Four months after hammering the military for deploying women and mothers overseas, the e-mail is flooding in, denouncing this columnist for daring to express such an opinion.

As the cosmos goes, the opinion is insignificant. But the answers aren’t.

Two things are troubling about the mail. First, the vile language and hateful insistence that dissent is un-American and must be stopped. Second, men wrote most of it.

The column, which appeared in February, concerned a new mother who joined the Army after the terrible carnage and destruction on Sept. 11, 2001. A military news service lionized the woman because she enlisted and shipped out for Afghanistan.

But only recently did the military mom see it. She posted an answer on the Web, and ever since, mail from all corners of the empire has poured in.

One writer called me an “ignorant liberal,” hilariously enough, while another called me a “communist.” Began another, “men like you should be shot.”

This isn’t just anger. It’s feral hysterics, apropos of the lynch mob. The subtle subtext is this: Shut up or else.

This is odd, given that many writers claimed they “defend your right to free speech.” Maybe, but between the lines, they added, “don’t dare think of exercising it.”

More significantly, the most reactionary mail came from active-duty or retired soldiers, particularly men.

They wonder what’s wrong with a mother leaving a child behind. Feminist brainwashing complete, these men don’t see the difference between a man and a woman, or a mother and a father, or the stark evil of sending a woman into harm’s way. Emasculation is complete.

Wrote one fellow, “What difference does it make that a woman goes off to war? How is that any different than a father doing it?” The difference is this: A man doesn’t send his wife downstairs to check on a noise in the basement.

Said another, “Us in the military do not distinguish between male and female.” This is nonsense, which is why there is military “gender norms” training, but you get his point.

Or: “Moms deserve the right to serve the country in any way the nation needs them. No one should be excused from the front lines.”

This, friends, is the American man.

The left has always said, correctly, that military indoctrination is inimical to a free society. Well, the past few weeks’ mail shows why, as a friend observed, the framers of our Constitution wisely subordinated the armed forces to civilian rule.

The military ethos imparts many admirable qualities: respect for authority, physical courage and self sacrifice. Tolerating dissent, however, is not one of them, and rightly so in the military ambit. Soldiers defend free speech; they do not practice it.

Neither should they threaten it.

Syndicated columnist R. Cort Kirkwood is managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va.

His e-mail address is: [email protected].