Somehow my history prof got off on a tangent today about the Iraq war. He is generally good about avoiding this, but he’ll occasionally get preachy. It really started off yesterday with an observation of disproportionate racial representation in the US armed forces, brought about by mentioning the Irish who joined the British Army due to lack of other options. Nope.

Then today he mentions that twenty Marines were killed in the past ’round about 48 hours. I suppose he’s talking about the overall situation mentioned near the end of this article. But what’s the point in mentioning it in isolation? Shock value?

I know the man can form an argument. I’ve seen him do it. But he seems to refuse to do so coherently whenever the President or war come up. Yes, it can be funny to call Bush an idiot. It was funny to make fun of Clinton, too. I enjoy humor.

But I come from a military family, and I get annoyed when the contributions of my white relatives who served are downplayed. I get annoyed when people mention in a detached way that Marines were killed, with the clear intention of scoring a cheap political point.

I just can’t accept that the same way I can accept political jabs, even ones that aren’t made in good fun.

He mentioned that if respect, kindness, caring, understanding, &c. were called “political correctness,” then so be it. Perhaps show some respect, then, to your students, whose parents might be serving, or who may be ROTCs who joined in full knowledge of the sacrifices they might be asked to make, or who are not even in your class because they were called to active duty from the Reserves.

And what kills me is that I like the guy. He’s a good prof. And I don’t mind if he doesn’t “get it” the same way I do, because I do understand the rational opposing point of view, even though I disagree with it. But to turn to irrational arguments, unsupported by fact, to comment on current events is disgraceful, especially when you do so in what is, after all, a unilateral forum, the classroom.

Had to dispense with that because it was keeping me from studying. History test tomorrow. If you somehow manage to be reading this, Professor (and there’s no need to name names here), then hello, and good to see you here.

EDIT: Further, there’s no excuse for a historian to mispronounce “Celtic.”