American Empire, War Civil Rights (Minorities, Race, Immig, Vets) Fraud (Lies, Fear)

“My Friends Are Dead” and I Wonder …

This is almost verbatim from a diary by soonergrunt at dailykos with some comments from me at the bottom.

First soonergrunt quotes from the Associated Press:

“BAGHDAD, Iraq – The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq rose to 1,500 after the military announced Thursday that a soldier was killed in action just south of the capital, an Associated Press count showed.”

Then soonergrunt’s commentary:

I am so angry anymore.

    • Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld told us we would be met by Iraqis throwing flowers, and we were met by Iraqis throwing grenades.
    • They said we’d be out of Iraq in two years. We have 142,000 troops still there.
    • Four of my friends are dead. Two by hostile fire, two by their own hands after returning.

It is a nightmare from which I cannot wake.

I spend my days going through the motions, doing just enough at school to get by. I am primarily focused on the next drill, because we only have 15 drills and one AT before our next mission. That’s about 60 days until we are federalized for training to deploy. With deployment training, we have an aggregate of 120 days before we go to Afghanistan for a year. It’s barely enough time. The deployment will go off as scheduled unless we are deployed somewhere else first. That could be anywhere because the army is stretched so thin that we are effectively building dams out of papier-mache.

What will we do if North Korea implodes? What will we do if Kim Jong Ill decides to finally stop pussyfooting around and take out South Korea once and for all? What will we do if Darfur passes the tipping point? What if there’s another terrorist attack (which we are assured is inevitable) and we all end up guarding the airports again? We simply don’t have enough people to deal with another large scale mission, either here or at home. Our adversaries in the world know this. They can do math too.

I worry about my men. I lay awake at night wondering what I’ll do if…

We have equipment and manpower shortages. Every battalion in the brigade is short-handed, so when we ask volunteers (and most likely, non-volunteers) to cover down on our empty slots, our sister units will be even more short-handed.

My friends are dead, and I sometimes wonder if my own fate isn’t sealed as well.

Update [2005-3-3 10:46:16 by soonergrunt]: According to CENTCOM, two more US soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division were killed by an IED early this morning/last night.

I say:

  1. Did you ever read Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly – ‘the pursit of policy contrary to self-interest’? Well, we’re in it again. [See a more recent post on folly and wooden-headedness.]
  2. Manpower and equipment shortages? Don’t you wonder why, if they want to play Masters of the Universe, they allow these things to get stretched so thin? Seems to me in all likelihood it will become their leverage for getting VASTLY more expenditures, AND the draft. We are trying to become ‘the beast’ of Revelation.
  3. But it’s being done in a very risky way, and may well collapse on us in a major disaster — like the economy is fixing to do, thanks to their extreme risk-taking there as well. (The opposite strategy is being used in regard to education. There, you starve it and stretch it thin so you can later say, “Well, we don’t really need these ineffective public schools anyway. People can take care of that on their own in the private sector.”)
  4. “Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man [or nation] reaps what he [it] sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.” Galatians 6:7,8

 

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Leave a Reply to Anonymous X

2 Comments

  • Hello,
    I am a Vietnam Vet against the war in Iraq.
    I realized that i was a sinner and accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 13 yrs old. I feel like the darkness of the human heart is at play concerning the war in Iraq. To me there are no real reasons for us being over there right now. We were misled by an administration that has shown its true colors after their re-election. God’s name is used by them and they are cutting every program that helps the poor. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, so, I really choose the man/woman that I believe to display views that I think is right. We were misled as to the reason that we went to war in the first place and also the Veterans Administration was cut in the time of war. The returning veterans should be taken care of and that means at least no cuts. I know what PTSD is first hand and they should be given the best of care in that respect. Our government should hang their heads in shame for cutting the VA funds.
    Why are we allowing the administration to lie to us and to undermine the values that made us a great nation? I really do believe in the majority of the US citizens which is the average man/woman that are the deciding factor as to how our government is ran. I know that all of us will wake up some day and realize what our leaders are doing to our country and demand the oversight and investigations into all those questionable acts that the Bush Administration has performed in the name of fighting terror.
    In closing I would say what the scripture says: (paraphrased) We will all stand before the judgemant seat of Christ to be judged according to our works. God Bless America and our young men and women overseas.

  • Maybe some people will wake up when their DAUGHTERS are drafted?

    And to think this is all for greed. Or in the US, when is enough ever enough? I would cite the entire 2nd chapter of Habbakuk but for reasonable limitations here…

 
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