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Monday, May 12, 2008

Politics, War and Our Troops


At the time that this article is written 4,071 American families have lost a loved one in the war that our nation is in. Many of the kids fighting in this war will eventually face the same politics that our troops in Vietnam faced. As someone writing from a liberal perspective I want it known that my thoughts against the war are not against any of our troops in any single way. They are political thoughts to hopefully bring them all home safe and sound.

As a child I was the son of a WWII Navy veteran that served as a medic attached to the Marines. All of my life I wondered why my father never wanted any of his children to go into the military and follow in his footsteps. It’s an honorable service and for the most part builds a sense of character that one can never appreciate as a civilian. Serving your nation, offering your life in defense of your country and all of the good and bad things it has to offer its people is a greater sacrifice than most people will ever face in a lifetime.

From time to time I can imagine why my father chose to keep his children out of the military. As a medic he had seen the cost of war first hand on many soldiers and marines. Their blood touched his hands first on the battle field and changed his life forever. On Iwo Jima he spoke of the fighting that went on around the clock for days and he finally passed out with exhaustion but found comfort in a large comfortable object and slept for several hours nestled in sleep with his head resting comfortably. That object was a larger than life dead rat but it was the best night of sleep he had in weeks.

In politics today they talk about the war in Iraq as if it is something for somebody else to worry about. Most Americans don’t even think about the war in their day to day lives other than the headlines we read in the papers. Have we become numb to the body count and our children coming home in caskets day after day? Are we ignorant that our kids are still risking their lives every single day in Iraq while we debate politics and personal gripes on healthcare and whom is the best candidate to offer the best solution to Americas future problems?

We as a people need to recognize that our fight for justice over the attacks of 9/11 are over. Our troops need to come home and defend America on the homeland. Our troops need to come back to the land they love and the land they have defended honorably. The mission in Iraq is over. The war is won. That fact is proven by the number of dead of our nations enemy that compares to the sacrifice paid in our own war dead. In some reports the number of Iraqi dead in the war is over one million. Percentages work against any nation willing to attack America ever again. Nut job terrorists hiding behind any nation may not care that in a room of ten terrorists that less than one half of one percent of them will survive. America is not playing around anymore with nut jobs.

Our nation faces an economic crisis that can continue to funnel billions of dollars out of our nations economy to support the efforts in Iraq or it can focus those dollars on the people at home. Bringing our troops home is not accepting defeat in Iraq. Iraq has never in its nations history been stable unless a gun has been held at its peoples heads. America and our military is not about that.

Bringing our troops home is the beginning to the end of the ugly America out to bully the world and the end of the George W. Bush legacy. Now is the time for the olive branch over the sword.

Papamoka

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

U.S. Military Barracks Squalor


I don’t have any children serving in the military but if I did I would be very proud of them. Parents can stand proud when telling a neighbor or a friend of the great service their child is offering our nation. What I am ashamed of is how we continuously have to find out from our sons and daughters is where the military is letting them down.

Wasn’t Walter Reed enough of an eye opener for the government to see that the American people will not tolerate our children serving in our military subjected to squalor and inhumane conditions. This isn’t about conditions in Iraq or Afghanistan, this same kind of treatment is happening at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Over at Yahoo News they have this on it…

By ROBERT BURNS,
AP Military Writer Tue Apr 29, 7:29 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Army officials said Tuesday they are inspecting every barracks building worldwide to see whether plumbing and other problems revealed at Fort Bragg, N.C., last week are widespread.

Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, who is responsible for maintaining barracks throughout the Army, told reporters at the Pentagon that most inspections were done last weekend but he had not seen final results.

Snip N Flush

Rogers said it was too soon to know whether the Fort Bragg problem was an isolated incident. He acknowledged the revelations from a video shot by the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier showing poor conditions such as mold inside the barracks, peeling interior paint and a bathroom drain plugged with sewage.

The soldier's father, Ed Frawley, said he was disgusted by the conditions that greeted his son and the rest of his 82nd Airborne unit that returned on April 7-8 after a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.

"We let our soldiers down, and that's not like us," Rogers told reporters. "We let our soldiers down. That's not how we want America's sons and daughters to live. There's no good excuse for what happened."
- Yahoo News

Below is the video from the father of the soldier. Or click here for the VIDEO. It runs about 8-9 minutes but worth viewing it all. To be honest with you, I’ve seen prisons in far better conditions…





Please write, email, phone or contact your representatives in the Congress and voice your anger. Our troops should not have to live in third world conditions while wearing our nations uniform on American soil! They have defended this nation and now it is our responsibility to defend them here at home and make our voices loud and clear that this kind of treatment and abuse will not be tolerated.

Papamoka
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