Life events and the twisted thoughts they cause.

 
Greetings fellow campers! It's time once again to get sick! Well, okay -- morning sickness -- but the thought is the same.

You have probably read on the Blogger web page that blogs got a favorable mention in Time magazine -- they also said that women blog more than men, and that men are more likely to abandon their blogs. Well this man has never abandoned anything! So here we go again. Time to pick up where we left off way back in July, 2003 --

Scott Peterson got convicted! That's nothing new -- you already know that unless you were living under a rock. What was interesting is that he was convicted because he is a jerk. They never proved that he actually did the killings. They proved that no one else could have done it so since he was the only one who could have killed Lacey, he killed Lacey and Conner.

We're still in Iraq -- we still are losing good people to bad people. It's impossible to stop someone who wants to die. Look, if you or I were committing a crime, and a police officer points a gun at us and says "Stop or I will shoot", then we will stop. Why? Because we don't want to die! However, if you or I had as our aim to die, and take everyone else with us, then we can't be stopped! It's a kind of war that the average American can't fathom -- to actually want to die to complete our mission. Ask a soldier, and they will tell you that yes, there is a possiblilty that he/she may die in the completion of our mission -- but that isn't our intention. Suicide as strategy isn't in our nature. Once we can understand the mind set of the enemy, we will be better prepared to deal with them.

I have several students who were deployed to Iraq -- one, in particular, just two months short of graduation. None of them expressed any remorse over their joining the Army Reserve/National Guard. All of them accepted their service as part of being an American. They are all going over there ready to do their job to the best of their ability! I do admire them! This isn't bravado, and none of them are under any illusion that this will be easy. But they are going over to do their job. In fact, the student two months short of graduation is a former Marine. He did his time, got out, did not get IRR'ed (that's military talk for the time after you leave the service that you can be recalled) and was working on his degree through his GI bill. He went into the Army Reserve at his old rank of 1st Sergent -- telling his wife that he is going back in "to take care of those kids who don't know what they are getting into." (He is a Gulf War I veteran.) I know this man -- and he means it!

He reminds me of a relative of mine, who is Army Special Forces serving somewhere in Afganistan hunting Osama (or Usama -- depending on who you are talking to). He is there on his third tour, all three voluntary! Why, because he took 9/11 personally! They came into HIS HOUSE and messed with HIS PEOPLE so he is there for some payback! They are supposed to bring Bin Laden back alive, but there is nothing that specifies what condition he will be in when he is brought to justice!

I have another student, another Marine, who returned from Iraq pissed off! Not that he was there, not about the job he did (he was a sniper) but pissed off that when he stepped off the plane, he was spit on and called a baby killer! You know, if you're not happy that we are in Iraq or Afganistan for that matter, then take it up with the politicans! The Commander-in-Chief says "Soldier, go to Iraq!" The soldier says "Yes, Sir", and he/she's outta here! They don't have a choice, and they go there and bust their butts to do their job right. And all of them are doing a hell of a job in a lousy place to be with people trying to kill them every day! We should be proud as hell that they are out there doing their job, standing between us and people who want to kill us! If you hate the war, that's fine! DON'T HATE THE SOLDIERS! THANK THEM FOR DOING WHAT YOU AND I CAN'T OR WON'T DO!

Okay -- enough ranting for now.

Next time, we'll talk about how we're making the same mistakes now that we made in Vietnam in soldier rotation -- and how if we're lucky, we can leave Iraq in 10 years or so.

posted by Eric at 7:28 PM