Poll of Troops, Vets: We've Been In Iraq And Afghanistan For Too Damn Long
The next time someone wants to "thank a vet for his service" maybe they should ask him/her how they should be thanked.
In news that will shock no one, service members and veterans are less than thrilled that the United States is still embroiled in conflicts — or "advise and assist" missions, to use Pentagon parlance — in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This nugget of insight comes from a survey conducted last Veterans Day, in which current and former service members were asked to respond to questions about national security policy and the current state of the military. The results of the poll were published this month by Smithsonian Magazine.
The majority of respondents (84 percent) said they agreed that the "current occupation" of Iraq and Afghanistan "has been going on too long."
For anyone who's bitched about the "forever" part of our forever wars, the survey offers some comfort: At least you know you're not alone, though it makes some sense if you felt like you were. As Smithsonian Magazine notes, "as far as we know, this survey was the first one to pose that question to current and former service members."
I've got an idea: Let's declare victory and go home.
Comments
Of course they never ASK the troops if we want to go to war...
we aren't supposed to have a say in it. But any sane soldier would much rather spend his time back home, doing drill, maybe fighting fires and fixing up some roads. You know, non-being shot at stuff.
Anybody who thinks the troops are "Itching for a fight" is talking to a general who wants a Fourth Star.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
What's that word?
Shocked.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
I told a lady how I felt about her thanking me for my service.
A couple of years ago I put a USMC bumper sticker on my car because I was visiting a friend of mine who was dying in the local VA hospital. I put it on to "counteract" the peace bumper strips I also had on the car and didn't want to remove. Some of the vets simply would not have tolerated the peace signs and I wasn't looking for trouble or a vandalized car. A woman noticed it and said her son was in the Marines and she thanked me "for my service." I replied as gently as I could, "You're welcome. I did it for the oil companies." I consider myself to be in the same tradition as Smedley Butler even though he was in a class by himself. If you don't understand about General Smedley Butler read his book War is a Racket.
My service (four years beginning in 1955) was done for a country that I believed in. This is not the same country. Donald Trump is simply the hoodlum-in-chief, certainly not the Commander-in-Chief. Both political parties have sold themselves to the rich and the rich are taking everything. You bet we should get out of our wars. We should also not be as naive as I was in 1955.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Great response
I wonder if she ever repeated that to anyone?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I think she was surprised at my response more than anything.n/t
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
I'll bet she was
I've been frequently called a number of unpleasant things when I tell people that our military is being used as criminal muscle for capitalist whoremongers intent on raping and stealing other countries resources.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
You may want to print this article to give to people
who thank you for your service.
Thanking veterans for their service - Why?
Caitlin is disgusted that women have risen to the top and are heads of defense companies. She holds nothing back.
This Is Everything That Is Wrong With Mainstream Feminism
People wouldn't be so naive if Smedley's book was required reading in high school. This book has been out now for 75 years and not many people have heard of it. Crying shame! What would you like people to say to you when they learn that you are a veteran? Is there anything to say?
It's good to see you again.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
A little OT
But I've run across the strangest story about something that happened a couple of days ago, in a couple of different places, one of them foreign. Anybody hear about a supposed assassination attempt on President Trump, apparently by a Marine? There was some kind of shoot out...
Nevermind, I cannot track this full story down somewhere credible. There was a Marine on duty shot and killed in DC on Jan 2, but the circumstances, although weird, don't match.
[edit]
I did not realize an attempt was made last
year.
http://amp.wsbtv.com/news/trending-now/north-dakota-man-pleads-guilty-to...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Yeah. I saw that when I tried to confirm this new attempt.
The story is spreading now, but in strange ways. White House Reporters are questioning why there are no Marines guards at the Oval Office door on Saturday, for the first time in history. Another story was that Marines were banned from the White House. Then another story has one of those DC Marines dead from a gunshot. Another story says Russia called and warned him that morning. Yet, no credible news source is calling it an assassination attempt. I can certainly see the need for a cover-up, though, just to control the narrative.
I told a vet I wouldn't thank him or his service, but
I would tell him how sorry I was about the useless wars.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
It is not easy for a Veteran to be thanked for a service
he never wanted to get involved with. They suffer over the fact they killed innocent people (at least my son, who was in the Iraq closely involved in combat in which he killed - he knows how many) and getting then thanked for that service, is outright emotionally unbearable and awful.
They simply don't know how to react to that kind of 'kind remarks'. I guess most say nothing or give any sort of banal response. The Veteran is supposed to be polite, so the best thing seems to say nothing. And all the anger fills up inside... til it can't be contained anymore.
All you want is to forget and then people come up and pull you right back into it with their senseless remarks.
It's not them who start wars and orders soldiers to fight in that senseless slaughter. So, I
have a lot of pity with them.
PS It seems there is a prejudice among a lot of people who believe that all those soldiers are brainwashed and are believers in the wars they are ordered to fight. That is not true.
https://www.euronews.com/live
The article also states that 83% support
the fake war OF terror and think it should be continued. That's not very comforting. The war OF terror is the main ingredient, Afghanistan and Iraq are just parts. That level of support for the war OF terror after 17 years kind of neuters the overall feeling that the Afghanistan and Iraq "occupations" have gone on too long.
The most stunning conversation I had
during my time with the Peace vigil was with a veteran of three tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. He was wounded in Iraq. This guy was not a kid when he volunteered, but had done so because he believed in the hype that he would be defending our country from terrorists. He said that what he learned was everything was a lie. We said nothing, but just let him talk and when it was over, we said we knew how hard it was for him to talk about it, but we were grateful to him for sharing his experience with us. After he left, my friend Don said it was his best day ever in his 13+ years with the Peace vigil.
What pisses me off to no end is how we indoctrinate these young people, turn them into killing machines and then dump them by the wayside when they return, many of them permanently damaged emotionally. The man we talked with was very bitter about the way the government treats veterans.
I am so angry about Paygo when we can find more and more money to fund the Defense Dept. which failed its audit and yet we cannot find money to invest in our own people, infrastructure, and renewable energy. As of two and a half years ago, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were estimated to end up costing nearly $5 Trillion. So now final costs for these two wars is estimated to end up costing the US taxpayers between $5.5 and $7 Trillion according to various reports. And that does not include all the other warring adventures that this country is engaged in. As a comparison, the cost to update our infrastructure has recently been estimated to be $4.6 Trillion or more than double the estimate in 2013.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy