TWENTY-TWO PERCENT....

[Bigmack]

I'm sorry to ressurect a 4 day old thread....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1822723

.....but CNN Headline news was just reporting the homecoming for the 3/25, and they said the 900 member battalion (I checked, and that's an accurate figure) suffered 48 dead and 150 wounded. In a RESERVE outfit.

That's a TWENTY TWO PERCENT casualty rate!
WTF? Is this WWI.... Verdun or Ypres?
I know that the 3/25 was a hard luck outfit, but this shit has GOT to stop!

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?...
10/3/2005, 12:17 a.m. ET The Associated Press

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — ...
Cheney is scheduled to address more than 4,500 Marines on Monday morning, including members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. The battalion, based in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park, lost 48 Marines in Iraq and had more than 150 wounded. The deaths included 14 Marines killed in back-to-back attacks within one week this summer...

[rockymountaindem]

1. We've got a long way to go before we get to Verdun

When we suffer 1,000,000 casualities in 10 months, let me know.

But this is still a hell of a lot of casualities for a war that isn't getting us anywhere.

[whatever4]

4. Don't forget about the wounded

Unless I'm mistaken, this war has gone past our dead/wounded ratio in Vietnam, so we have more wounded than we did, per every soldier lost, than we have in other wars. Added to that is that these injured soldiers are surviving far worse wounds than soldiers of past wars. Many are now alive that would not have been, but they aren't necessarily very alive. So, it might not BE as many dead in this conflict, but it's easy to forget that with as many amputees and brain-damaged individuals as this war is generating, the numbers of dead simply don't tell the whole story. It's a meat grinder, worse than Vietnam was, in terms of the wounded, and that makes it a pretty nasty war.

We're using up our best soldiers. When we really need them, they won't be there. All the experience, gone.

[Bigmack]

7. While we're talking about wounded....

... we'd better count all the people who are going to be on VA disability whenever this clusterfuck ends.

We now have about 175,000 people on disability from Gulf I, and thousands of other claims pending. That's roughly one quarter of all US troops who were in the war.

Whatever caused it.... DU or whatever.... Gulf War Syndrome is gonna pop up with these folks from Dumbya's War, too. We've got to add that to the numbers toll and to the dollars toll of this war.

[Bigmack]

6. Hyperbole on my part....

... but you got my drift.

When I was teaching, I used to share with my students the claim (maybe hyperbolic, too) that if all the dead at Verdun came back to the battlefield, there wouldn't be room for them to stand.

[opihimoimoi]

2. The Gears are set in motion...momotareum too strong..cannot stop

...must finish the job...cannot cut and run like Beirut, Nam, Crusades.

[HereSince1628]

3. Only units caught in trajedies suffer such levels of loss,

But, there is no denying the Iraq Occupation is a tragic.

[AValdoux]

5. What are we achieving?

That is what bothers me. "Stay the course" What exactly is the final destination of this course? To kill everyone who disagrees with us until all the countries in the world are christian capitalist democracies. Staying the course doesn't make sense if you don't know where you are going.

This is a war being fought without defined objectives. How can you have a strategy when no one can agree on what the ultimate goal is? It almost seems like strategy decisions being made in Iraq are based on political appearance rather than a long term plan. When Bush's numbers tank, we launch a new offensive. Our Armed Forces are being used as a GOP political photo op like hurricane relief was.



AValdoux