Ah but it continues to get BETTER

[46zilzal]

February 12th, 2008
Vets shed light on Iraq service

By Leslie Boyd / Asheville Citizen-Times

.......For some veterans, telling the story dredges up the pain of their experiences. Others find talking about it helps them.

Steve Casey, who was in Iraq for 15 months in 2003 and 2004, has trouble talking about what he saw and experienced there. He has nightmares every night and he has divorced since he came back because he was not the same person who went to war.

“I watched our guys shoot at innocent people and then brag about it,” Hurd said. “If people knew what war is really like, they would demand we get out of Iraq immediately.”

Mike Robinson, another of the demonstrators, said he came home injured and unable to cope with life. With severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, he couldn’t hold a job and wound up living on the street for a time. He credits his 3-year-old daughter, Sara, for giving him the ability to get up every morning and helping him to return to some semblance of normalcy.

“I was lucky. I got wounded,” Robinson said. “I see people going back three and four times. What kind of life is that? What kind of marriage can you have?”

[delayjf]

Imagine the horrors he would witness if we sent him to Darfur? Better keep him home, we wouldn't want to dramatize anyone.

[delayjf]

“I watched our guys shoot at innocent people and then brag about it,” Hurd said. “If people knew what war is really like, they would demand we get out of Iraq immediately.”
So why then did he report this to the Inspector General so those involved can be prosecute?

[JustRalph]

Glad he wasn't in WWII. He might have been gone 4 years and returned to find that his wife had divorced him. What kind of marriage is that? The kind that placed Duty, Honor and Country ahead of ones self. It used to be a tradition in this country. An honor..........now it's an afterthought

[Tom]

What is this, the 46 story hour?
Hunt for isolated reports and post them as if they were some kind of revelation?

Grow up, Tim, dude......this guy's story is dwarfed by stories of soliers prooud to be serving their country.

What I alway wondered is, if so damed many soldiers were so revolted by the horrors of war and the oopen aggressin of America against innocent people, why is it that not one of them has the stones to stand up and do something about it. Fact - they are all armed. Theory - they are the majority.

All talky, no ballsy?

Back, and to the left.
Back, and to the left.
Back, and to the left.

It must be true,
It must be true,
It must be true,

46 must be passing a stone. An Oliver Stone. Talk about conspiracy theorists.

:lol::lol::bang:

[shanta]

must be passing a stone. An Oliver Stone.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[delayjf]

“If people knew what war is really like, they would demand we get out of Iraq immediately.”
Only Iraq??? I guess he's OK with blood curling carnage in Afganistan or the Demwits need to modify their talking points a bit.

[bigmack]

What is this, the 46 story hour?
Hunt for isolated reports and post them as if they were some kind of revelation?
You could hit him over the head with this and it still doesn't phase him. Tiny little world wrapped up waiting to "find" another nugget to post and point his accusative finger. Pathetic........

[46zilzal]

After appearing only seven weeks ago on the Internet, the Appeal for Redress, brainchild of 29-year-old Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto, has already been signed by nearly 1,000 US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, including dozens of officers--most of whom are on active duty. Not since 1969, when some 1,300 active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of rising military dissent.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070101/cooperweb

And this was 2006.

In “The War as We Saw It,” an eloquent Op-Ed article published in The New York Times in August, seven sergeants summarized the futility of their 15 months of fighting in Iraq: “To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is farfetched.” After penning that crie de cour, two of the soldiers died in Iraq and a third was severely wounded.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post printed “The Real Iraq We Knew,” by 12 former Army captains, all of whom served in Iraq. It begins: “Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on Iraq is in shambles. As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we’ve seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it’s like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it’s time to get out.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071016_dissent_from_the_front_lines/

[46zilzal]

As the captains put it : “There is only one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately.”

[46zilzal]

What a waste of resources.
http://zfacts.com/p/447.html

The US budget for Iraq in FY 2006 comes to $3,749/Iraqi. This is more than double their per person GDP. It's like spending $91,000 per person in the US. Why not just bribe the whole country?

