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By some freak mischance I got bumped up to first class on today's flight from Hartford to DC. I was wallowing there in my leather seat, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury when a late 20's husband and wife and their young daughter came into the cabin. The woman held a shiny black and silver ericsson phone tight to her ear. As I watched, her face turned ashen and her mouth fell open in reaction to something someone on the phone was saying.
"Oh, my god, Karen, I'm so sorry!" she wailed, "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!!"
And she collapsed right there, just fell to her knees in the middle of the aisle.
"Oh my GOOOOOD!!" she screamed.
"Honey..." her husband said, obviously deeply concerned, but also sort of embarrassed in that way that people are reflexively are at sudden, violent bursts of emotion.
The girl, kid-skinny and blond and maybe nine or ten years old was clearly frightened, but also embarrassed like her dad. "Mommy, come to the seats...," she said, gently pulling her hand. In other words, "I know something is wrong, but please, Mommy, can't you do this somewhere where everyone isn't LOOKING AT ME?!"
"Karen, we're coming. Just hang on, baby, we're coming. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry...," the mother said and began to weep in a way that pierced right into me and made tears sting my own eyes.
The whole planeload of passengers just sat rigid and frozen for a split second. Then, as the family went on to their seats everyone sort of exhaled and proceded to act as if everything was normal, just at half volume, although the noises from outside of course went on exactly as before. As they disappeared around the edge of the first class/coach partition, a flight attendant brushed quickly and soundlessly down the aisle and then I heard her talking in a low, soothing voice.
An hour or so later, I wandered to that lavatory and as I was coming out, I heard the flight attendant telling her counterpart that the woman had been talking to her sister whose baby is due tomorrow. The baby's father was caught in the detonation of an IED outside of Baghdad and has been Medevac-ed to Germany with burns over 80% of his body.
I used to be a unit clerk in the emergency room of a hospital. Burns over 80% of the body? It's a coin toss as to whether that baby is going to be born with or without a father.
Hours later in the Atlanta airport, I was sitting at the Atlanta Bread Company waiting to catch the shuttle bus. Hartsfield has this central atrium kind of deal that really just looks and feels like a mall. And just like every mall all over America, there was a big throng of kids hanging around, lolling on the modular furniture in ways its designers probably never foresaw, playing grab-ass and generally horsing around. As I got deeper into my iced coffee, the group swelled and I noticed that there were some really handsome guys there, young urban-looking kids, mostly in their twenties, although some of them looked younger. I wondered if it was a college group or some kind of Christian camp or retreat.
Then by the time I reached the part of the iced coffee that's basically tan-colored water with some little flakes of ice floating in it, there must have been two hundred kids. And then I noticed that they all had the exact same backpack. It was black with this patch on it:
Recruits. As I watched, a short, muscular-looking woman in BDU's began to marshall them into two separate lines, pointed at the doorways to the security checkpoints and the terminals beyond. I realized that I was watching these kids live the last moments of their civilian lives.
I looked at their beautiful hair and skin, their long, straight limbs, their bright, curious eyes and I wondered how many of them would end up on a plane to Germany with burns over 80 percent of their bodies. How many won't even get that far?
George Bush and good Republicans like Joe Lieberman don't want to admit that the War in Iraq is a failure. They're afraid to do anything that might Show Weakness In An Election Year. (And you see how well that's working out for Joe Lieberman.) Every day they postpone facing up to the mess they've made, more soldiers die. DIE.
Not. Ever. Coming. Home.
Ever.
I was lucky as hell. My father came home uninjured from Vietnam. A little baby is going to be born tomorrow who's not lucky like that. And for what? To give Halliburton the right to bury 20 tons of nails in the Iraqi desert because they're the wrong size?
A vote for Joe Lieberman? It's a vote to kill another American soldier. By not deciding. By "staying the course". By not facing up to the reality that our troops' lives and bodies are not to be squandered on corporate wars. The reason the Republicans don't want the war to end is because they haven't gotten an adequate return on their investment. That oil's not flowing. "If we leave now, things will only get worse." Well, yeah. That'll mean we didn't get any oil at ALL!
Bring the troops home.
(UPDATE: Comments on this post are closed.)
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NED!
TRex!
Oh God please tell me the sports thread is over hehe.
Wow.
Awesome, heartbreaking, terrible post, TRex.
