I'm not sure the problem calls for tears but that's just me.
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Originally Posted by
Fred III
The problem with this comment is that it is correct. The bigger problem with it is every time I realize it, my eyes tear up.
. . .
I agree it was their parade and I wouldn't have marched either. I wasn't there wishing I was elsewhere or thinking I had more important or better things to do, I was there because it was what I did for a living. No parade required or desired
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Show me the nukes, boys, then I'll fight. Show me! Don't tell me, show me. Otherwise, buzz off, we have no business policing the world's dirty laundry. If we need the oil, we'll pay. If I told you in 1999 gas would cost you $3 a gallon, you would have had a kitten.
Nah, I had that kitten in 1955 when it went to a Quarter a gallon. Years later when it went to half a buck, I didn't even blink.
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... Yet here we are and there isn't a single thread on this site (that I know of) that is complaining about the price of oil. We always pay! We always will, and we'll survive...
That may be because this isn't a political blog.
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... Do you want to give up your son's life so you can drop the price to $1.50? Not me.
We may not have any business doing it but, rightly or wrongly, we have had to play world cop since Franklin knocked our erstwhile allies out of the colony business in 1944-45. All three of my sons served, one is still in, coming up on 18 years and he's no more concerned over his tours and CIB than I was over mine; goes with the job. He's said he doesn't get PTSD, he gives it. Works for me...
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... That's the guy who gives me hope. When the nonsense is over and we've buried our last mistake, that's the guy I want to hear from.
Best wishes,
Fred.
I doubt we're anywhere close to burying our last mistake and I doubt that will occur in yours, my or our kids kids lifetime.
It seems to me there is a contradiction
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Originally Posted by
wm
What's even sadder is when the 20-something Expert staffers brief the Congressmen with material gathered from reading CRS reports which were written by other folks who quite often have little or no hands on experience themselves.
I am just curious how anyone expects more people in our society and government to have a better understanding of the military if we don't have some kind of universal military service requirement. In plain English, a draft.
I regularly read and hear military folks lamenting how detached the nation is from the Iraq war, how none of the Congress or Executive branch have any real comprehension of the military. But the military seems to be resolutely against doing away with a relatively small, volunteer military force. This seems to be a contradiction. You just can't have it both ways, it seems to me.
I'm not arguing for the draft in this post, I'm just saying that I think this kind of separation from the larger society and population carries along with it such things as a Congress having to rely on a lobbyist or staffer to generate any opinion on military matters.