Somehow,
I doubt the mode of transport for our fallen soldiers would differ from one administration or another.
So, on this front, I don't believe the attached article broke any new ground.
However, I do feel the article might manage to shed a renewed light on the brutal realities of armed conflict.
Soldiers are not a nation's pawns. They are a precious, living, breathing and feeling collective resource. They stand ready and willing to sacrifice both life and limb; prepared to forever suffer the horrible memories of war, should they survive in body.
But we all know this.
What we may have trouble realizing, is that these valiant men and women should not be put into harm's way without prudent, conscientious, and exhaustive consideration of every available fact, and likely scenario -- and perhaps, even a few unlikely ones as well.
War is never easy, nor is it cheap, in any sense of the words. This, I believe, was the Doctor's original point. My apologies, Gonz, if I'm being overly presumptuous. He seems to believe -- as I do -- that the Bush administration was woefully remiss in their monumental duty to carefully weigh the cost of the Iraqi mission against its goals. In their eagerness and great haste, they appear to have overlooked -- to state, mildly -- a good many issues regarding military action in Iraq.
If you ask me (and, I would understand if you didn't), Bush, Cheney and all those they appointed failed, and continue to fail, our military. And they do so, far more than any of the war's moral opponents and detractors.
As for those cardboard boxes being welcomed by airline baggage handlers, could we really have expected anything more?
For a government, I feel, it's all a matter of bottom lines and efficiency.
Tragic, but seemingly true.
We should all be a lot more careful, next time . . .
To all of you who insist this country is being led by honorable people...
To all of you who continue to support the Bush/Cheney administration and their lies...
To all of you who call us progressives and liberals "traitors" who "undermine our troops"...
I say to you that you are full of hypocritical shit and its time for you to shut the fuck up and get your heads out of your asses.
The attached article will give you a better idea of how utterly odious and loathsome the level of cynical disrespect our government displays towards our fallen troops has become.
To all of you who fall into the prior categories, I say... "Fuck You you idiots. Wake up and get a clue."
Read the article, and feel the shame.
Remove Bush From Office. Now.
[[Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening.]]
Duh. We knew that before he was elected.
Gonzo,
Nice to see you have elevated your game. Glad you aren't meanspirited and glad you are supportive of free speech and opinions other than your own. As for the story in the link, that is disturbing, but is irrelevant from the validity of the mission in Iraq.
The DoD is pretty tight when it comes to handling the remains of service members. Bodies from overseas come in to Dover AFB and are assigned a uniformed escort who follows a strict protocol. When the bodies leave Dover via hearse the mortuary personnel stop work, line the driveway and present a slow salute. The uniformed escort accompanies the remains at all times until the body arrives at the funeral home and helps make arrangements for proper military honors.
But yes, the coffins are going to be put in the cargo hold. They're not going to be seated in 1st class. And they're not treated like just another box.
So, I say to you crazy liberals, please don't shut the fuck up but do please get your heads out of your asses.
;^|
insofar as dead men don't feel a lot of pain about their manner or mode of shipping, and it may be little more than random instance of harmless error.
Logically, however, one would want to question why a Chief Executive of the dominant power on earth would involve his nation in a war without a clear plan for the obvious result, ie, internal power struggles with the only strangers trying to act as police among those who have no desire to be policed.
One might ask if this Chief Executive had ever heard of Vietnam, but that would be a rhetorical question. Whether military power can be transferred into political power in a strange nation - or exactly how it's expected that Americans will be MORE secure, after paying the uncertain price of this adventure, these are slightly more subtle questions.
I am reminded of an ancient Oriental named Sun Tzu who said something about the wise general who does not fight and win, but wins by avoiding fighting.
One cannot observe this Chief Executive and his administration for long without wondering if he knows what the fuck he is doing. It could be that inserting Mr. Bush's head into his ass would result in actual improvement in affairs.
While I do not question the sincerity or validity of your logic, Spock, I am concerned that perhaps your past history of taking LDS combined with having had your Katra in the mind of McCoy may have interfered with your ability to perceive certain scenarios under the auspices if IDIC. However, I can not find flaw with your sentiments towards the Chief Executive.
Live Long and Prosper, Spock.
I much preferred the days when we were killing children in Waco compounds over trumped-up weapons charges. The whole problem with this damn war is Janet Reno is not around to blame it on. Oh sure, I'd fuck her if she were a provider - you know anal is on that menu. Probably some cravasse availability yet to be defined in the hobby lives there in those folds of crusty skin. But I doubt that Koresh would have done her. Go Branch Davidians! Just goes to show ya what Mormons could accomplish if they said "fuck it" to full auto permits. I say bring the troops home. One Crypt is down, the rest to go.
but can they shoot? The only times they shoot, they seem to have to be point-blank (Mountain Meadows massacre) or in a vise (Gary Gilmore, et al). Maybe they need full-auto permits.
