I could not agree more. The ugly side of war is not something anyone is really acquainted with unlesss they have walked a mile or more in a veterans boots. When I first enlisted, the military had just started this computer simulated war games apparatus called "War Fighter"....some of you may have heard of it. It was a joke. It in no way prepared anyone for the psychological effects that come with seeing people blown up right in front of your eyes. It had nothing to say about what one should do in a Field Medical Tent when you have a ten year old brought to you who was just a half hour ago a smiling face in a market....until a suicide bomber decided to get his 72 virgins the short and easy way. War Fighter taught me nothing about how to deal with seeing such a kid come into my medical tent and watching as he died of his injuries.....in his religion, those were combat wounds, inflicted by an enemy with no regards for his own people, whether the child was a civilian or not.
But the people who I am talking about who have no real idea of what we go through, are those civilians who would never sign on that dotted line (or sign that Blank Check as I read it). There is no clue among those types. My cousin who has never seen a bad day in her life asked me right before going to my first tour in Iraq, "why do you have to go?" I replied that it was first of all my job and second, I did not have the right as a soldier to say "no". She said, "well, if they told me to go I just would say I was not going and that would be it." I told her that if she contracted with the US Government the way I had, then saying "no I am not going." would land me in prison. She said that it was "unfair" and she still insisted that if one refused to go there would be no way they could go to jail and she even belived that one could say no and they would just let you out of your orders to go. No amount of convincing could dissuade her from her extremely incorrect viewpoint and simply put, her naivete.
Kids who have not experienced a war but have still grown up in a era of war (this currrent one is the longest in history) have absolutely no concept of what it is like to be a soldier. And that is sad because I have to truly wonder......
How many kids are getting offed, first in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan because they are able to be recruited due to their extremely incorrect views on military life and again, their own stupid naivete>>>> And how much of the military, the recruiters in particular, play off that naivete in order to get recruits to sign on the dotted line, I suppose a question to anyone willing to give me the answer becasue I really would like to know an answer. The question is...........
How much naivete do you think has wound up in those psychiatric wards or in those medical wards (which are the terms used by Mr. Aussie) (cannot remember your first name so I resorted to "Mr. Aussie" again)
Cheers.
