Dear God, please don't let it happen again.

[11 Bravo]

I debated posting this, last time it turned to shit. But I think this young man would say, "Go for it."
Back in the summer of '05 I posted about a young infantryman I met at a wedding who would soon be shipping out to Iraq. He was a great kid who wanted nothing more than to go and do his duty. As an ex-grunt I gave him the standard "Keep your head down" speech. A few months later I heard that he had come home in pieces, and in November I learned that he had eaten his gun. I swore that I was done befriending young snuffies.
Well, this past weekend I was at my oldest son's baseball tournament. I wound up sitting up next to a young buzz-cutted kid who was there to watch his little brother play against my son's team. We struck up a conversation, and sure enough, he's deploying in three weeks.
Damn it, folks! I know there is a knee-jerk reaction out there, but this is not a war-monger ... he's just a warrior. Believe it or not, we need them. Not in this manufactured war, and not for the bullshit reasons he was given, but we still need him. Just like me, he didn't get to pick his war. He took an oath, picked up a weapon, and when the civilian leadership of this nation told him where to go, he went.
He is as fucking gung-ho dumb as I was 30+ years ago. Cute as a litter of golden retriever pups, and ready to save the country that he loves. I pray that he gets home in one piece.

[NMDemDist2]

1. I hear ya Bravo. I have had the pleasure of getting to know a good guy

in the Reserves here. He's shipping out in July for deployment in September.

He's a good hearted kid, just wanting to fulfill his oath.

I pray he'll return in one piece and will be able to live with himself when he does.

One of the worst things about this surge crap is that 'force protection' in no longer at the top of the mission.

they are just throwing our guys at the wolves for no apparent reason. It's fucking criminal. Words can't express......

[Missy Vixen]

2. I read an article in the tiny local paper last week

about a young man who came back without the use of his feet. He's "young". He's making "amazing progress." He's going to be the grand marshal of the community parade next month. (To quote other posters here, !!!!!111!!!!!) There was heavy pro-war spin. After all, aren't we Supporting The Troops if this young man is in the parade? :sarcasm:

I looked at the photos and wanted to cry. I'm thinking about sending him a card, but I'm not even sure what to write on it, besides the fact that we're thinking of him.

Julie

[BlueCollar]

3. I'm glad you did post it

Nobody who wears a uniform gets to pick their war...only the chickenhawks who have never served make those decisions...

Thanks for posting...the enemies of democracy are hoping we'll grow weary of commenting

[proud patriot]

4. The husband of a co worker of mine just got re-activated

got his deployment orders . He's trying for an exemption.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. I want them all home

it is not right that one with a warrior nature be dishonored by a dishonorable war and an incompetent COC.

[annabanana]

12. Thank you.

They are being horribly used.

[Iris]

6. That's why this war is so deplorable.

Those young men join the armed forces with a certain amount of trust that their leader won't NEEDLESSLY put them in harm's way and Bush's getting us into this mess is a direct violation of that trust.

I hope he makes it home ok, too.

[NightWatcher]

7. I live near a LARGE military base

and I happen to live in a neighborhood that is full of rental houses that are favored by local troops. I have seen 5 neighbors leave in the past several months that I was on speaking terms with. All they want is to do their job and come home. None of them are the insane gung ho type that think that they are just going to blow shit up. They all know that there are chances that they will come home messed up in some form or another. One neighbor came back with a shiny set of metal crutches. He luckily will be ok, but right now there are three other guys dodging ied's and snipers. I saw two of them leave small children who are not old enough to know that daddy might not be back. I hate everything about this war- EXCEPT FOR THE TROOPS. I cant wait to put my "Support the Troops, End the War" bumper sticker on my car to drive around this red state. I dont willy-nilly cheer when they go off to fight "brown people" somewhere over there. I cheer when they come home- all of them.

[truedelphi]

8. Being of the "fairer sex" I never had to go and do my duty

But I always felt that if I had been a guy and if there was a decent reason to go to war, I'd have made a great soldier. (in my day, women didn't got to war.)

We do need the military.

But this war is so unpopular that part of the drive at the recruiting station is to give a massive bonus check - you enlist and you get a few thousand dollars handed to you.

In my rural area of California, I see quite a number of young guys with their buzz cut and their brand new pickup trucks.

I have no idea how you would talk to anybody about this - there isn't much way out after you've made the commitment (though there are about five thousand ex GI's now living in Ireland - the new Canada)

One of the right wing talking points is that it is not as bad as it is portrayed by the media - a stance I understand because often the media makes things out to be a lot of worse than they are.