So right and so true. All I can think of is the John Kerry anti-war quote, “How Do You Ask a Man to Be the Last Man to Die…”
Father = fodder.
Their lives have no meaning at all to the Republicans.
capeman @ 4
The “last” part is not really even necessary.
wow
TRex
Thanks. That was a great post.
That was very moving. Thank you for another real face on this war.
That was beautifully written, T-Rex. Sure glad you had the opportunity to be in Connecticut.
And the avisceral twits of echo chamber will just keep parroting:
Cut’n run!
Cut’n run!
Cut’n run!
Cut’n run!
Even though none of them would dare visit a battlefield that hadn’t been cold for at least half a century.
Beautiful post, TRex. No more corporate wars. Ever.
What a terrible story. You know what I mean.
Burns are a terrible thing. My sister had burns to 80% of her body and she died.
My BIL had them too and he lived. He doesn’t sweat anymore more from the really damaged parts. He lost a lot of his hearing from the antibiotics. He is HIV positive from the blood transfusions.
But he’s got to watch his kids grow up.
Meanwhile the Senate Appropriations committee cut the budget for Brain Injury and Research in half.
Brain injury is called the signature injury of the action in Iraq.
None of this is good but for some reason my heart goes out to those Iraqis who are getting slaughtered/killed because of US. There are far too many of them to be ignored. Its worse for them because they had SH take away part of their life, US has taken the rest. There is absolutely no excuse for it. We already know torture, rape, murder etc. And they did nothing to deserve it.
I’m just speechless, wiping my eyes. Wow.
TRex, you can be sure that some of those young Americans you saw will come home safer for your work this weekend.
Beautiful, awesome well-crafted post. Thank you.
And anytime somebody tries to pretend these warmongers don’t play politics with soldiers’ lives, just remind them how Bush waited until after the 2004 elections before launching attacks on Fallujah, etc.
What an agonizing post, TRex.
powerful writing…
Thank you for this post, dear TRex.
(sniffle) Thanks,TRex.
On a recent trip to Europe, I had plenty of time to watch people in American airports. I, too, was witness to a small, localized grief tableau which seemed to involve news from Iraq.
I also saw many soldiers, airmen, and sailors in uniform. Many of them looked focused, sober, and grim. I would characterize their look as wary — observing everything through old, experienced eyes. I do not recall seeing any of them smiling.
How times have changed. *Sigh.*
in the spring of 2005, a young Marine came to the elementary school where I work… in theory, he was there to encourage the kids to “do their best”…
as a vet, I had complete respect for the guy… as a person involved in ensuring a future for these kids, I was mad as hell… our neighborhood is the kind of neighborhood that the recruiters love as military service represents and opportunity for these kids. while I want the kids to have the chance to spread their wings and see the military as an option, I sure as hell don’t want to see them blown to bits…
that day changed me forever.
That was an excellent and moving post, TRex. I always wonder when I see the recruits outside the gathering spot near the Greyhound station in downtown Indy if they know what they are truly getting themselves into.
The “last” part is about deciding when and then making it so.
Great emotional piece, Trex. The sadness is beyond words.
Moved, I am.
Wow, TRex. Thank you.
but on the bright side, every major oil company is reporting record profits
Wow.
The curse of being a caring individual.
Great to meet you last night, T. Glad you’re home safe,
The Republicans’ secret weapon is the fact that most liberals have good manners. We recoil, a little, at the assertion above. It’s not nice to say such things.
But what do we do when such things are true? Let’s be polite no more! Let’s rise above our fastidiousness! Because — godammit! –
A vote for Joe Lieberman? It’s a vote to kill another American soldier.
TRex and Bionic, both of your stories are frighteningly sad.
I wonder how a George Bush War Supporter would respond to the exact same scene?
What conclusion would they draw from the overheard conversations? From seeing all the recruits?
A wingnut I know recently wrote that our problem is that we AREN’T KILLING ENOUGH people.
“You can’t bargain with them. They have to be utterly destroyed.”
And he said that of course war is hell, but we have to do it. That’s just the way it is, human nature.
Would it help for these war supporters to see more real war? Talk to real hurt people, or would it just keep trigging their standard response?
Troops. Home. Now.
The US should take war-making powers completely away from the Executive Branch, and force any of these little wars of choice we have engaged in since WW2 be approved by the Congress.
Now that idea would really start Dick Cheney a’twitchin!
My best friend was injured in a mortar attack on his FOB in Ramadi in October 2003. Shrapnel embedded in his lower back, damage to his spine, pelvis and tailbone, and now as of recent tests, permanent brain damage from his brain being jarred in his skull by the explosions.
Today the VA docs informed him they want to put him inpatient for a couple of weeks after allowing him to walk around for the last three years almost, telling him his injuries were psychosomatic or not as extensive as they seem to be. His is not the only case going like this either, the VA has been notorious with misdiagnosis, delayed treatment, backlogs of paperwork and so on since this war began.
A vote for Lieberman is a vote for incompetence, mismanagement, death, destruction, heartache and a bleak future for us all. One day these vets are gonna get angry and turn on this government and the insurgency we joke about in this country will become real because people like Joe Lieberman were in office. I dedicate all of my work to getting rid of these assholes to Joe Mitchell.
Thank you, TRex. I could hug you.
I may not be a Nutmegger. I can’t vote in CT.
But it’s f*cking personal for this very reason.
Because my stepson wasn’t really ready for college when he graduated in 1999, I had encouraged him to join the Army. I thought he’d get a chance to see the world, realize how very privileged he was as an American, get the discipline he needed to set him on the right path before he came around and wanted to go to college, would even earn money for school that we didn’t have at that time. He’d be serving his country in exchange, a noble and necessary occupation.
But Clinton was president of the United States, we were fat and happy with an exploding stock market, life was good. I remember seeing a report cross my desk from a futurist that same year, one that predicted that America would increasingly be seen as a rogue nation. Hah! I told the guy who forwarded it to me, where did this crackpot futurist come from anyhow?
My stepson bloomed in the service, decided to cut short his trips home so that he could muster out early to start college. Good deal, or so it looked.
And then 9/11, and the rest of the story that you already know. In February 2003 he is prepping to get shipped out, in March 2003 he is on the ground in Iraq. And he was there, well after his 4 years was up. I was afraid to leave the house for the entire tour, afraid I would miss his one call home, yet afraid to be there when the dark, four-door sedan with military plates pulled up in the driveway.
He never told his father he was treated for PTSD; I guess I knew, I could tell just from his voice that he wasn’t himself, was on something. He told me a lot and nothing, and told me everything around the black hole that was his tour, enough that I can make out from the shape of the shadows what this has done to this once happy-go-lucky boy.
And now we wait in this countdown to the end of his IRR; we are pretty sure because of some odd things that he was not called up again because of PTSD and/or because of his specialized training (might be needed ELSEWHERE…). I hope like hell nothing happens in this EPU zone of his last year on IRR.
And I still nurse the nagging guilt for ever thinking this was the right thing for him to do. He may have needed time and discipline, but he should never, ever have had to get them under the command of George W. Bush. It is one thing to serve with honor for honorable reasons, but it is another to serve for a lie. We are only too lucky that our story so far has a happy ending; it could have been all too easily like that posted here in Late Nite FDL.
Joe Lieberman needs to be removed from any opportunity to hold public office where he might vote to put anyone’s life at risk. It’s personal.
Shorter spocko @ 31
The best way to deal with them is to get them to fight their own war. Some of these creeps actually get off on war porn, but it’s a little different when the target silhouettes get to shoot back.
OldCoastie @ 23
The recruiters love my neighborhood (Harlem) too. They drive through with their Humvee pumpin’ out Jay-Z. I work with a lot of teens here, recruiters also would wait for them before and after school on the subway platform. We had one who had a scholarship to a good university, recruiters heckled him every morning — he was too smart, but pissed me off.
Tell ‘em Rex! Rub their noses in the stink of the death and putrefaction the ‘Kissers’ are responsible for.
It’s a blot on our nation’s soul that scum like Leibermann and Bush have been allowed. Yes, that’s right, allowed to create the disaster in Iraq. The only course open to us to cleanse the nation of these crimes is: Impeachment! Followed by hard time in jail.
Get up and take action. Do it now.
The reason I believe in Ned Lamont and the reason we’re here is because we are standing up to say, end this war. The death of triangulation.
It makes me very angry to hear about such things. It makes me even more angry to hear the White House say that by nominating Ned Lamont for U.S. Senate to help bring an end to this madness, the Democratic Party is “raising a white flag” and wants to “cut and run” from the mess that the Bush administration has wrought in Iraq. How dare they attack the patriotism of 60 percent of the American people who want to bring the troops home safely. We must fight back and hit them hard from now until November. And that’s just the start.
