Army Staff Sgt. Antonio Gonzales points his weapon across the Tigris River, keeping a close eye on a bridge that was cracked in half by an insurgent attack a few months ago.
He’s 31 and on his second tour in Iraq. His survival and that of the men he serves with rely on an instinctive ability to spot hidden threats. A pile of trash, an odd formation of wires, a cart seemingly left innocently by the side of the road — all could mean death.
“If you don’t come out here, then you really have no clue,” says Gonzales, a member of Task Force Justice, which is operating in northern Baghdad. “They don’t understand what it is [like] driving down the road and to wonder if you are going to get blown up or not.”
Staff Sgt. Harry Thomas Morgan, on his third tour of duty, says, “It is my personal belief that if you are in a leadership position from senator to president, you should have to come here and live with the soldiers on the ground, not necessarily in the ‘Green Zone’ where we have the most luxuries.
“America needs to see what we see through the eyes of the soldier.”
Virtually everyone who opposes the Iraq War has no beef with the grunts on the ground. Given that this war was decided and mis-guided by chickenhawks, I think the Sargent’s suggestion is especially appropriate.
Just because you’re an angry liberal is no reason to get pissy… or knock the SWA booty thread farther down. Priorities, please.
>>Just because you’re an angry liberal is no reason to get pissy
It’s not the angry liberalism that does it from me, Jimbo. It’s the fact that our “leaders” are cowardly, double-dealing liars; chickenhawks who avoided any possibility that enemy soldiers would be shooting at them, lilly-livered scoundrels who send other people off to die so that they can resolve their daddy issues, fatten their wallets, and strip Americans of their civil rights in the process.
You don’t have to be a liberal to get “pissy” about that. You just have to have a brain.
If we had the same percentage of Washington politicians killed and wounded as we do soldiers, there wouldn’t be a war to go to any more.
Embedding them seems like a great idea!
What a bunch of laughable rhetoric. As if following that suggestion would change anything except their shorts.
RBG
“It ain’t me. It ain’t me. I ain’t no senator’s son.”
Cinaedh (#3),
Let’s do the math:
1.4 million Active Duty Personnel
Casualties ~35000
Means a 2.5% casualty rate.
535 Members of congress.
2.5% of 535 = 13 members wounded or killed.
I dunno the remaining members would happily vote for the members across the aisle to go to combat!!!
Why not allow the front lines to embed something in the Congress and Executive branch 😉
“Virtually everyone who opposes the Iraq War has no beef with the grunts on the ground.”
My motto is “Oppose the war, support the troops.”
I have one question:
“Who are we fighting over there?”
>>I have one question: “Who are we fighting over there?”
Dont ask me I don’t give a damn; next stop is the burning sand.
Does it really matter? As long as the checks for those Halliburton no-bid contracts are getting signed, the fighting will continue.
I propose amending the US constitution to include military service for qualifications for the Presidency. Then the commander-in-chief will have some sort of actual idea of what he’s putting soldiers through under his command. Bush’s phony stint in the Texas Air Guard was a joke so that doesn’t count.
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States, and have completed a minimum of two years of active service in the armed forces of the United States (emphasis mine)
11 – Ovenmaster
By your standards the current president served in the armed forces already.
Change your idea to:
“A draft will be instituted. A minimum of 25% of the military forces will consist of drafted personnel. The draft selection board will induct people in the following order:
a) Members of the families of the members of Congress, the executive and the Executive cabinet.
b) Members of the families of any employee of the federal government.
c) Members of the families of any employee of the media.
d) Members of the families of any direct employee of a political party.
e thru y: keep hitting on those that have power or can influence those who have power
z) The general population.
The draft board will not provide any exemptions or deferments, be they for medical or other reasons.”
“America needs to see what we see through the eyes of the soldier.”
Very true and applies to everything.
The American public is carefully guided in how to think and respond on various issues because the American public can’t be bothered to to do otherwise.
Is this how Democracy works?
What example does this give to the rest of the world?
I think that answer is clear to everyone but Americans as there seems to be no shortage of negativity towards the US and it policies. To me that is troubling.
So what are the positive aspects about the US aside from the nonspecifics of “freedom” and “liberty”?
Cheers
Wow, you’re all here labeling people “chicken hawks” but I wonder how many of you have served in the military.
It would certainly be simpler for your position if this were truly a case of members of the “elite ruling class” sending poor peasants off to war, but I hardly think it’s that way. The truth is, numerous members of Congress have either served themselves or have family members in the armed forces. …and a lot of the peasants in this fantasy of yours actually believe in what they’re doing and went because they wanted to.
