(AP) - In its battle to win the hearts and minds of recruiting-age Americans, the Army is replacing its main ad slogan — "An Army of One" — with one it hopes will pack more punch: "Army Strong." MM&N Commentary "Army Strong", the fruit of a $200 million dollar a year contract to lure the simple to Baghdad and beyond, is a metaphor for our military where even the slogan is backwards with the noun followed by the adjective. If the military were to create you, your belly button would be between your shoulder blades. According to news reports, the slogan tries to convey the idea that if you join the Army you will gain physical and emotional strength, as well as strength of character and purpose. But that is just the start on the road to delusion and maybe death, and I pity those who feel compelled to make that journey. I no more believe that those who bear arms in Iraq are protecting my freedom than I believe in the tooth fairy or in the integrity of George Bush. To the contrary, our military involvement has made Iraq, America, and the world more dangerous, an assessment supported by the British army head, General Sir Richard Dannatt. A number of US generals and and admirals have also articulated the same concerns. The mother of a soldier fighting in Iraq told me that it's the opinion of some of the troops is that these generals were traitors-- an assertion that is false on the facts as none of these retired officers were never indicted for treason and false as a matter of law, as retired military officers are not obligated to surrender their first amendment rights. In makes me wonder what she thinks her child is fighting for, if not for the truth and the constitution. Further, it strikes me as curious that such people who are so dogmatic in their anti-abortion views are conversely so willing to provide a blessing to their kids who could die in a war of choice. What really is the difference in having your child aborted in his second semester and having your child aborted in his 62 trimester? The difference, of course, is 60 trimesters of life squandered for nothing. While my boys and I are watching television, we like deconstructing goarmy.com ads. My favorite one is the soldier who meets his buddies to tell them that he is now a computer programmer, which is my profession. "But couldn't you have learned that here?" "Not really," the be-ribboned soldier says, and in the next scene, we see bullets flying around him while he tries to debug a unix script. What nonsense. I tell my boys that I rather would have them live under a bridge than to join that kind of a blood-cult. While I admire individual soldier for their personal qualities, I have nothing but contempt for the military of today, and regard it as nothing more than a lapdog for the neo-conservatives. The military will get my respect when the kids of the elite are sacrificing and dying, when Paris Hilton is humping it at Parris Island and Jenna Bush has returned to Dover Air Force Base to be prepped for Airlington Cemetary. And yet I'm in awe of the courage of those in the military. I think of the men who marched into Valhalla on D-Day over other men who moved like half squashed beetles in gouts of cherry foam. Farley Mowat's And No Birds Sang, his memoirs as a combat officer in World War II, writes that even battle-hardened veterans continue to do their duty but never lose their fear-the "Worm That Never Dies." He writes that "those who remained under sustained and unremitting fire could partially armor themselves with the apathy of the half-dead; but those who had to come and go … those were the ones who paid the heaviest price. On the last night of our ordeal, I was descending the north slope, numbed and passionless, drugged with fatigue, dead on my feet, when I heard someone singing! It was a rough voice, husky yet powerful. A cluster of mortar bombs cam crashing down and I threw myself in the mud. When I could hear again, the first sound that came to me was the singing voice. Cautiously I raised myself just as a star shell burst overhead, and saw him coming toward me through that blasted wasteland. Stark naked, he was striding through the cordite with his head held high and his arms swinging. His body shone white in the brilliant light of the flare, except for what appeared to be a glistening crimson sash that ran from one shoulder down on one thing and dripped from his lifted foot. He was singing Home on the Range at the top of his lungs. "The Worm That Never Dies had taken him." Those who are in the military are not only victims of the intellectuals at the Pentagon. They are victims of slogans and images. And the cruel thing is that those slogans and images can put them in the grave. On the battlefield, the green soldier moves from door to door in Baghdad, unreeling in his head a cinamatic version of what he would like to be-- swagger and bravado and heroism and glory. Veterans call this "John Wayning," and it can get you killed. Those who have served in the military deserve our gratitude and thanks, and they should be as appalled as I am that the president has put the prestige of the military on the line by committing them to a mission and a strategy that isn't supported by the homefront and that appears to be heading for defeat. They, of all people, should vote as if their life is depending on it. For, in a very real sense, it does.