away."
As Powell sees it, Lakin's willingness to give up his pension makes him "the dumbest birther out there, as well as a convicted criminal." He adds, "He should consider himself and his family lucky that he only had to serve six months at Ft. Leavenworth, and not the rest of his life." It is hard enough to read this swill about a book you have written, but it is much harder still to read it about the life you have lived.
Lakin, perhaps the most humble and honorable man I have ever met, is the first military resister in memory that the left has not embraced. Of all his hardship deployments, Bosnia included, his exile to Leavenworth was easily the hardest. After he bid a tearful farewell to his wife and three young children, his military minders chained his hands together and attached those chains to a band around his waist. They chained his legs and attached those too. They then loaded him into a van and drove him to Reagan National.
There, Lakin endured his ultimate humiliation, a seemingly endless perp walk, a shuffle really, through a concourse filled with flags and patriotic bunting and the happy sight of returning soldiers. None of the display had lost its appeal, but Lakin could not overlook the irony of his being chained and bound amidst it all. Thanks to a deepening Christian faith and an abiding love for his country, Lakin manfully survived the ordeal and emerged a stronger person for it.
That he did give up $2 million in benefits and left his lovely family behind for prison should have further endeared him to our generally weepy progressive friends, but, of course, it did no such thing. They have a president to elect. All justice, all sympathy, all honesty be damned.