Well... my nephew Staff Sgt (Michael G)... who just before Christmas landed a great new job/career with a fortune 500 company, and who just last month closed on a new home, and who has a loving wife and two beautiful children ages 7 and 10... everthing going for him right? Well his National Guard unit had their mobilization date moved up about 6-8 months and he is now in Mississippi preparing for deployment. His Guard unit, which in the past has been training and preparing for deployment to Afghanistan... well that has changed and now he says it looks like they are going back to Iraq, again. This will be his 3rd paid vacation to this beautiful destination... first under Daddy Bush and 2nd under Shrub.
I'm thinking, how many times can you go to the well? The thing that stikes me in talking to him last night, is that he is not worried about himself... he is experienced, well-trained, and fearless. But he is very worried that he will somehow fuck up, or miss something, or not keep close enough track of some of his men who are less experienced... and one or more of them will end up getting killed or injured.
Geesh, I didn't really know what to say... "You'll do allright"... "You know what your doing"... yada, yada... I finally selfishly told Mike to just "keep your freaking head down!" He said, "yeah sure"... I'm not sure I helped.
It has been an ongoing concern with me... that in this war we seem to be losing many troups that are 30, 35, even 40 years old. I don't mean to say that any death of a courageous young American is less of tragedy than any other...all loss of American life in this debacle is a tragedy... moreso even for the young ones. But in this war we seem to be losing many of our best, most experienced, highly trained elite troups and non coms. This is a situation that weakens our Army and Marines. Brass needs to stand up to the President and Rumsfeld, they can not let this continue for long.
Please join me in praying for him and all his comrades and other young Americans who are being put in harms way in this ill advised, poorly planned, inadequately equipped, and grossly mismanaged adventure concocted by Shrub Bush, Dick the Gunsmith, and Rummy.
And please make note of the fact that his and other units deployments have been moved up and their missions revised to cover for the troops that Bush will be bringing home from Iraq for political purposes leading up to the November elections. What a travesty... don't wait for Fox news to report on it.
Later and Best, bulldzr
"So often times it happens...
that we live our life in chains and we never even know we have the key." The Eagles
