Victor_c3
Victor_c3's Journalthanks
Even though I loved the military and the people I worked with, I hated the war. Granted, I did completely volunteer for military service. However, I had no idea what I was getting myself into or what war was really all about until I experienced it first hand. I'm appauled by what I saw in Iraq and I want to do everything I can from preventing something like this from happening again. And that is the reason I post stuff like I posted above.
It also doesn't hurt that I was drinking a little last night and that helps me get the words out... 
People need to know the truth and how much war affects you after you make it home. They need to abandon the idea that war is glorious and the only people who are killed are the people who fight in it. I like how we acknowledge and remember our veterans with memorials and monuments, but at the same time I hate seeing monuments because I see them as a tool used to present war as glorious. Instead of building monuments to the Soldiers, we should build monuments to the widows and children of the Soldiers as well as the civilian victims of war. Memorial day and Veterans day should be days of national mourning for the pain of wars inflicted on both sides of battle.
I don't want to see a memorial for the war in Iraq with statue of a bunch of American Soldiers holding weapons looking proud and ready to kill. I think it'd be much more appropriate to have a woman in a burqa holding her child and crying at the side of her dead husband and/or a statue of an American woman and her child standing next to a shattered and decrepit veteran. We need to be shown that wars break people in our memorials. Not immages of strength and power. In a local town around here there is a memorial that I love. There is a Soldier standing next to a big granite stone (with names on it) stooped over and crying. It's very powerful to me and it chokes me up most times I drive by it.
I think you're mostly right, but I disagree with a few conflicts
Just shooting from the hip, I'd argue that the first gulf war in 1991 was justified. Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was getting ready to invade other neighboring countries after that. We defeated his military quickly, pushed his forces out of Kuwait, and ensured that he wouldn't be able to ever conduct offensive operations again. If I remember right, we destroyed something like 4-5,000 of his tanks! We didn't keep pushing the war and we didn't get ourselves mired into a 10 year long occupation where we attempted to build a half-assed democracy.
The whole mess in the Balkans was justified in my opinion too. I hate for our military to be used as a police force for the entire world, but some aweful stuff was going on there in the 90s. Seeing what Clinton was using our military to accomplish there was one of the major driving factors in my decision to join the Army when I was 17 in 1997. i honestly believed that we had learned our lessons from Vietnam and that we'd never fight another war like that again. I also believed that the military was a tool used only for good and to help people.
In 2001, I believed Afghanistan was justified as well. Then we got ourselves mired into a failed attempt of nation building for 10 years. We should have never attempted the nation building thing.
2003, Iraq, total waste. I spent 13 months there and I don't even want to talk about it right now.
Obama's 2011 deployment of 100-150 Special Forces operatives to Africa to assist local forces in defeating the Lord's Resistance Army is exactly what we should be fighting too. Do a quick read on Joseph Kony and you don't have to make it too far into your reading to figure out that this guy is a sinister evil person. His militia goes to local villages, abducts children, and forces them to fight in his militia.
Another disabled veteran here
I receive a pension for a 70% disability rating for PTSD from the VA. It's worth about $1,520 a month tax free plus medical care relating to my PTSD is covered.
I made the mistake of joining the Army when I was 17 years old thinking that I would actually be doing something good in the world. I went to basic training between my junior and senior year of high school and served in the Army reserves while I was in college. I received an Army ROTC sholarship and switched over to active duty in 2002 as an Infantry Officer. I busted my ass in the Army and gave my all and went through Airborne School and Ranger School. I arrived to unit a few months they were getting ready to deploy to Iraq in Feb 2004 and I spent 13 months in Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader. I went on patrol and gave everything I had for a war I never agreed with at least 6 days a week. In fact, There were only 2 patrols that my platoon went on without me the whole time I was in Iraq - and one was because I was sick as hell and the other was because we had a standing policy in my platoon that you weren't allowed to go on patrol the day before you go on your two week leave (bad luck). I led my platoon through numerous large and small scale combat events resulting in a confirmed 46 enemy killed (which appauls me, but that is the topic for another thread).
I honestly don't know how I came home alive. In one incident I had a hand grenade blow up no more than 15 feet in front of me and in another incident I had bullets hitting the ground next me while I was crossing the street (the rest of my patrol ran for cover, but I was crazy and kept walking because I was looking to die rather than come home). 5 of the 46 Soldiers in my platoon were killed on 24 JAN 2005 when I lost a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
I've never told anyone in person this, but I almost commited suicide while I was in Iraq. I felt hopeless and the last thing I wanted to do was come back home. To this day I still don't know why I'm still around. If I didn't have kids and I didn't know that they'd be devastated if I weren't around, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. I'm completely stuck in the war even though I've been out of it for almost 8 years. I just can't move on and it pervades itself into every aspect of what remains of my life. Honestly, other than my kids, there isn't a thing I give a f**k about or live for.