Here’s another story. I graduated from high school in 1974. Late the previous year, I got my draft card. I was left in the “unclassified” category. Mine was the second high school class that didn’t have a lottery.
If we’d “stayed the course” in Vietnam, I or my classmates probably would have spent some time there. That wall in Washington DC would be much longer, and nothing else would have changed. Heck, we’d probably still be there. Over half the U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam died after the President we supposedly elected to end the war took office, and all we got out of those four years was “peace with honor”, whatever the hell that meant.
At some point, there’s nothing more you can do except rearrange the mess. We’re there in Iraq. It’s time to get out.
FiniFini — I don’t know if you were here for the Charlie Brown Blue America thread last Saturday, but he is very strong on making sure our service people are taken care of. He has personal experience losing friends in war, and his own son has already done three rotations in Iraq.
He’s not the only veteran running as a Democrat in November. These “fighting Dems” are going to make a difference for your friend, for our soldiers. Oh, god, I’ve never felt an election was so important as this one!
Deeply moving, T-Rex. My heart holds you. Your words grip me.
I watched the news tonight.
They were all crying for their dead- Israelis, Lebanese, Iraqis. But they never showed any Americans crying.
You did. Thanks for reminding us we are just like them- sad.
al-Scooter — I can tell you exactly what a Bush supporter says.
They say, “Nuke them all, turn them into f*cking glass.”
That came out of the mouth of a friend; we didn’t know what a winger he was, I guess. He said this about the same time my stepson was getting ready to ship out. It burned up my husband inside, although he never said anything and bit his tongue about it.
There is payback, though; it’s karmic, comes dispensed by the cosmos.
This same friend’s son joined the Marines this summer, against his father’s wishes. Amazing the change in perception and the worrying and stewing now resting on the other father’s shoulders.
Karmic.
Lieberman for Connecticut = War Party
Can’t make it any simpler.
This is why every bastard Demopublican like Holy Joe and DiFi and many others need to be drummed out of office.
This is why we must treat every election for the REST OF OUR LIVES like a street fight to the death. because for some soldier, it IS a fight to the death. We must fight like cornered, wounded animals. There is NO OTHER WAY. Civility? fair play? FUCK THAT!
Having had third degree burns over 15 percent of my own body, I can tell you if I had them over 80 percent of my body, I’d beg for death.
The guy will probably die, if not from the burn trauma itself, then from a secondary infection.
Weak Democrats are a secondary infection and since 1994, they’ve been killing us. Now they’re literally killing people. How can they look at themselves in the mirror?
Rayne,
Please stop the guilt. Serving in the US Army is an honor and a privelege. It was anyway. You had no way of knowing what lay ahead. Am grateful your stepson is alive and almost whole. With time, he can heal. He has a chance.
Thank you Trex for this heartbreakingly beautiful story. You are a treasure.
LindaR @ 43
I wasnt here for that thread at the time it took place but I read it and the comments later and was very impressed with him. I am also impressed with people like John Laesch, Jim Webb, Admiral Sestak in PA and other fighting Dems running around the country.
It’s why I have thrown my skills into the mix around here and the State Roots Project because there are personal as well as moral reasons for me to be involved. I can’t donate money, but I can donate useful media skills to help guys like these spread their messages and get them elected this November.
In hindsight, TRex, tell me that you didn’t absolutely need to go to CT.
Really. The cosmos really needed you to be there, and your post tonight clearly showed why. It’s not just about CT or Democrats or voters in CT; it’s about the entire journey you made and the one we are all making together.
Uptown - my kids are TEN YEARS OLD…. beautiful and smarty pants and full of themselves and very, very impressionable…
damn straight, it’s personal…
The Republican answer to this is that they didn’t send them. They volunteered. I go absolutely nuts when I hear this…Great post.
That post really hit hard. American has f**ked up so bad. If we don’t remedy our situation in November then the violence will be taken to another level. Bring the troops home.
Hilde — I hear you. But it’s the stuff we haven’t talked about that really haunts me.
Sneaks up on us, too, like the time I opened the fridge and said something smelled like it died in there…Uh, no, that’s definitely not what dead smells like, said my stepson, in front of my school-aged kids.
It’s the shape of stuff these words outline. It’s the affect that the wake of these words leave.
