May 10 2008

Over At ‘Vet Voice’

Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq one of the best Iraq memoirs out there–has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I’ve specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve–instead choosing to cheer from the bench–while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.


This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it’s wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.


Here’s part of Buzzell’s take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:


SNIP

A War of Choices

As far back as I could remember, I wanted to be in the Army. I don’t know where it came from (my dad was a Navy veteran, after all), but I was enthralled by military history. I couldn’t get enough of it. But it wasn’t enough to simply read about the military. I wanted to be a part of it as soon as I could.

…I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, “it was his second deployment” in my obituary.

That’s at the very end of the article that deserves to be read in full by every single breathing American citizen. Buzzell expresses a sentiment felt by nearly every veteran I know: Americans have not only failed to pick up the slack of a two front war, but they’ve dumped all the hardship, responsibility, guilt, heartbreak and exhaustion onto less than %1 of the population – service members and their families. There’s a word for that: serfdom.


SNIP

Fallen Soldiers Treated Like Dogs, To Save A Dollar

Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls it “insensitive,” I call it something else:

The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops’ remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.


SNIP

Residents Fleeing Sadr City

For weeks, the US Army had a blockade around Sadr City to keep vehicles from entering or leaving the dangerous area. Residents of the besieged district complained of skyrocketing food prices, trash piling up in the streets, and claustrophobia from being trapped indoors. Several lawmakers staged sit-ins to protest the blockade. That blockade has been lifted, and residents are now being asked to leave.


SNIP

Now back to some of my own thoughts:

I Still Want To Know

Not ServingWhy neither one of these youngsters is Serving, and any of their young guests for this weekends ceremony??


Daughters do look for the ‘daddy feature’, come from a ‘chickenhawk’ marry a ‘chickenhawk’!!

Manufacturing Obedience

The greatest lie in American history was the Vietnam War.


The Iraq War is rapidly gaining ground.


Once you see the truth, you are reborn.


I did not serve in Vietnam with the U.S. Army,


I served in Vietnam with the R.C. Army,


The Ruling Class Army.


Thank God, I don’t live in a gingerbread house anymore.


Lying Is The Most Powerful Weapon In War.


Mike Hastie

R.C. Army

Vietnam 1970-71

May 5,

5 comments

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  1. A ‘Gold Star Mom’, for ‘Mothers Day’

    Dear Speaker Pelosi,

    I write to you this Mother’s Day as the mother of Lt. Ken Ballard, who was killed in Najaf, Iraq four years ago, fighting in a war that you have criticized but continue to fund.


    I hope that this Mother’s Day you are lucky enough to be surrounded by your children and grandchildren, to share thanks and hugs. But I also hope that you will think about the thousands of mothers of U.S. troops who will never see their children again — and the tens of thousands of mothers of troops now serving in Iraq who live in fear every day of the phone call or the knock on the door telling them their child has been injured or killed.

  2. Vet’s Mom Shows that Mother’s Day is About More than Flowers and Cards

    This year American consumers are expected to spend an average of $138.63 each on flowers, cards and gifts for Mother’s Day, for a grand total of $15.8 billion.

    That’s a whole lotta hydrangeas.

    One of those is Oklahoma’s 2006 Mother of the Year, Cynde Collins-Clark, about whom I’ve written previously in connection with her son, Joe, an Iraq War veteran who returned from his tour of duty in 2004 with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

    Cards and flowers are nice, but $15.8 billion would go a long way toward helping veterans and their families. In lieu of flowers, perhaps a donation to a veterans group would be a more fitting bouquet to honor all the mothers who have given their most precious gift to the rest of us.

  3. U.S. Army’s ‘stop-loss’ orders up dramatically over last year

    The jump coincides with the extension of combat tours from 12 to 15 months.

    Between 2002 and 2007, 58,300 soldiers were given stop-loss orders, forcing them to remain in the service past the end of their enlistment periods.

  4. It’s all so very depressing.

    Donating to a veterans’ cause in lieu of flowers on Mothers Day is a good idea. My own mother passed away long ago, but I’ll donate to the Fisher House or the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund in her memory anyway. I think she would approve.

    If anyone would like to do the same but isn’t familiar with the work done at Fisher House and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, I encourage you to take a look at http://www.fisherhouse.org/con… and http://www.fallenheroesfund.or… (respectively)

    If you can see your way clear, show them some love.

  5. Mary Tilman:

    “soldiers loose their voice when they enlist. my son knew this, before they enlist that this would be a reality..and..THE PUBLIC IS THEIR VOICE…and if the public is not vigilant in paying attention on what the government is doing, it’s very dangerous.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

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