In a campaign rally in California Sen. John Kerry, proving again that the American people made the right choice in re-electing George Bush, told students, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

Giving Sen. Kerry the benefit of the doubt and knowing that, on the campaign trail, statements can slip out without benefit of subjects and verbs, that view probably does reflect a liberal mindset – soldiers in Iraq couldn’t do anything else so they volunteered for the military.

Is Sen. Kerry also saying this has always been the case – Gen. George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower simply lacked job choices so they chose the military?

Actually, the American military is the best educated and most highly trained military in the history of the world.

According to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is. Indeed, for every two recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods.

If that’s the case, then there must be other explanations for why volunteers face death in Iraq than merely because they had a bad education. Perhaps courage, integrity, a sense of history and patriotism have something to do with such service.

As Sen. John McCain noted, Sen. Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education.