Yesterday a man used your show to call President Obama 'your boy'. I consider that a reference to slavery. We won that battle. Please, in future, bleep out those references so it doesn't come on air if possible. Don't let the racists have air time. They can disagree with President Obama, criticize him, but no negative reference should be allowed on air that has a racist intent. Thanks for considering this.
P.S. I may be white and can trace my family to the Mayflower - but I will NEVER be that kind of 'white'! People that accept others have been fighting this battle for centuries (going Indian,etc) .

As for Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, I watched him on O'Reilly yesterday. Although he did not utter the line about hoping the Taliban offs the PFC (that might be from another interview), he is the only one out there who is calling this one straight. The military confirms the soldier as a deserter. The excuse from the Taliban's propaganda tape was a lie. Dude left his weapon and walked off outside the wire.

Sounds like real helpful discourse over at the Maddow show.

As an Iraq vet twice over myself, I can tell you Brian nothing infuriates an infantryman more than having a fellow Marine desert. One volunteers during wartime, one takes an oath, one receives superb training, and one is expected to follow orders.

Although none of my Marines had ever deserted in theater, I did experience several Marines deserting or attempting to skate out of a deployment while stateside using techniques ranging staging elaborate psychotic 'meltdowns', police chaces, self-inflicted gunshot wounds, deliberate auto accidents as well as deliberate drug use. We even had a Marine die accidentally after botching what was supposed to look like a drive-by shooting.

I'm here saying you pull any of this BS and you are not a man. You have nothing. And I want nothing to do with you.

It can only be fully understood when you know what it feels like to have to put your life in a fellow Marine's hands.

sanmigmike,

I admit my point could have been clearer but still, you gotta watch that free-association. I could have saved you a paragraph or two if I had been more clear about how I listened to Lt. Col. Peters on O'Reilly and DID NOT hear him utter what this original Hartman story claims he uttered. If you could point me to a link to a transcript that would be helpful. What I did hear was Lt. Col. Peters say was that the captured soldier was a deserter, confirmed by the military. My line about him being one of few who are calling this straight meant that he was one of the few who was describing the soldier as what he was. If Lt. Col. Peters did in fact say those other things I would have denounced them. The US military has a justice system setup for these sort of things and that is the only organization who should deal with the deserter.

"As far as deserting in Iraq or Afghanistan…kind of hard to do that…most of us stand out in those areas."

Not sure what you are basing this on. To desert, you put your weapon down (or don't) and leave your post without authorization. You're post is anywhere you are ordered to be at any given time.

As far as stress between different professions, lets be more clear for purposes of this discussion and speak to those who's day to day tasks are hazardous and who's mission success (you made it out alive among other things) relies on the courage, professionalism and mettle of your fellow team members. Law enforcement, infantry military men and fire fighters could be grouped together in this regard. There are more but you get the point.

"I’d guess a lot of the females in the military might be upset at being expected to be “men”?"

On the contrary, all the women i've worked with (ie. female Marines dropped in to search female Iraqis at different positions/checkpoints) went out of their way to match the professionalism and fortitude of our light armored recon unit I served in. Not assuming they wanted to "be men" like you stated but they wanted to prove they could do a tough job under tough conditions and be a crucial part of the operation. That they were.