Dinner With a Soldier Today

[Orsino]

Young Private T_____ is home on leave, and must get back on a plane tomorrow to return to duty in the ass end of *'s war. He reports getting one meal a day, working sixteen-hour days seven days a week. No days off, ever. There's a dining facility that he never gets to use. He doesn't have a bunk, and can only rarely get access to a phone or Internet access. Yes, he's an infantryman, and recently escaped injury when one of our tanks ran over his HMMWV. He's been in-country for only a few months, and has seen five deaths in his company.

The enlisted attitude throughout his company is that the war sucks, but that since they're there, they want to win something. They'd like to leave the place better than they found it--somehow--but are stuck without any mission beyond guarding their op area and waiting to be shot. There's no significant sectarian violence in the city, he says, just anti-American sentiment that has them all paranoid.

He's trapped there through most of next year. This is the younger brother of a friend, who has graced our house many times.

God, I hate our little tin dictator's war.

[hippywife]

1. My prayers for his safety

and his sanity.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

2. ONE meal a day?! That's terrible!

How are they supposed to keep their strength up? I'm sure Morale is low among the infantrymen. If they're getting treated that shitty. The only strategy the Idiots in Charge have over there is sit around and wait to get attacked. It's retarded.
I pray he comes home safely.
Duckie

[Midlodemocrat]

3. what hippiewife said. God Bless Him.