However, right now there is no way that you could exaggerate the way things are in most of the areas of Iraq - the Kurds to the north perhaps being the exception.

[Monkeyman]

9. HooYa

[Forkboy]

10. We all think we're invincible at that age.

I hope he gets home to,before finding out the hard way how wrong that thinking is.It took me until just after my 39th birthday to learn it myself.

[Morgana LaFey]

13. Slow learner, eh?

Sorry, I absolutely couldn't resist. :evilgrin:

I do know what you mean.

[Forkboy]

18. LOL

:)

[Morgana LaFey]

20. Thanks for that

the laugh -- I really did mean it as a joke.

[11 Bravo]

14. I sure did.

One collapsed lung and sucking chest wound later, I quickly got in touch with my own mortality. But prior to that, you couldn't tell me shit. I was fucking invincible.

[patrice]

11. The responsibility for what has gone wrong belongs to all of us.

We compound one another's errors and there is no way of saying that my "small" (completely avoidable, direct or indirect) contributions to this Hell are less culpable than "larger" roles played by people who didn't have as much chance as I did to do otherwise, i.e. not as much chance to choose to avoid what is happening.

This is not to say all roles are equal. There ARE big roles, played by folks who could definitely have chosen differently (the pResident, Congress, and MSM). But for most folks, there's no way we can say who is "more" or "less" guilty. Guilt is relative. For example, who's more guilty of lacking charity: someone who has plenty of money and refuses to give a can of beans to the poor? Or someone who is starving and steals from the poor?

Let me try to make a more direct example: Who's more guilty of cruelty to the people of Iraq: Someone who didn't care enough to vote in 2004? Or someone who shot an Iraqi in a crazy situation, even though s/he wasn't sure they were a threat?

I'm not sure I'm being clear about my thought here, but the essential element, as I see it, is: how much choice a given individual has at any given moment and how easy some behaviors are to engage in or to avoid, compared to other behaviors that are much less easy to engage in or to avoid.

I'm not trying to absolve Soldiers. Though I've heard that they are told that it can cost them their lives, they STILL must decide what is right and what is wrong. I'm just trying to say guilt is relative.

[IndyOp]

15. My Marine brought a note from his mom after missing class...

The kid in Introductory Psychology who had to miss a day of class to be processed into the Marines so he could go to boot camp when school let out -- he missed a day of class later in the semester for a family emergency and his mom wrote him a note so it would be an excused absence.

He flunked the class anyway - he was a bit distracted during the semester. Somehow Introductory Psychology didn't hold his interest when he was awaiting shipping out in a few months for Glory and God.

A few months from now he'll be walking Iraq with a gun in his hand, most likely shooting civilians.

I wonder if he'll think about the absurd speed of his transition -- from his mom writing notes to his teacher to gunning down human beings to "defend his nation" in a few months time span.

Cute as a litter of golden retriever pups, and ready to save the country that he loves. I pray that he gets home in one piece.

I made sure to hold off on the lecture about conformity, Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment that was repeated in Abu Ghraib, and the impact of torture on the interrogator until he was there. I hope some knowledge that I passed on to him will inspire him to keep his head down. I am sorry that nothing I said inspired him to declare conscientious objector status - I tried.

I disagree with you 11 Bravo that we need them. We don't. We need to stop feeding them into the modern equivalent of the ovens at Auschwitz.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

[Lisa]

16. a boy from my old neighbourhood (in Canada) joined the Forces

In fact, he signed up for the same regiment that a lot of my high school friends joined, as reservists. (For example, Cheryl, who knew every dirty trick for winning at cribbage ... and Mark, the class clown who snuck an (unused) body bag out of Supplies and stuffed it full of beer and snacks for a camping weekend ... and Robert, my best friend from 5th grade, who is the best illustrator I know.) The furthest thing from war-mongers that one could imagine (even though Canadians aren't as militarized as the US, we tend not to be anti-military ... maybe for that reason?) They all wore their dress uniforms for prom, because Mark and Steve, and probably a few others, couldn't afford the tux rental fees. They looked spiffy -- even Cheryl, who complained all evening about how dorky the women's uniform hat made her look. I thought they looked very serious and grown-up in those outfits, though looking back on it, they WERE like cute wobbly pups, like 11 Bravo said. My friends served their hitches and then got out, because we weren't at war in the 1980s. But this other guy, who wanted a little excitement and some money for college and to pay off his car, was killed in a friendly fire incident.

[wildbilln864]

17. A definite kick and R! n/t

[GeorgeGist]

19. Whatever becomes of him,

and I wish him the best, if Bush's War destroys the Republican Party once and for all then his service will not have been in vain.