president barack obama sprouted all the usual platitudes and bromides on veterans day and at the eulogy of the 13 victims of the crazed muslim fanatic soldier. he said these solidiers sacrifice to ''protect'' the country. well, we had the most powerful military in human history on the morning of 9-11. it didn't keep 3,000 americans from getting killed by a foreing enemy. the president went on with the romantic and largely inaccurate tale of citizen-soldiers heroically joining the military in the aftermath of sept. 11. in reality, a lot of people join the military for economic reasons, especially these days. the 12 soldiers and one civilian at ft. hood were in truth simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. they were not ''heroes.'' the term is used to casually when refering to members of the military. they were merely victims of a workplace shooting. they saved no one. one was a 21-year-old soldier who got pregnant in iraq and was in the process of being drummed out of the military. another was a female sargent who reportedly joined the military to ''take on osama bin laden.'' that is one of the most silly propaganda arguments about joining the military. the vast majority of american troops in iraq and afghanistan have been killed by locals who don't like being occupied by a foreign power. it is just plain wrong to say the wars in iraq and afhganistan have ''protected americans.'' we have millions of illegal foreigners and crime victims in this country. if either the military or the police really protected americans there would be no victims of murder, rape, or robbery and you wouldn't see all those pictures of missing women on tv. the sept. 11 attacks, columbine, virginia tech and the oklahoma city bombings and a lot of other things wouldn't have happened either. the ft. hood victims are not ''heroes.''