But you're not talking to a soldier now, you're talking to an expedition. I'm an expedition!

On his program this morning Thom Hartman was suffering an aneurysm over this passage from the President's speech last night:

A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

Thom reads that proposal as establishing something between the French Foreign Legion and a voluntary mercenary force which he sees as ominous. I'll admit I find it concerning on it's face, barring details but my take on it's face is different than that of Hartman's. It appears to me as if he's proposing interns for Haliburton i.e. even cheaper labor than the slave wages they're currently paying foreign workers they're importing into Iraq. This question seems to fall on whether or not these civilian reservists are actually armed.

Ultimately anything that gets the 101st Fighting Keyboardists away from their cheeto-encrusted desk and closer to the conflict they so strongly support I'm all for.