A-fucking men.
Rayne/ 35
It sounds like it was the right thing for him to do. The outrage is that George W. Bush has betrayed the trust of every person in uniform and all their families and all of us. When your stepson joined, as you said, the people in charge weren’t incompetent, evil aristocrats.
Rayne, you gave the right advice at the time. No way you could’ve known. You didn’t make this war, that was Bush and his neocon Rasputin-by-committee enablers. They’ve betrayed us all and debased everything good that this country ever stood for.
In the end, they still won’t get what they want.
As you say, karmic.
BTW - I had some PTSD treatment at the VA - they knew what they were doing… but this was before these kids were coming back and the system got so overloaded…
What an excellent post this is, TRex. We must hold them to account for the evil they have committed, still do commit — and God help us, the evil they still WANT to commit in the future.
I have one tiny quibble with the very last bit of your post, though. It’s my firm belief they never went into Iraq with one of their goals being to release Iraqi oil onto the market. Oh, no. One of their goals has been to keep it off the market, so as to keep the price of oil (and gasoline) high. This suits their Saudi pals to a tee, too.
But that little quibble in no way detracts from the beautiful work you’ve done.
Rayne –
Your step-son is added to our prayer list in this household. Please keep us informed as time goes on?
It’s time to take the gloves off.
thanx Trex. xcellent xerpt.
now x out all of those b*st*rds.
TRex,
Fine writing. But, oh, darlin’, you could write that fine with ink, we don’t need all this blood. Thank you. X.
Rayne, I was thinking earlier over the last couple of threads that I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you bring to FDL.
Now I know that you already know this.
You are right……it is personal! Got to stop this war. Stop this president. Let’s start with Karl……….
here
Rayne @ 9:42 pm (#36) - Guilt is a useless emotion, at least when it’s about a decision that turned out to be wrong for unforeseeable reasons. Many people have a positive experience in the military, even if they go on to do other things rather than make a career out of it.
As for the PTSD, all I can tell you is that if your stepson wants to talk, I’d suggest you let him. I think you’re smart enough to know the sorts of things he’s been through. I suspect there will always be things he won’t want to talk about, except with other vets. Because of my age and occupation, I met quite a few Vietnam vets, and that was pretty typical of them. I don’t know what else you can do, though. It’s a pretty helpless feeling to watch, I’m sure.
And yet, here we are on the the fucking rnd website and from the podium of the PRESIDENT today being called cowards and defeatists.
What heartless fucks they are.
No plan.
No conscience.
No remorse.
Just more of the same. No one will still be truthful why we’re even there in the first fucking place. Today’s reason du jour is because “Osama said after we pulled out in 1991 that we didnt have the stomach for it”
In other words, we can’t leave cause Osama would think we’re pussies.
They don’t understand that Osama’s whole goal was to have Bush overreact and inflame passions across the mid-east while alienating our allies and bankrupting the country. He’s laughing his ass off right now.
How can so many people be so blindly wrong?
I am glad you are home safe and sound. How is JC Kitty, really glad to see you or ignoring you because you abandoned you?
I went to Nursing School from 1969-1972, working at the Missouri State hospital and VA Medical Center caring for returning Vets. It was heart breaker when I was in my 20’s but then to marry a Vietnam Vet, live as a dependent wife surrounded by Vets. Many surviving with the effects of Agent Orange while the VA denied the disorder. The family who lived next to me had three children with multiple birth defects and their father with so many of the classic agent Orange symptoms.
I grew up with the cost of war, my own father was wounded in WWII determined to be a disabled Vet. He always worked full time at a very active job but you could see how the injuries to his hip and knee required accommodations. The sadest part of what BushCo is doing with short changing funding for the VA, they are denying needed treatment to our Iraqi War Vets but also due to the funding cuts, we are cutting services for our older Vets.
It is our sacred trust to care and provide for our Vets. If they are willing to put their lives on the line for our country, the least we can do is make sure they have the best America can offer in care, support and in the bright light of daylight.
On this topic, an especially good diary at DKos this evening:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....2550/08775
It’s about World War I. Some things, it seems, never change. Or at least they haven’t so far. But they must, or there will be no survival.
Rayne, honey, my heart goes out to you. We aren’t omnipotent - well, there’s EPU - but our guilt assumes we are and beats us up when we can’t live up. I hope your step-son finds his way.