I spent six years in the Marine Corps, a portion of that during the first Gulf war in 91′. As long as I’m here, I’ll let you in on a little secret. We were keenly aware back then, as I imagine the troops are now, that when anti-war types say “we support the troops” what they really mean is “we hate everything you stand for but there’s no way in hell we’re gonna say THAT”. I knew those words were a joke, everyone around me knew it back then, and I’m guessing most of the troops know it know.
Don’t believe me? Head on over to a site like leatherneck.com and see what they think. Yeah, I know, it’s easier to stay here and just pretend you know something about what these guys want.
If you REALLY gave a shit about them, you’d get behind them 100% instead of going on and on about whether or not they should be there in the first place. That doesn’t accomplish a damn thing at this point. The fact is, they’re there and the only practical way to get them out quickly is to make sure that they win. (Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about victory. That thing that we used to have the balls to accomplish before we became a nation of spoiled little pansies)
Every time a politician gets on television and says that we’re losing, that it’s hopeless, or that the war was a mistake it just encourages the enemy to fight a little bit harder. It gives them a light at the end of the tunnel. …some hope that if they hold out just a bit longer, maybe we’ll give up and go home. But that’s exactly what the Dems keep doing. Why? Because victory for America might mean defeat for them in the next election. Boo Hoo.
Is that how you support the troops? By putting blind political ambition ahead of what’s in their best interest? …and then claiming to support them?
You folks must think people in the military are pretty damned dumb.
Traderjoe –
(Credentials first: 8 years service)
>>The fact is, they’re there and the only practical way to get them out quickly is to make sure that they win.
I would have to repeat my question: Who are we fighting?
There is no conventional ‘victory’ to be achieved, because there is no distinct enemy that we are fighting, specially in Iraq. Basically what you have there is two ethic groups that hate each other, killing each other at each opportunity, and everyone blaming a basically inexistent “Al-Quaida in Iraq” to cover their ass. And a large number of them that when they are not fighting the other tribe, they are fighting us because we are seen as occupiers.
The Bush plan (dream / fantasy / hallucination) is to pacify the country, to make it into a full democracy that will be pro-western. Ain’t gonna happen. Not a chance in a million.
Iraq MUST be allowed to devolve into it’s natural sectarian regions, as independent and autonomous countries. Only then will the fighting stop between them. Either that or a local strong man (non democratic) needs to take over and start kicking ass.
The fact is that the middle east has always been run by strongmen. That is the way their culture works, and coincidentally that is the way the peace is kept over there. We deposed the strongman and left it open, with no replacement, and the country devolved to it’s “Lord of the Flies” natural state.
So I respectfully ask again… exactly who is the US Army fighting over there?
>>That thing that we used to have the balls to accomplish before
>>we became a nation of spoiled little pansies
You can thank your “commander” in “chief”, the “wartime president” for that. All of his bullshit about the Iraqis welcoming us as liberators, the war being paid fo with old dollars so we wouldn’ have to spend any money on body armor or armored vehicles, shock and awe, quick victory, Mission Accomplished….pffffft.
So here we sit. Dropping $2,000,000,000.00/wk on a quagmire that’s going nowhere fast, while we can’t afford to pay for schools or health care for our children.
Either we reinstate the draft and send another 500,000 armored-up soldiers over there, or admit that Little King Georgie bollixed this up. Yet again. Story of his life.
I would like to see Alberto Gonzales waterboarded for a few weeks and THEN hear him claim it’s not torture.
#12: I meant real military service, not what Bush did or managed to get out of doing. But I do like your idea. Sold!
Bush PC
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/bushdesk
Cheers
#6 – ethanol
“2.5% of 535 = 13 members wounded or killed.
I dunno the remaining members would happily vote for the members across the aisle to go to combat!!! “
Thanks for the math but I’m not sure I agree with your conclusion. If, like the soldiers, they didn’t know which ‘members’ of the government were going to be those 13, the war would immediately be over.
Yes, I realize you most likely said that with tongue in cheek.
Sounds like a good idea. In the 80s we lost Congressmen and Senators to the Soviets.
Of course, those who are going to Iraq are coming back with a better view than what the media is providing, and end up more in support of the war.
Back in the old days, when Honor actually had a meaning, people’s faith in leaders came from the fact that they did lead. In fact, they were nothing if they hadn’t fought in major battles on the front lines. Injured? Even better. No longer. Now it’s all chickenhawks who rattle their rubber sabers at us.