VetVoice:
Well that didn't take long. Polls across America had been closed for less than 24 hours and Army Career Counselors were already exploiting Barack Obama's victory in an effort to recruit former soldiers back into units. This email was forwarded to me by an Iraq veteran and former Army captain who received it on Wednesday:
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Oh recruiters, you don't know how much people despise thee!
My favorite quote by a fellow soldier during Basic Training, "When I go home on leave I am going to punch my recruiter in the b.a.l.l.s.".
That is not an official communication.
If it is genuine, it is the equivalent of personal email.
It's either a lame joke, or an attempt to get subordinate recruiters to use Obama to confuse people about the nature of a military enlistment.
yeah, don' t mention the other war!
Okay, how about turning the Reserve and Guard into what it was once? Time was Reservists or Guardsmen could go on tours of duty if they requested it, people made careers out of that. When the balloon went up, entire divisions and commands of the Guard and Reserve would get mobilized, serve for the duration of hostilities and go home. Now it's back and forth and the Reserve and Guard are components of the Active Military. That's messed up because it does not allow a family to have a normal life. If we need defense, maybe the active military should be big enough to do the job and the Reserve should be just that..
In particular, the National Guard has been mobilized far too often.
The present misuse of the Guard/Reserve system is demoralizing.
The dishonesty towards regular Army personnel is demoralizing and harmful too.
Soldiers are sensitive to how a war is spun - they actually see it on the ground, they are first to see the political spin. There are plenty of liberals in the military - they'd agree with many things that HuffPosters say, but, they do believe that American safety demands a good military. They are proud of a good fight for the right, but they generally resent it when it becomes clear that they are being misused.
Let's not forget that the Guard is a state's first line of response in times of natural disaster, etc.
The Guard and Reserves were not set up to be used like this. The Guard is our state militia and first line in natural disaster, the reserve is for rapid mobilization while regular army reaches balance. Either can be mobilized in times of national emergency - but, I don't think that meant half a decade.
Just more mismanagement with consequences that will take decades to recover from -
what college kid thinks the Guard is a reasonable obligation to make to help with school right now? Not many.
What is worse is the "Privatization of War".
I don't have enough space to go off on the merecenaries, like BlackH2O, right now.
My goodness..they may not go to Iraq...but they WILL go to Afghanistan. I wonder if the Army tells them that!
Yesterday, I attended a book presentation; the author was Dexter Filkins, a distinguished journalist from The New York Times. The title of the book was The Forever War. The book is, of course, about the war in Iraq and the occupation, and Filkins was rather glum. The surge did work, he said, even more, paying every member of the Sunni resistance $300 a month works. However, as soon as the U.S. would pull out, chaos would erupt, and a bloodbath would occur.
Well, I'm sure he knows Iraq better than I do (even though he admitted not to speak Arabic, then again, New York Times' reporters are not that great in speaking foreign languages). Anyway, he seemed well informed and he had spent a lot of time there. The striking thing, however, was not that he did not see a way out, he also saw nobody at fault. He said something along the lines of: "We did not want this war, you did not want this war, what can we do?"
Huh? This is not George W. Bush's war. Bush had an approval rating of 90 percent when he started his little Blitzkrieg against the Middle East, and he had an approval rating of more than 60 percent when the U.S. army attacked Iraq. The New York Times endorsed that war. So, now, everybody is a victim? Did they all follow orders?
http://cabal-thenovel.blogspot.com/
Whoever was "for" it, was for it because they believed the LIES of the BUSH GANG. Call them GULLIBLE after 9/11, but don't think for a minute anyone but a true hawk would have been for that INVASION otherwise.
the war in iraq will wind down for the wind up of the war in afghanistan.
Iraq should be put on notice that the pull out begins in 2009. They need to assume greater responsibilty for their country and prepare for the day when the US only has a small force there.
There will be no immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
The only reason Democrats were demanding retreat from Iraq was to make Bush lose. There is no politicial reason now for retreat and Obama is no fool. Might as well stay and finish the win.
Finish what win - exactly how do you define winning. I define winning that their government is stable and let us get the he!! out of there. We don't need to spend that money - in case you haven't noticed we don't have any money left. Bush put us in the hole - a deep dark hole.
Win what? Seriously what is there to win anyway! I define winning by ending it! And I define good governing by keeping us out of war not by starting them!
No wonder no one takes you seriously. You're never right about anything.
No one ever mentioned retreat. You're using a bush/republican word, I guess you missed the election. You and your childish buzz words were soundly rejected. You're irrelevent, and using BS like that is not going to make you relevant. Your last point, "stay around and finish the win."
I know you play yourself to be anything but a big d*mmy, but you're not. You are as dum* as they come.
...and your arrogance is nothing short of the actions of a washed up clown...
The Iraqi government wants an ironclad guarantee that we are going to get out before they accept the new status of forces agreement, without which we are not allowed to be in Iraq after the end of the year. So staying there and finish to "win," whatever that is, is not doable because the Iraqis will not accept such a strategy.
The proper response to such messages is to respond the way the Obama people responded in South Park.
LOSERS!!!!!
"WIN"? You mean when all the Iraqis are dead?
Those three areas should NEVER have been combined into one FAUX country by the Brits.
Right.
Enlist kid. We'll be out of Iraq in one year. You can enlist on the 13th month.
13th month: Welcome kid. Glad to see you. Well, we're out of Iraq. But President Obama has opened a second front in Afghanistan. You ship out tomorrow.
At some point the U.S. has to leave Iraq. There can be no argument about that. The question is when?
And for all that still refer to this as a War .... well that's just not the case. It has been a military occupation for many years now as the War was over rather quickly back in 2003. So let's call it what it is.
If the brains in Washington still believe that the occupation of Iraq is vital to (i.e. Oil) "National Interests", expect the U.S. to continue it's occupation of Iraq.
Like we left Korea, Japan, and Germany?
The governments of those countries have not demanded that we leave. The Iraqi government is demanding an ironclad guarantee that we will leave before they ratify the status of forces agreement. If this is not ratified, we will have no right to be in Iraq after the end of the year.
The Iraqi government is demanding an ironclad guarantee that we will leave before they ratify the status of forces agreement. If this agreement is not ratified we will have no right to be in Iraq after the end of the year.
Obama will never end the Iraq war.
There will be 50,000 troops there throughout 1 or 2 Obama terms.
You can put that in the bank.
Yep as long as her surrounds himself with z i o n a z i advisors.
Most likely this was an ill-advised attempted use of this tactic by a dumas recruiter. This is not a sanctioned approach by USAREC and this recruiter could get in trouble.
those who believe Obama will get us out of Iraq are full believes in Santa Claus.
US foreign policy never changes whether the admin is dems or repubs. Remember, many many dem congressmen and senators voted for Bush' wars.
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First Posted: 11- 7-08 05:13 PM | Updated: 12- 8-08 05:12 AM