In any other time going into the army is a good choice for wavering youth. Only our callow marshmallow president could have fucked` up the one sure way for a kid to become a responsible adult. He broke the army; a draft won’t fix it.
thanks, Mrs. K8, al-Scooter.
It’s the wake that one dry-alky coke-damaged fortunate son has left behind him in his unthinking position as meat puppet to a cabal of killers.
It’s shaped like sisters-in-law, crumpled in plane’s aisles, to children utterly mystified by what they see and hear, to fathers with tongues bitten through, to mothers angrily demanding answers on this continent, and fuzzy, darkly mirrored images of the same on other continents.
It’s shaped like missing limbs and brain damage, like bloody puddles and bits of flesh, like children screaming and then silent, like unimaginable pain and inscrutable unexplainable torture, like assault on the senses that we can only guess at.
It’s shaped like horrific dreams we have, some softened by Wellbutrin and Xanax and Prozac, and others only by mothers across the world in the middle of the night.
At what point do we stop this thing and stop the damage it leaves behind it?
One more before turning in…
A friend’s son was stationed outside of Bagdad during 2004. National Guard, unit commander. Great guy, super-responsible, wonderful dad, very conservative religious family. He was stoked to be part of our efforts to bring “freedom and democracy” to the down-trodden Iraqis.
Within weeks, he was heartbroken. He came back whole, but instead of building schools and hospitals, he spent 24/7 keeping all 124 of his unit soldiers alive. That’s all his unit did - they survived, from one day to the next.
He still won’t talk about what he saw, what he had to do to stay alive and keep his men safe. Adjustment has been hard for his family and friends, though they understand.
The horrid, heinous results of this occupation on our country are spreading, like a virus, through our national psyche. We’ve got a bad cold turning into bronchitis, heading into pneumonia.
Of course, the Iraqis contracted a massive case of ebola that won’t be healed or checked any time in the near future.
At least we aren’t bleeding out of our eyeballs. Yet.
TRex,
wow! straight to the heart of the matter. one of the most powerful anti-war pieces i’ve read. ever. and my activism goes back to vietnam. superb work.
R.
Since there may be others who know of vets who could benefit with some counseling or treatment, there are veterans groups who do outreach.
The one I’m most familiar with is Disabled American Veterans:
http://www.dav.org/
Count Dickula himself chimes in from an undisclosed location to smear the entire Democratic party and 60% of the nation.
Deadeye Dick Cheney:
“It’s an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy,” Mr. Cheney said in a telephone interview with news service reporters. . . .
(End)
Let’s not forget that the worst thing to ever happen to Deadeye Dick was shooting Harry Whittington in the face with an expensive Italian shotgun after liquoring-up for lunch.
Starting a war and killing tens of thousands…nah, that doesn’t effect him.
-GSD
Let’s face it, this administration has tapped into the lowest common denominator of the American psyche - the weak, the fearful, the stupid, the greedy, the selfish, the jingoistic. This sham of a war on terror was laughable from the start. We all knew it, we all saw it.
Anyone who bought into this insanity was a fool or a toady. That about covers it.
Could someone possibly forward TRex’s heartbreaking story to the Joe Lieberman website?
Or would this be considered spam or hacking?
TRex, you made this old(67)former Marine cry. As did Rayne @ 35.My son has been to Afghanistan once and expects to be called up again. I am so sick of the chicken hawks calls for more war. They, and their kids aren’t going to do the fighting.I think the draft would be a good thing. Hopefully, soon we can stop the madness.
On a lighter note,Colbert absolutely destroyed Liberloser tonight. Peace.
Rayne @ 35
How gut wrenching. I’m sure the countdown is agonizing for you. Who knew in 1999 that the world would look like this in 2006, or that our country would be taken over by a neocon cabal.
Has this sorry excuse for a President we have here yet attended a funeral or visited a military ward? Have any of his cabinet, possibly excepting maybe whoever is at Veterans Affairs?
The funds of which Bionic wrote were pitifully small, too. From the USAToday article reprinted at truthout:
So sorry to hear about your hardships, Bionic. We have had such in our family too, and the horror can linger decades and span generations, as I’m sure you know. Fortunately, there are also some great stories of hope from the medical front, so the young woman’s brother-in-law might still see his children and have a rewarding life.
Powerful post, TRex. Thank you.
You know, the worst thing about this whole thing is, who’s getting the publicity? Joe. What a terrible thing he was beaten! Oh, moan, oh groan, are the Democrats now a bunch of Mensheviks, or Bolsheviks? Why do we have such a stone-stupid media? We’re a better country than this, and we deserve better.
Joe was on Larry King, and he actually used every Karl Rove phrase: cut and run. You’re ideologues.
Somebody’s got to get some serious air time refuting this crap, or it will be repeated so many times that people might even believe it.
My question is: where’s Dick?
Could there be a better metaphor for the Bush WH than Lord Vader’s penchant for shooting pen-raised fowl?
OldCoastie — they do exactly as they are doing to FiniFini’s best friend; they are cutting short whatever these guys need to have a healthy and full life. SOP is to take any and all of them that are mustering out and quarantine them to base for a set number of weeks while doped up under mandatory meds, then send them out into the world with more mandatory meds. They offer therapy if they want it, but what kid — and I mean KID — really understands themselves well enough to know when they need help?
My stepson will be fine over the long run; he and I have had open conversations about what he should expect as normal, what’s not normal, where to get help, etc. He’s also got many friends he keeps in touch with from the service with whom he can share those shadows. But it’s all the things that my stepson’s situation suggest that make it clear there is a real mess out there and the size is transparent to a majority of American voters.
It’s FiniFini’s friend that is more obvious, and yet the amount of damage this administration has done is still completely ungauged, unmeasured.
Personal. F*cking personal, this Lieberman sh*t.
TRex,
well done
this should be on the news, every night
with a companion piece on the Iraqis slaughtered and maimed
people think of war as a football game, go team
not reality
Beautifully told, TRex. Thanks.
For those who could use a laugh about now, here’s a movie file of the TDS on the Connecticut primary:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/.....e-primary/
Someone just reminded me of my favorite Credence Clearwater Revival song. Here it is, along with “Who’ll Stop The Rain”:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/.....n-fogerty/
good to hear your stepson is doing OK… if he needs the shrinks, he should make himself available - they are very down-to-earth… I was impressed with the dedication of the VA staff, but clinic was always packed, booked… I’m sure it’s much worse now…
The RINO Hunters are going after Chafee in the primary (9/12). Will it backfire and yield a dem senate seat? Food for thought…
Cripes… how goopers get paid to do this stuff…
…pressing hard to achieve one of the group’s still-unfulfilled goals: replacing incumbent members of Congress it views as too liberal with people who adhere to what the group describes as the inviolable conservative tenets of lower taxes and unbending fiscal discipline.
Sun-Tzu says:
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
Every time I read anything about someone dying in these horrible, ridiculous wars (which is, of course, every day now), I end up thinking about my own son. He’s 27 now and, naturally, the light of my life. I had five miscarriages before I was blessed with him, and two tubal pregnancies after, so he’s my one and only.
I think about him as a newborn, with that little peanut face just hours old. I think of him as a little guy, so funny and cute. “Hey, Mom, you wanna play fort?” I think about arguments we had when he was a teenager, slamming doors and me, “Call me when you get there!”
And I see him now, a kind and strong grown man with his life ahead of him. Someday a wife, and children, grandchildren. Good times and bad, happy enough, I hope.
And every single person, American, Iraqi, Lebanese, Israeli, it doesn’t matter, who has been killed in these monstrous wars is the same person as my son. Loved by someone. Loved someone. Unique, human, irreplaceable. Now gone, forever. For nothing but to put money in greedy men’s pockets.
Am I angry? Oh yes. It’s our time now.
Rayne as a side bar to your story. when I was in San Diego last month I met Paul Hackett and heard him speak on a panel discussion on the war. His was encouraging young progressives to join the military, one as a means to counter how wingnuttery the military has become and that it is a great place for some people. It was the first time I parted ways with him on ideas. I come from a military family, both parents served in WWII, sister & ex were USAF, uncles, cousins in total all branches except Coast Guard. My line was I was the only one who did not serve except as a dependent wife for 11 yrs.
Why I opposed Hackett on young people joining the military is your very thought process. Not this administration and not this war. I would NEVER trust my children with BushCo. The military is a pretty ok place but it is the civilians who decide the policies that you have to worry about. This administration has so little value on human life.
All these kids going off to “fight for their country.” If they only knew who they were really fighting for.