And having forgotten my Ritalin this am, that brings up another subject: why hasn't the Pope or somebody got a patent or copyright or something on holy shit? Think of the money to be made here.
how revolting!! The very thought is emotionally abusing me and all my sisters!! I wouldn't touch that with your dick!!
How are my ratings?
DoctorGonzo, the folks who responded to your post make some excellent points. I think they got you this time.
For me, I'd be a little more impressed if 10news.com had posted this on their website w/o the ads for the Olive Garden Gift Card and Mercury Insurance. Seems like this is not respectful of a story intended to expose disrespect of the manner in which the remains of fallen US servicepersons are handled.
Did anyone else seem to think this was a contradiction?
PS. For the posters pushing 50 - this reminds me of a song from my adolescence by Country Joe and the Fish, entitled [I think?] "The Vietnam Rag." It contained this immortal lyric :
"...be the first guy on your block,
to come home in a box."
Some things never change it seems.
-- Modified on 12/13/2005 6:56:13 PM
The song was called I Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die Rag and here's the verse you were thinking of:
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send your sons off before it's too late.
You can be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
MEA CULPA! You and The Editor are absolutely right re the title.
I could be wrong but I think that line was used in more than one verse. The one I kinda remember [I think] went something like this :
1,2,3,4
....... [sorry, totally forgotten?]
Hey, hey, hey what are we fighting for?
Don't tell me I don't give a damn,
Next stop is VietNam.
5,6,7,8
Open up the Pearly Gates.
Be the first kid on your block
To come home in a box.
Please forgive my faulty memory. I was still pre-adolescent at the time and my parets were rabidly ignorant and arch-consevative to reactionary and I daren't even hint at knowing something as innocently subversive as that little song.
Sure takes me back. Not that it was all that great the 1st time around.
and I will pass on the op-ed for now. Later, maybe.
Singing along with the Fish and acrowd of 20,000 cheering screaming drugged up peacenik hippies in the 60's was an experience i wont forget.
dont remember much else, hehe.
military service, and it is increasingly lower. I have noticed that tactical doctrine in Iraq tends to be 180 out from Vietnam - Iraqi ambushes have been so pussy that the doctrine seems to be fight from your position when fired on; while in Vietnam, standing in the kill zone to return fire was certain death, and the 1st task of any NCO was get his people out of the kill zone. The difference has to be the level of fire and professionalism of the adversary.
One figure I have watched closely for, and never seen, is total casualties. What we see is only KIAs. The figure in RVN was 5-1; and by that calculation, we surely have over 10K WIAs - maybe as many as 15K, assuming medical service has improved.
The real risk in military service is gruesome physical and mental conditions, shitty pay, and the near certainty that your girlfriend will shitcan you. Your civilian friends, like Dickhead Cheney, will be warm, dry, well-fed, well-paid and well-laid, while you are trying to roust dinks who hate your guts, and wondering when you can get your boots dried out. People who think this is glorious haven't been there. There is no misery on earth that compares to the life of an infantryman.
I cannot forgive assholes like Dickhead Cheney. If there is any justice, there will be a special circle in Hell for them, complete with all the leeches they missed.
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
I assume they are counting purple hearts, and not non-combat casualties, which probably add at least another 1K, considering the number of people and length of ops.
-- Modified on 12/16/2005 6:11:58 PM
by some to put forawrd more lies and more mislieading information about reality.
If anyone out there thinks that the military disrespects their own fallen, well your just plain nuts.
The bodies are treated with the utmost respect as they arrive at Dover and are processed. See the link.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/gallery.htm
But at some point they must be turned over to civilian authorities for final transportation.
What are you expecting?
1) A single body be transported home on a C130?
2) A full color guard accompany every body on every commercial flight?
3) In order to be fully respectful, I guess the color guard all deserves first class seating?
Families are notified of the death in a much more personal way whenever possible. The coffin flag accompanies the coffin. It's not possible, nor probably allowed by the carriers, for the coffin to be draped in flight.
But it would be a good opportunity for home town vets, reservists, etal. to meet the body and provide another color guard at the airport, as they will offer at the funeral if requested.
Wake up people.
questioning the wisdom of this particular expedition.
Politics in a democracy will and should always raise questions, but it's important to draw the line between metaphor and misrepresentation, lest politics become too much of a pigsty.
