Pamela Geller who writes the Atlas Shrugs blog - http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ - has been hammering away for several months now on clothing stores that sell look-alike Palestinian terrorist headgear as some kind of fashion 'chic.'

I have been remiss in not following her lead more quickly, but I have seen this so-called 'fashion' wear on two occasions in recent months and while this is comparatively late, it still is worth noting.

In both cases the wearers were not unaware teen-aged twits who don't know the difference between cool and uncool. In both cases the wearers were groups of teen-aged (or young twenties) twits who knew exactly what the clothing stood for and wore it anyway.

Once was at the Gathering of Eagles in Washington, D.C., when the checkered headwear covered the empty craniums of a group of wannabe anarchists, who were also wearing black, carrying Palestinian Authority flags and had their faces masked so their parents couldn't tell it was them.

The second time was last week when a similar group gathered with the other pro-communist demonstrators at the Coast Guard Academy's graduation ceremonies in New London, Connecticut. They also wore black and again hid their faces presumably so their mommies and daddies wouldn't pull their support payments.

Teen-aged rebellion is not an unfamiliar concept to me. In fact, my father considered it one of my identifying characteristics before I left home to join the Marines. So rebelling against authority is not something I generally have a big problem with, so long as that rebellion doesn't bring harm to others and their property.

But I also was reminded last week of an incident that happened long ago in the lunch room of my elementary school when I was 10 or 11. A classmate, who had been waiting in line, turned to another boy, raised his arm in the Nazi salute and declared "Heil Hitler."

A Jewish girl who was standing a few feet away instantly dressed him down, no maybe I should say she verbally filleted him, explaining just who Hitler was, what he had done to so many people in Europe and why his name and symbols were especially reprehensible to members of the Jewish faith.

The thing was, most if not all of my classmates agreed with her, not him. That is because most of our fathers and uncles had fought in WWII, and many had been on the drive across Europe that ended for some with the liberation of the concentration camps.

The stories of those horrors were all too real and personal for schoolchildren of my generation, and the Nazi swastika was a hated symbol that wasn't even allowed to be displayed in mock 'war' games.

But now, a generation or more later, it is considered desirable in some areas to wear the clothing that emulates that worn by some of the worst butchers on the face of the earth since Hitler died and the Soviet Union fell. Why is this? What is wrong with people that their view of life is so skewed that they would openly embrace and propagandize a segment of the human population that uses murder, torture, sexism, racism and wanton abuse as tools of the trade?

The animals these young geniuses are mimicking are so lacking in basic human dignity and intelligence that they will turn on members of their own race and religion at any provocation, however slight or contrived. They attack like rabid dogs and glory in the dismembered bodies of babies and the elderly as proof of their manhood.

Their tactics and strategies are the most heinous and cowardly ever visited on the human race and yet we have children in our own country who openly copy them.

There probably are myriad reasons for this. Television violence, video game slaughter, all enjoyed with detachment that also allows participants to get up for dinner before resuming play, certainly have a part in it.

But I think there is more. The 60s spawned one of the most pampered, drugged out, egotistical, me-first generations to ever disgrace the face of the earth. To this day some of its disciples glory in statements such as "If you remember the 60s you weren't there."

Well I was there, and I wasn't wandering around in a non-stop drug induced haze that continues to this day, and I remember it pretty well, especially fighting the communists in Vietnam, as do the majority of people I have called friends over the years since.

But the children of the psychedelic generation are in many cases the children who have no sense of responsibility for their actions now. They don't relate to the carnage the terrorists spread wherever they go, because their parents can't tell them of the carnage the communists spread in the 70s - can't or don't want to, because it would be the proof of the lie that was their lives then and is their lives now.

The 60s were a wonderful time in many ways, but they also were a horrible time. And the people who thought smoking dope or injecting hallucinogens into their bodies was somehow going to make terrorism go away are the same people who brought us incurable sexually transmitted diseases, destruction of the family unit, and a third generation drug war that has wreaked havoc on our citizenry.

Unfortunately, for many of these 'Children of the 60s' their brains are so fried that they not only can't remember what they did back then, they have no idea what they are doing now.

So we get teen-aged twits who think emulating terrorists somehow makes them desirable, or even tough, although I have yet to see a one of them who could make it through military boot camp.

A friend who was with the Gathering of Eagles at both the Coast Guard Academy and DC, and who just happens to be a 3rd-degree black belt in karate, had to be restrained from teaching some of these air-headed dope fiends a lesson in reality last week, especially after they started dragging the American flag he had fought for through the dirt.

Cooler heads prevailed then, and my friend was reminded that he would be the one who ended up in jail if he kicked the crap out of the wannabe terrorists, regardless of how much they deserved it.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anyone around to teach these punks what an 11-year-old Jewish girl so eloquently explained to a classmate in my school lunch room many years ago. Too many people have grown up in this country without having to fight even for a second for their 'rights,' and their children have no family lore on which to base their decisions on right, wrong and fashion sense.

And the real tragedy is that if the terrorists they emulate were ever to win the war we are now fighting, the first people they would torture, maim, rape, abuse and eventually kill, would be the very same idiots who think that wearing offensive clothing is a sign of solidarity.