Compelling article--Letters Home from Iraq: 'I've Had Enough''

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001221375

..."Nothing here is fun as a matter of fact. It's not fun hearing gunfire daily. It's no fun hearing artillery going daily. It's no fun aircraft coming back with gunshot holes. It's no fun the phone and Internet getting shut down when someone dies. Needless to say it is down more than it's up. It's not fun being away from your family when you are supposed to retire and you are not allowed to. It's no fun being in a country where you are not wanted and your chances of being shot are pretty good."

...Bob then quoted his official report as part of the Downed Aircraft Recovery Team, sent in to bring back the OH58D Kiowa. He detailed how they checked out the systems, noted the bullet holes through the cockpit windows, and how the helicopter was damaged but flyable....
"I read a book many years ago called 'Chickenhawk', it was about UH-1 pilots in Vietnam. I never thought I would encounter anything like they did in my life. However, I can now say I have. There was one section of the book that describes a pilot trying to fly an aircraft after his co-pilot was shot and there was blood everywhere. Well, after last night I know what he meant.

"There is no complete set of words that describes the feelings of trying to fly, after someone has bled all over a cockpit. When you're trying to inspect the aircraft for damage and you're having to touch, smell and see blood all over the floor, the seats, the instruments. The smell and sight are something you will never forget.

"When you have to strap into the aircraft and you are sitting on a wet seat from blood and water in an attempt to clean some of it off, it's indescribable. When you strap on shoulder harnesses that are blood soaked, and your feet are sticking to the blood on the floor, it's unforgettable. When the power is turned on in the aircraft and the instruments light up, but are hard to read due to the blood spatters, it's a sight that is burned into your mind. These things are smells, sights, and feelings I pray my children never have to experience." ....

What has the jackass bush wrought? He is evil incarnate. How DARE he get up and say "we need to sacrifice more". How much is enough you ignorant bastard?

in 2004 to reduce the severity of this tragedy a little bit. They declined the offer.

The Shrub can't perform his jackassery alone.

John Kerry. Karen Hughes sat down * and told him that Kerry had won in a landslide. The election was stolen from us in Ohio (and a dozen other states, IMO).

The Shrub can't perform his jackassery alone - right. He has the help of a handful of programmers and managers in the voting machine companies who help him steal elections (both 2000 and 2004).

Learn more in the '2004 Election Results and Discussion' forum:
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=104>

or start with

truthout Summary of Conyers Report - Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio (with link to pdf of entire report)

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio - Amazon.com

or

The Crisis of American Democracy: The Presidential Elections of 2000 and 2004 - Amazon.com

:kick:

needs to read one of these every night before he goes to bed.

should have to read them to him.

that requires a conscience

Is it just me?

If you are on dialup, wait a bit...E and P loads slow for dialup users.

and DSL here at home. Will try again later. Thanks for the reply.

about war. It isn't fun. It's horrible.

The truest horror is not the horror of war...but that this war is for no noble reason, no good reason, no needed reason, no truthful reason, no legal reason.

It is not just a war of choice, it's something even worse. A war of lies, of greed, of no good possible outcome. So much blood and pain and loss, destruction...to benefit a very few. Those few aren't us, aren't the soldiers, aren't the people of Iraq.

are facing most days, if not every day. It's too much. Right off the scale.

As the young man, Bob, indicated, the sounds and atmosphere would mean, it was ever present in your mind, once you'd experienced the reality from close up.

to go to war. I sympathize with this fellow's unhappiness, but did hr really envision his stint working for the government as a "fun" time?

If more people recognized what a job with the military requires them to do, they might be less inclined to join up.

as just a college program with more discipline. A lot of the poor enlistees are there simply because of the promise of job training or college credit, etc. IMO a lot of 18 year olds think they're invincible. If potential enlistees could read articles describing the horrors of war, they might change their minds. If they still decide to enlist at least they have a clear idea of what may happen to them

retire, but they aren't letting him due to his specialty being stop-lossed. That means he joined in 85, at the latest, probably earlier than that. Odds are good he did his turn in the barrel during GW1 and maybe a few of our eastern european adventures as well.

The sense that you and your fellows are running around, killing and being killed, FOR NO GOOD REASON is what chafes. It isn't the war aspect, it is the complete lack of purpose, plan, or justification, that pisses people off. No one, except a Republican pig, sees any reason to WASTE--time, lives, or treasure.

done what was asked of them, survived their tour and ready to come home only to find out they're stuck there. Sort of an illegal draft.

Same way with the retiree call-up...we have no formal declaration of war, we just have an authority vote that is not anything like FDR going on the radio and making an announcement. But there goes your pension if you do not report as ordered.

This is Monkeyboy playing with his tin soldiers, only the soldiers are not tin and the blood and death are real.