Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

While most of her friends and neighbors are amusing themselves with Christmas decorations and holiday gifts, Patricia Arndt is fretting over far more serious matters.

The single mother from Medford has been unexpectedly pulled from the inactive Army reserve and ordered to report for active duty by Feb. 5.

As Christmas nears, Arndt, 43, is trying to sell the Medford home she says she will not be able to keep on an Army salary of approximately $60,000 a year, and is searching for someone to care for her 13-year-old son, Shane. She expects to train for an 18-month tour of duty that could take her to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Atrios reminds us of armchair warrior poster-child Jonah Goldberg's pathetic excuse for

why he won't go fight in the war he supported:

As for why my sorry a** isn't in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give -- I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few -- ever seem to suffice.

They don't suffice because they're irrelevant, Goldberg. People older than you, poorer than you, with children who are just as special as yours are answering the call to duty. You're not. It's because you are a chicken. There is no other answer.

I don't have a problem with physical cowardice as a way of life, I just think you should admit it.

Let's give Ms. Arndt the next-to-last words:

Arndt, who never married, at first arranged to have Shane live with her sister. But those plans are in danger of falling through, she said, because of family problems. She said her son's emotional well-being worries her the most.

"He says, 'My father's not here, you're not here, why should I be here?'" Arndt said. "His life as he knows it is gone."

This is one of those times when I know with sickening certainty what the response of armchair warriors like Mr. Goldberg will be to this story, if any: If she had a man around...