David Ignatius turned 18 in 1968 — the year of the Tet Offensive. That year, 296,406 men were drafted. Not David. He went to Harvard. At the time, his daddy was Secretary of the Navy under Lyndon Johnson.

So, yesterday, Veterans Day, 2009, this distinguished and deeply experienced individual wrote in the Washington Post — did we mention that David's daddy had also been a top-level muckety-muck at the Washington Post? — that the U.S. military is "healthy" and "may be the most resilient part of American society right now" — "in better shape than the political class that sent them to war." This, we are told, is because they are "anchored to the American bedrock," and fed ample quantities of "eggs and bacon, ham, patty sausages and link sausages."

Ignatius learned all this while "travel[ing] for 2 1/2 weeks recently with U.S. Central Command," at the elbow of the infallible General David Petraeus.