Support the Troops?

The military is just a job creation program. There are enough suckers they can enlist to keep this killing machine going.

 

Sidenote Skip, they both grew up in gun families. They each recieved twenty twos on their twelfth birthdays, and they live for hunting season. So they were early on indocrinated to a killing and tally mentality.

 

Tally and measurement is everything to that mentality. The only reasons there are no accurate statistics publicized must be that it isn't politically expedient. Bush likes his low figures, but if we looked at the expense of the military manuever and measured it against collateral damage, people would be asking why we spent so much money bombing empty buildings. If the casualties were higher there would be moral outrage against the loss of innocent life. So we have to plead ignorance.

 

I hope you understand my viewpoint Skip. Personally within my family while those young men are at risk I can't stand up and say to their parents that they are (your term) baby killers. And I never used that term for returning Vietnam vets either. During Vietnam many of those that were sent to fight had been drafted against their personal beliefs. Not a single one came back that wasn't affect for their entire life by what they saw and what they were ask to do. My father and my uncles that served during Korea and WWII, never spoke about anything but the most trivial of their experiences while they were in combat, in fact most of them refused to talk about it at all.

The cousin who was shot in Afghanistan, has mainly been doing construction work. The other...god only knows. I don't think he ever got out of his humvee to see what his shells had accomplished. Perhaps he should have been forced to view the result of his actions.

I agree we shouldn't glorify or make heros out of those that are currently serving. They are just performing a job and getting paid to do so.

 

Could you? I made my anti-war stance perfectly known to them before these two joined up. But I can't go to family get togethers and do that. The family knows where I stand and they say nothing when I get up and walk out. And I talked to these young men before they joined up, and not only then when they took up hunting. It did no good.

I think there will always be a certain segment that feels they can only prove their manhood through violence, you can't argue with them.

 

When have I ever said differently? What shit am I laying on you, Skip? I say military people are humans and you call them names. I don't support killers, I don't support war, why are you attacking me?

 

Hey Skip no one in your family tree joined up and fought in WWII?

 

I'm so glad I talked my boyfriend out of the army...even after his own brother couldn't...
I could never date someone like that, nor respect them.
If they have to prove their manhood by manslaughter...then they are not men.
Same goes for hunting...I think you'd have to be deranged to kill an animal for fun.

 

I agree, but how many young men agree? Many feel the only way they achieve manhood is to be blooded.

 

People wonder where road rage comes from it comes from the same mentality. I agree look around you and see those in need no matter how dirty and grody. But no the average US citizen will not take those in need into their homes.

They will continue in their cozy life. They will over schedule their children to the point that they don't discuss the important issues, they will drive home way too fast and flip off others that are doing the same thing, and ego will win out and they will end up trying to make enemies out people that are just trying to get by also. They'll try to look big by saying the other guy is the bad guy.

 

If my cousins who are the parents of the cousins that joined up had spent more time with their kids and it had been quality time, possibly they wouldn't feel that the only way they could prove their manhood was through killing. But my cousins the parents of the two boys I write about were too busy making money. Sure they took their kids to classes and activities. But rarely did they sit down to meals together, or other family occupations outside of hunting. Those young men were left to feel that only by their kills and accomplishments did they ever measure up.

Their folks never planted a garden, never built anything. What did they have for a measure...something to think about young people and parents. Even their pets were kept outside for fear they might dirty the house. Where were they supposed to learn compassion and balance? On the freeway between activities?

 

Aren't you still on topic by trying to understand what's behind the mentality that leads young people to war? And today it's not just young men, we are now sending young women there also.

 

You can't just flog off anyone that chooses to join up without looking at the reasons they choose to do so. And trying to understand the motives is more productive than labeling and ostrasizing those that don't agree with us. Afterall tomorrow's army is comprised of the children of tomorrow. Will we not try to save them?

 

And you wonder why they don't like us?

Rock Throwing Kids Taunt US Soldiers

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2801514?ns=1