As far as we can see, nobody has a beef with any part of the military. Americans have been pretty democratic about expecting citizens to serve, and that is as it should be. While there are benefits to an all-volunteer army, one MAJOR MAJOR disadvantage is that it insulates the leaders from the bleeding, and that is NOT as it should be. Moral authority requires that the priorities of leadership should coincide with those of the nation as a whole, so that Mr. Five Deferments' statements should morally exclude him from any leadership position higher than shift manager for 7/11.
The question this war presents is a political one; to wit, is it a waste of blood and money, or ill-advised for any reason, and BTW, what IS the plan? The apparant absence of planning for the obvious strongly suggests that the ruling party has other priorities, and logically, that is a political obscenity.
It is also worth noting that there are serious questions about the role of the Iraqi war in national security generally, eg that the 9/11 commission is not impressed with our progress, and that the war seems to have seriously distracted from threats to national security such as Hurricane Katrina; and the response of the administration in its Patriot Act, support of torture and hostility to questions seems thoroughly un-American (ie at odds with traditional values); and that this problematic level of competence should probably not be surprising in an administration led by a man whose difficulties with the English language and mood-altering drugs are legendary; and while the Democratic Party may not be a clear improvement, it is hard to imagine that an administration of sock puppets could do worse, and it seems time to remind everybody that politicians can be fired, and that the blood or pink slips of politicians now & again may be essential to water the tree of liberty.
How are those for some metaphors, Mr. Editor?
How about some Strunk & White?!
Somehow,
I doubt the mode of transport for our fallen soldiers would differ from one administration or another.
So, on this front, I don't believe the attached article broke any new ground.
However, I do feel the article might manage to shed a renewed light on the brutal realities of armed conflict.
Soldiers are not a nation's pawns. They are a precious, living, breathing and feeling collective resource. They stand ready and willing to sacrifice both life and limb; prepared to forever suffer the horrible memories of war, should they survive in body.
But we all know this.
What we may have trouble realizing, is that these valiant men and women should not be put into harm's way without prudent, conscientious, and exhaustive consideration of every available fact, and likely scenario -- and perhaps, even a few unlikely ones as well.
War is never easy, nor is it cheap, in any sense of the words. This, I believe, was the Doctor's original point. My apologies, Gonz, if I'm being overly presumptuous. He seems to believe -- as I do -- that the Bush administration was woefully remiss in their monumental duty to carefully weigh the cost of the Iraqi mission against its goals. In their eagerness and great haste, they appear to have overlooked -- to state, mildly -- a good many issues regarding military action in Iraq.
If you ask me (and, I would understand if you didn't), Bush, Cheney and all those they appointed failed, and continue to fail, our military. And they do so, far more than any of the war's moral opponents and detractors.
As for those cardboard boxes being welcomed by airline baggage handlers, could we really have expected anything more?
For a government, I feel, it's all a matter of bottom lines and efficiency.
Tragic, but seemingly true.
We should all be a lot more careful, next time . . .
explain the opposite POV, ie, the possibility that the Bush admin has in fact prepared us well to go to war, and conducted this war in a reasonable manner, instead of charging off to muster votes.
Well, must admit, there are some definite points here I hadn't taken into account. I'll acknowledge the knee-jerk reaction to the article.
But as far as "eventually, the coffins are handed over to civilian transportation authorities"... thats no excuse to call a fallen soldier "Freight". Ever.
I'll back off spiotting on the Bush administration, but I will not back down from my feeling that disrespect is being shown the soldier and his/her family.
This is America. We CAN, and SHOULD do better for those who give their lives in service to their country. We owe them that much, at least.
in those bags because a bunch of chickenhawks sent them off to war without thinking how they were gonna get them out of this mess. "Hey, why don't *YOU* go stand in a kill zone, so *I* can talk about how tough I am to send you there?"
Leaders are paid to make the best possible decisions. These fuckers are busy padding their own re-election prospects by selling people on the idea that bleeding & dying (always it's other people) is glorious.
Well, it ain't. You don't see these DRAFT-DODGING SLIMEBALL MOTHERFUCKERS lining up to go adventuring. Because it ain't an adventure. It's fucking miserable in every possible way.
We can't get our money back. We can fire these assholes. Problem is, what can we replace them with? Dean has not been particularly inspiring recently. The faceless bureaucrats may do better than the recognized politicians.
Draft Colin Powell. Order him back to duty. Triple his pay, BEG him to come back to duty.
-- Modified on 12/15/2005 4:18:52 PM