The Pentagon's estimate of their monthly "burn rate" is about $6.8 B/month now, but it excludes funds for military equipment.

[JustRalph]

They don't get paid to dissent, they get paid to do what they are told.

The rest is irrelevant................... they can sign all the crap they want. Until they are discharged, they belong to Uncle Sam............

[delayjf]

brainchild of 29-year-old Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto,
The NAVY??? Does Iraq even have a port?? :confused: :confused:

[46zilzal]

Down the road there will be more like this, particularly with all that depleted uranium all over the landscape.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_fawthrop/2008/02/agent_of_suffering.html

[lsbets]

As I pointed out before regarding these gentlemen, their opinions in August have been proven wrong by the success of the Petraeus strategy. Sucks when reality doesn't support what you want zilly.

[Tom]

He was vaccinated against reality, ls! :lol:

[PaceAdvantage]

Down the road there will be more like this, particularly with all that depleted uranium all over the landscape.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_fawthrop/2008/02/agent_of_suffering.htmlIs this some sort of joke?

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/agentorange.jpg

You can't seriously believe that this is an actual photo of an actual living human being, can you?

[46zilzal]

Birth defects left over from the poisonous debris of a war? No.

These children look very similar to the ones born near the Soviet nuclear test sites and Chernobyl.

[PaceAdvantage]

Man, I pulled that photo into Photoshop, and it sure looks a little fishy on the edges of the head....any Photoshop experts out there care to take a look?

[PaceAdvantage]

OK, I've just been handed this bulletin by a trusted advisor....it's a real photo...

http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/orange.asp (http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/orange.asp)

[46zilzal]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,214153,00.html

The aftermath of that mistake is still maiming people just like depleted uranium will do for a very long time to come.

http://www.birthdefects.org/Research/AO_Task_Force.htm
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/5/1230
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/252/7/903
http://www.pbase.com/ira_morenberg/vn_agent_orange

[riskman]

We as a country are not doing enough for Iraq War veterans. Their needs are lost in the shuffle of this endless debate. When they come home their issues are ignored. We need to do more. Why do so many say "bring them home now" without thinking of how to support that homecoming? Most Americans are not affected by the war and that’s obvious by how it’s discussed, but we are at war. All you have to do is listen to those who have served to get a glimpse of how hellish war is and its aftermath. Whether you are for the war or against it the veterans need your help and support. VA services are being cut, vets are homeless, unemployed suffering from post-traumatic stress. They need us to advocate for them. That is something we can all do and see results.

[PaceAdvantage]

It's a little mind-boggling riskman, isn't it? I mean, it's not like we're talking about MILLIONS of people here.

Relatively speaking, the guys and gals returning home from Iraq are a small group, which could EASILY be taken care of very fairly, and with relative ease, given the handouts Bush and Congress are proposing for EVERY AMERICAN, in order to avoid this supposed recession/depression that we are on the brink of.....

It's obviously NOT a priority, and that is indeed a shame.

Perhaps under a McCain administration, it would indeed become more of a pressing issue....

Senator McCain's long and consistent voting record in support of our troops, veterans and their families matches the rhetoric all too many politicians assert when they come to campaign in our home towns.

John McCain has worked tirelessly to improve veterans' healthcare. He has introduced several major bills to ensure veterans have equal access to quality care regardless of where they live. Senator McCain cosponsored a bill to restore coverage to retired service members and pushed to restore health care equity for Medicare-eligible retirees. In addition, he sponsored a bill requiring homeless shelters that receive federal grants to identify and provide counseling to homeless veterans.

John McCain has lead the fight for full enactment of concurrent receipt to ensure military retirees who are receiving disability pay also receive the retirement pay they have earned. Moreover, he's worked to increase funding for severely disabled uniformed services retirees. In 2001, recognizing the backlog of claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), John McCain introduced an amendment to the VA appropriations bill to add $5 million in funding, specifically to hire 100 additional claims adjudication personnel to begin chipping away at this backlog.