Troops With No Choice

Nov. 1, 2006 — -- As a former stand-up comic, I know only too well the sting of a bungled joke.

After doing stand-up for less than one year, I found myself as the lead of a sitcom, WB's "First Time Out."

All I can say is, if you looked at the Nielsen ratings backward, we were the No. 2 show.

John Kerry fumbled the last in a series of zingers aimed not at our troops, but at the man who sent them to war without a strategy to win.

The comments unleashed a predictable torrent from the right, complete with accusations of troop bashing and demands for an apology.

This is all designed to distract from the substance of Kerry's comments, which strike at the very heart of America's current crisis.

But of course, when have the facts ever stopped this administration?

Serving our country in the military is a great service, one which we all admire and revere, but it's more than that. It's also a job.

And it's a job that many Americans sign up for not only out of a sense of patriotic duty, but also because it often seems the best of few options.

As a Mexican-American from Los Angeles, I find it especially meaningful that Kerry's comments came at Pasadena City College, just a few miles from the high schools of East Los Angeles, where on many campuses, military recruiters outnumber guidance counselors 5-1.

At high schools like these across the country, inner-city and rural students, often from communities of color but almost always poor, do not have many options in George Bush's America.

Jackie Guerra hosts "Workin' It" (www.WorkinItRadio.com) on Air America Radio.