Resolve

The irony is so inescapable that it's amazing that nobody, to my knowledge, mentions it: those most insistent on staying the course in Iraq, George Bush and Dick Cheney, showed a similar resolve in avoiding military service in Vietnam. The Decider famously disappeared in the Alabama National Guard. The reptilian Cheney considered military service not a high priority, so much so that he requested and was granted no less than five deferments.