I should feel honored, he responded to me directly.  Of course he grossly misquoted me.

I said that he was telling the troops to shut up and quit whining, whereas he quoted me as saying that to him.

Whatever.  the point of my article was that he maligned our troops with terms like mercenary, which he did.

And today he retracted that insult only to replace it with further insults:

The Arrogant and Intolerant Speak Out

Now if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black….

Well, one thing’s abundantly clear about who will actually defend our rights to say what we believe: It isn’t the hundreds who have written me saying they are soldiers or veterans or war supporters or real Americans — who also advise me to move to another country, to get f@##d, or to die a painful, violent death.

Contrary to the typically inaccurate and overstated assertion in dozens of blogs, hundreds of comments, and thousands of e-mails I’ve received, I’ve never written that soldiers should "shut up," quit whining, be spit upon, or that they have no right to an opinion.

No, you just wanted their commanders to have taken "the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people", a one sided proposition. 

They can be accused of indiginties, they can be snidely told to be grateful they aren’t being spit at, even if they are, but God help them is they express opinions.

I said I was bothered by the notion that "the troops" were somehow becoming hallowed beings above society, that they had an attitude that only they had the means - or the right - to judge the worthiness of the Iraq endeavor.

Listen butthead, no one suggested that, but we do suggest that they may be in a unique position to understand the war and what the realities of it are since they are actually in it.

I was dead wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today.

Yea, you were.

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: Evidently, far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation.

 You are an idiot.  That’s all I can honestly conclude.  Seriously dude, this is not Heinlein Starship Troopers where only military vets can vote.  They are not a hallowed group, but they should be given all manner of respect for what they do.

They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

Sorry, what have the democrats to do with it unless you wrote a partisan comumn?  Your feelings betray you old jedi.

What I’ve heard ever since my article "The Troops Also Need to Support the American People" was published on Tuesday are a lot of people telling ME to shut up and be grateful for the sacrifices others are making.

I never said we shouldn’t support the troops. I just lamented that "we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?"

No.  Not once in those interviews did they suggest people are not entitled to their constitutional rights, particularly of free speech.  You don’t get it.  

Ed Morrissey however did:

… Not one of the soldiers in the clip remotely suggested that Americans "give up their rights and responsibilities". They didn’t say that George Bush should make everyone who opposes the war shut up, or else. They were asked about their take on people who say they support the troops but oppose the war, and they expressed their views.

Arkin continues: 

Thousands have written telling me to "shut up and quit whining," that the troops do support the American people - "with their lives."

That link was my blog, and I will close this by thanking you for reading it…the link, not the blog.  Because I never told you to shut your pie hole.

I said you were a jerk and you had insulted a lot of hard working people, including my son.

You did and you continue to do so in your column, but I will defer to the others to defend their comments and your acrid rebuttal.

I will simply say that for all you 4 years of service, and your lofty position of National Security Correspondent, you continue to understand nothing of the military, its people and theissues that relate to national security.

So while I pointlessly wait for you to apologize, I will once again contemplate how so many people on the left, such as yourself Mr Arkin, can be so ignorant of such simple ideals.

Yesterdays storm:  Sister Toldjah, Wizbang, Instapundit, Riehl World, Michelle Malkin, Captain’s Quarters, Little Green Footballs, NewsBusters.org, Andrew Olmsted dot com, Blue Crab Boulevard, Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog  BLACKFIVE:  Hot Air, QandO, Brutally Honest, Redstate and Powerline

And rebuttals at Michelle Malkin, Sister Toldjah and Hot Air

More rebuttals:  Op For, Confederate Yankee, BLACKFIVE, Blue Crab Boulevard, The Heretik, Hot Air, QandO, Outside The Beltway, ZenPundit, Andrew Olmsted dot com, FishBowlDC, The Strata-Sphere, Captain’s Quarters, Macsmind, Brutally Honest, Power Line, Ace of Spades HQ, NewsBusters.org, Stop The ACLU, Pierre Legrand’s Pink …, Gun Toting Liberal ™, Hang Right Politics, Little Green Footballs, Transterrestrial Musings, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Wizbang, UrbanGrounds, Jules Crittenden and Media Blog Riehl World View, Sensible Mom