GROUND ZERO, New York City, Apr. 5-- It seems an unlikely match--WWII bellicose General George S. Patton taking on a hoard of college professors, all seeking to turn the act of war into a crime against humanity, all eager to melt down all the weapons and turn them into plows.

         But General Patton wouldn't be alone in fighting the college professors.
         Ironically, his greatest infantry troops would be America's college students.
         By the droves, the mindset of the college student is radically shifting from liberal to conservative, and from anti-war to pro-war despite the professors' attempts to stir them.
          The professors, shouting and screaming protestations against the war, are being drowned out by the roar of the legacy of Patton's Third Army tanks screaming across the Iraqi desert, heading toward the heart of Baghdad.  It's as though they were enroute to destroy and demolish the liberalism of the '60's.
          College protesting is a dying breed, similar to tyrants and Terrorists like Saddam Hussein. 
          Most colleges today are voting down the war protest efforts of their professors.   They're turning their backs on them.

       The New York Times reported yesterday that a student columnist at the University of Madison took a professor to task for canceling classes to protest the war in Iraq.  She claims the university should reprimand the professor and refund tuition for the missed periods.
         Irvine Valley College in Southern California sent faculty members a memo warning them not to discuss the war unless it was specifically part of the course material.
         At Yale and Berkeley, where professors are overwhelmingly against the war, the Times said, student's attitudes are fractured.   The Yale Daily News showed an even split, 50-50 pro- and anti-war.

        Amherst College in Mass. serves as a prime example of the major shift and rift between students and professors.   During the Vietnam era, the college president John William Ward, joined the students in a sit-in at Westover Air Force Base and was arrested.   Over 1,000 students, 20 faculty members and the president's wife participated.
         Today, the student government voted down a proposal that would allow faculty members to take 15 minutes of class time to discuss the war.  "It's a lonely place to be an antiwar protestor on the Amherst campus," said Beatriz Wallace, a junior.
        Yale history professor, John Lewis Gaddis, says according to the Times, "These are the kids of Reagan.  When I lecture on Reagan, the kids love him.  Their parents are horrified and appalled."
        Princeton assistant professor of politics, Gary J. Bass, says the generation is shaped by the events of September 11.    In a nationwide survey of freshmen by the University of California at Los Angeles, more students called themselves conservative than in other recent surveys.  More than 45 percent supported an increase in military spending, double the percentage in 1993.
        I had a brush with the claws of liberalism the other night.

       I went to a lecture at the New University World Policy Institute on the subject:  "What's Happened To The Axis Of Evil?"
        Each week, my wife and I attend various different seminars held by the institute, to get a broad view of world events.   Generally, the panels are liberal, intellectualistic in nature and show one side of the coin--the left side.  
       Every now and then someone will walk down the middle, taking no particular side, but that's rare.
       Last Thursday was one of the more gross examples of a college professor wasting student's time berating the war.   The moderator, who was supposed to pose questions to the two speakers--alleged authorities on America's foreign policy against Terrorism--took off on his own agenda.

        He threw the panelists question after question about the illegitimacy of President Bush's election.    Over half the discussion was a vainglorious attempt to demean the authority of the Chief Executive Officer.   I wanted to stand up and shout:  "Will you get on with the discussion," for there was no value in what was being discussed as it relates to the issue of current and future foreign policy.

        In the course of his diatribe, the moderator lost any and all credibility.   His two panelists were sucked into the same incredulous quagmire.    As they agreed and agreed with the commentator, any respect I might have had for their opinions waned.    Finally, when they did speak, their words were tainted.   I saw them not as authorities on the subject, but as liberal fishwives eager to use any subject to thrash and trash conservative, Republican government.
       It was also insulting.
       Time is what we want the most of, and use the least of, said William Penn.   That evening, a great deal of my time was wasted.   Worse, the authenticity of the speakers, one of whom was David Brinkley's son, was also whittled away.
       Why this shift?
       Why are the youth of America not leaping on "hate America" bandstand?
       Maybe it has something to do with General Patton.
       In WWII, Patton's Third Army raced across France enroute to Berlin.  Patton vowed to want to execute Hitler himself.

      The enemy in WWII had a face.   The enemy was cruel and indifferent to people.   And, the enemy was a threat to all humanity.
       Saddam Hussein fits the bill as the arch villain of modern time.
       He's a clear and present danger to the world.   Even if the United Nations refused to support America, the evidence was clear enough to indict Saddam as a Beast of Terror.
       Once the invasion started, the treatment of American prisoners only confirmed what a Beast of Terror he really was.
       So Patton's tanks storming across the sands and now at the gates of Baghdad, represent the great ideology of America as a sheriff.   America has come to Baghdad to clean up the town.  And, the invitation was delivered on September 11, 2001.
        The college generation today has vision.   They're looking ahead.   If conservatism means protecting the future, then the youth have selected a very clear objective--the Children's, Children's Children.
         I believe the conservatism of the newer generation signals their evolution as Sentinels of Vigilance.

        A true Sentinel of Vigilance uses the tools of Courage, Conviction and Right Actions for the Children's Children's Children to make his or her decisions.   They avoid the enflamed emotionalism, and narrow one-sided thinking of the protestor who seeks to defame America and deface the authority of American leadership as the moderator at the World Policy Institute attempted to do.
        A Sentinel of Vigilance is not interested in finding fault with something, as much as he or she is in promoting its strengths and virtues.    And, not blindly, either.   The Sentinel of Vigilance must see the benefit to the Children's Children's Children.
        The removal of Saddam Hussein is a clear and present benefit to the Children's Children's Children not only of the United States, but the entire world.
        The question as to the legitimacy of President Bush's election, however, is as moot as whether the sun will rise and set.
         Professors like to wallow in the intellectual quagmire of Complacency--they do nothing but shout about it in the quicksand of ultimate apathy.    Most offer no solutions except the tearing down of institutions, structures and reputations.   They offer no rebuilding, no replacing of a better structure that is stronger, more Vigilant than the previous.

       Listening to protestors rail, one would be inclined to line up all members of the Bush Administration and execute them for war crimes, and then turn all our military weapons over to Russia and China, disband our armies and navies, destroy our corporate leadership for their crimes of enslavement, and all give each other hugs.
        If there is a measure of Terrorism, the above scene is ultimate Terrorism.  Terrorism is composed of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.  And if we listen to protestors, they seek to make us afraid of our governments and corporations, they make us feel Intimidated by our lack of power to do anything but revolt, and they drive us into a state of Complacency where there is no solution to our problems except to shout and scream.
         If anything was learned in the 60's, it was that protests don't work.
        At least, not to change things.
       To change requires Vigilance.

       Terrorism is a real entity.   It is not ethereal.  It is a vivid and realistic as a wart.
       General Patton removed it.
       Today, as we sit on the edge of Baghdad, ready to finalize the war, the world is looking at us in awe. 
       Like General Patton's troops, in 17 days America has shoved one of the greatest bullies of the world up against the wall.

       In lightening speed, and with the most possible concern for civilian life, America has put Terrorism on notice around the world.
       America didn't merely talk about it as France, Germany and Russia wanted.  Or, as the college professors wanted to.
       America did something about it.
        If Vigilance has a virtue, it is in action.  
       You too, can take action.  You can take the Pledge of Vigilance.  
       You can storm the gates of Terrorism.   Take the Pledge today.

 April 4--War Protestors:  Do The Crime, Serve The Time