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I'd rather not let this become a political thread, so please don'ty start blaming this or taht group for failing our troops or being stupid or evil or whatever.
I'd just like to hear what you guys think about the war. You'll remember I am a vet. I wasn't out very long when we shipped out for Afghanistan. I actually watched friends over there on their first deployment. Often they were boots I'd led elsewhere myself. I was pretty proud that I had the opportunity to teach them the import of teaching their own boots how to do it. I hope taht something I said might once help some fool kid like I was, make it through another event. My life hasn't been so very successful since I left, but I would like to think I made a difference, if only for taht short time.
I was very worried at what I saw and an attempt to fight the war on the cheap. I could see it and most of my buddies felt the same. We'd grown up on a diet of serious invsetment in our fights. Both presidents I served under made sure we had more troops than we needed on the ground, because it's easy to send troops home when they prove unneeded than todrag them into a shoting war when it is evident taht we don't have enough boots on the ground.
We finally came to realize taht this was not just a test of high tech warfare. The intent was to allow us to fight elsewhere. None of us liked it--stinting in Afghanistan, but we also knew the Army hadn't been capable of a multi front war in decades. We though that the set asides mightt just be to presevre our ability to respnd to problems elsewhere. Noen of us dreamed that the rumor of an attack on Iraq might actually be true. It coudln't really ahppen. It was just to big a stretch for the military if we wanted to handle Afghanistn.
And then it did. And we all screamed and hollared because we could see once again that we weren't sending enough troops in to handle the occupation early enough to do any good. So lots of arms and other bad things disappeared while our troops stood there and watched from the small contenments they had hacked out of the various places they stood when the invasion was declared over.
Some of my buddies were active duty. Some I got to know after we had got out and are closer than many of my service freinds. I didn't hear from a few of them for years at a time. Some have been wounded, and not complained. They laugh and say "I got bit, or dinged," or "I shoulda zagged," They raised their hands and know they chose this fight. So they have not said publicly what many have said privately: that both of these missions were badly bungled and it has cost us a huge amount of treasure, life and prestige in the world Some have died and I've lost contact with their families. That is, sadly, what happens. You move on, and so do they.
My friends are serving through some of the hardest times our military has seen. Thee're trying their damnedest to prove taht pros can hack it. But some of us have got out for the same reason I did: I spent almost 8 of ten years deployed into hard places. You eventually get battered into submission and can't go on. Some of us have held on, and refused to bend, and are getting old and grey haired. I don't hear from many anymore. I guess that's normal as well. You try your best to move on.
Of course, we're just a bunch of old farts bitching at each other via email. We have our own perspectives, and many of us don't agree with each other about the neccessity of Iraq. Some think it was wise but badly done, others think it was not necessary and badly done. Some think we did the best we could--really- and taht it's just been a long hard fight taht we seem to be turning the corner on.
I'd just like to know what you guys think. We're all grownups, and we all have opinions about it, and we all are capable of being gentlement when we discuss something this important. Let's not besmirch the honor and intergrity of my friends and yours while we discuss how we feel about it all.
So...what do you think? What is the war to you, ;ooking back over the years.
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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."
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