In a sane time, our politicians would have said, global climate change is coming, oil is being depleted, so let’s find ways to avert those problems.
Try to imagine what several hundred billion dollars, spread out over thousands of new companies with bright people and bright ideas, might have accomplished. How many people could be educated to meet that demand, how many new jobs would have been created.
Instead, death, wholesale destruction and corruption. This country has gone crazy and stupid.
You know who I kind of feel sorry for right now? Katherine Harris. After throwing the 2000 election for Bush, she’s well on her way to winning a Republican primary for a Senate seat, but big-name Republicans won’t even give her the time of day. Now she has to sit and watch as big-name Republicans fall all over each other to support a man who just lost a Democratic primary for a Senate seat. The irony has to be killing her.
Oh hufNpuf…I send good thoughts your way, hoping that your son will be safe if he is called or no. You are not alone in this, if it is any consolation.
Hilde — what you described sounds a lot like my stepson’s experience. Greeted with roses like liberators. Pah. What a crock. More like these troops risked their lives to provide security for a pillaging, the scale of which we have never before seen. Billions of dollars, some in cash, gone missing — and all we have to show for it is broken or bruised family and friends, here and in Iraq.
Rayne @ 84
Exactly. I am not alone, there are THOUSANDS, maybe millions now, who each know a best friend, a fellow church member, a brother, a cousin, a neighbor or a coworker that has left to serve their nation only to return scarred, wounded, sick, in pain, or otherwise permanently altered from the human being that came before they left on a war of choice. IF they came back at all. A choice who Joey Lies still says today that he would still make.
If you and your best friend are in a restaurant and someone comes over to your table and picks a fight with you and your best friend gets a knife to his ribs, you are gonna hate the person who instigated the fight in the first place and be personally offended that someone would have the audacity to pick a fight like that out of the blue. Fuck you! is not a foreign policy.
at school, a lot of “my” kids have fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers in the military… the level of stress, tension, problems with the kids went WAY up this past year… you know the families are under tremendous strain and the children bring it to school with them… very discouraging to watch… and much, much harder to educate them…
Fresh out of seminary, I served a parish in St. Louis with a parochial school. Not the school to get away from “those people” in the public schools, but a school that was about 2/3 from the neighborhood and 1/3 from the parish itself.
Shortly after the first Gulf War began, I was leading chapel for the kids, and I asked “How many of you have someone you live with - dad, mom, brother, sister - serving in the Gulf? Not just in the military, but serving overseas in the Middle East?” About a third raised their hands, and most of the teachers were shocked. I wasn’t - it was the kind of neighborhood where the military looked like a good career move for kids where college wasn’t highly likely or affordable. Get some discipline, get some life skills, get some employment skills, maybe even make a career of it. Then I asked “How many of you know someone from your neighborhood or have a more distant relative - uncle, aunt, grandparent - serving in the Gulf?” Almost every hand went up.
Now those kids are about the age that TRex saw in the airport . . .
I haven’t thought about them in quite a while, but I’m praying for them, their families, and their neighbors tonight.
Thanks, TRex!
What an amazing community this is.
My sisters boy whom I helped raise was over there for a year. ( My sister is a single mom) The previous squad had lost eight KIA. My nephew’s crew lost one there and one back here to PTSD. The reason I write is that for that entire year every time the phone rang, and I saw it was my sister, I would instantly be enraged frightened and sick to my stomache. He survived and is making his way back to being normal.
Chicken George and his crew have wrecked and demoralized this country. I will never forgive him for for this reckless and incompetent action. For what it matters and what it’s worth my family has fought in every war this country was ever in , save one.
UptownNYChick @
37
Isn’t that how drug dealers looking for recruits are supposed to behave?
TeddySanFran @ 98
I agree…it is such a pleasure to be amongst such fine adults. I feel honored you all have welcomed me like you have and its a pleasure to hang with you folks.
thanks Trex - no snark tonight
And Joe was on the NewsHour tonight talking about how he thought the troops should come home should be decided by the generals in Iraq, not by politicians in Connecticut or DC.
As if.
Deluded or lying? I can’t decide.
Bastard, for certain.
UPDATE:
I just got off the phone with Dr. Turtle.
The soldier died in flight on his way to Germany. He couldn’t talk but for a minute told me to call him back in 10 minutes.
I hope these criminals in Washington D.C.
are happy. My prayers go out to the family of this soldier. ( I cannot release his name)