If you haven't read the poem...

[mrkelley23]

contained in ne1410s's signature, I highly recommend it.

Stands right up there with Tom Paine in characterizing the Chicken Hawks. Apparently they've been around a long time.

http://www.web-books.com/classics/poetr ... /Tommy.htm

[wbtravis007]

Every day I thank God that you don't necessarily have to have an ability to appreciate poetry to get laid.

I can say without equivocation that no one has ever demonstrated -- and no one will ever demonstrate -- a higher level of patheticism in that regard than I.

[tanstaafl2]

contained in ne1410s's signature, I highly recommend it.

Stands right up there with Tom Paine in characterizing the Chicken Hawks. Apparently they've been around a long time.

http://www.web-books.com/classics/poetr ... /Tommy.htm

Not particularly familiar with Tom Paine and his characterization of "chickenhawks" although I can rather guess. The perspective by which Kipling arrived at "Tommy" was somewhat different.

When it was published Kipling was regarded as the personification of British empire building and Imperialism. But his skewer in Tommy appeared to be aimed at the more liberal element of British society rather than the neocons presumably being skewered today.

In any case you are correct, they were around long before Kipling wrote "Tommy" and will be around for a long time to come.

[mrkelley23]

Yeah, Chicken Hawks is the modern version of what I'm talking about. With Paine it was the "summer soldier and the sunshine patriot" he referred to in "The Crisis," I think.

Mostly just talking about people who talk the talk, but never walk the walk, where the military is concerned.

[tanstaafl2]

Yeah, Chicken Hawks is the modern version of what I'm talking about. With Paine it was the "summer soldier and the sunshine patriot" he referred to in "The Crisis," I think.

Mostly just talking about people who talk the talk, but never walk the walk, where the military is concerned.

Ah, that Tom Paine!

Guessed it was some current person as chickenhawk is at best probably a post Vietnam era term. At least I still tend to associate it with the book of the same name about a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He had a slightly different meaning for the word but it seems to have grown from there.