I go on periods of time when I get fired up and I just want to get back to the war. If I could drop everything and be back in Iraq tomorrow, I would. I miss the feeling of holding a rifle in my hand, the danger, and ther murder. As aweful as it sounds, fighting in war is a feeling that you can't beat.
I hate being a shadow of what I was when I was in the Army. I was capabe of leading a platoon in combat! Now I can hardly even go to public places like McDonalds without turning into a bumbling idiot. I can't get around to paying my bills on time (even though I have the money) and I can hardly hold a job if it wasn't for the charity of my boss and my employer and their sense of duty for helping guys like me.
I work for the federal government. If I didn't have a huge veteran's highering preference, I would have never gotten the job that I have now. Basically, you need to be really messed up to one-up me on the hiring list. Not to sound sorry for myself, but I'm pretty bad off.
Yup, I'm a mooch and a drain to us all. I should have died in Iraq like I wanted to.
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Sorry for posting immages of my awards from Iraq. I'm not that full of myself. I just like to prove that I am who/what I claim to be. I'm not looking for sympathy or thanks for my service. It's just more of a point of the type of scumbag that makes up the 47% that Romeny despises.
I was going to say the same thing.
I have a nifty 70% disability rating for PTSD courtesy of the VA and I'd be screwed if I didn't get that check every month. I mentioned this in a lot more detail in a post I wrote yesterday on another thread about this topic.
Do I feel entittled to it? You bet! The government and their war broke me and I think they owe it to us disabled veterans.
What is funny is that the Republicans will be quick to point out that Abraham Lincoln was a republican president. Didn't Abraham Lincoln preach something about public responsibility for taking care of veterans? What happened to that belief of the Republicans? It's funny to me how the republicans claim to be the only party that supports and loves our military, but I absolutely get more love from the democrats and their policies.
Most people are good people
I did some time in Iraq and I learned a lot about people from my daily patrols and meetings with various local leadership. Just like here, about 99% of the people in the middle east are good people. Also, like here, you have that one small portion of society that is purely evil and wants nothing more than power and money.
If I saw anyone wounded or dieing I'd risk my life to help them - and I believe most people would do the same. Cultural bounderies make no difference. People are people and usually the good prevails.
I hate that the right wing of our politics is so eager to pin all Muslims as evil blood thirsty thugs. At the root of it, they all want the same thing as us: relative security for their families, enough food to eat, and shelter.
thank you, but I wouldn't feel sorry for me
I tell everyone that it is a volunteer army. Although I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I did volunteer for the Army and to be an Infantryman. As messed up as it may be, I volunteered to be an infantryman. The guys I feel sorry are the Vietnam guys who were drafted and served their country despite their better judgement.
Anyways, thank you for the sentiments.
1986 (I think) Reagen bombing Libya
Either that or the Challenger space shuttle blowing up (whichever happened first, I remember both).
I loved Ronald Reagen and I remember this vividly. I was scared shitless. It was very scary for a 6 year old to realize that I could die if some foreign country decided to send bombers to our country to bomb us.
but but but
That means you're a communist, a socialist, a traitor, and anything else the Republicans like to call us! 
I completely agree with you. I don't understand why, as a society, we devalue the work and labor that the bottom tier of our society contributes. We need bus drivers, construction workers, and janitors. We wouldn't have crap if there weren't a virtual army of low wage earners working in our factories or illegal immigrants picking our fruit.
As a society, we benefit tremendously from the labor of the people I mentioned above. We owe it to them to provide them health care and a minimum level of subsistence. Their children should be entitled to the same American dream as the children of the middle class or the rich.
But I guess I'm just a bleeding heart liberal pinko commie for spouting such rhetoric
I'm dependant on the government
I have a 70% rating from the VA for PTSD relating to my combat experiences and I collect roughly $1,500 a month tax free from the government. I joined the Army and fought in a war that I was ordered to fight in. I busted my ass in Iraq and gave my all to my fellow Soldiers and a questionable cause. As a result, I have blood all over my hands and a pretty severe case of PTSD. Much of my life is in ruins, I'm a complete freak when I'm out in public, my relationship with my wife and my kids is in shambles (I have a hard time expressing positive emotions like love, even though I consider myself a kind and loving person), and I can hardly keep a job in the civilian world. Do I feel entitled to the money I get? You bet! And I believe every veteran who receives disability compensation from the VA has earned it too!
I also received a veterans hiring preference when I got a federal government job. As a disabled veteran, I made it to the top of the list for potential candidates and, essentially, had to be offered the job before any non disabled veterans could even be considered. Is this unfair to others? Yeah, probably. I'll admit that. However, if I didn't have this hiring preference I probably wouldn't have a job right now and I'd get sucking down a 100% disability rating from the VA and collecting SSDI as well. Instead, the government threw me another bone and gave me the chance to enjoy gainful employment. I love my job and I love working for the government. I love the feeling of contributing to society and it gives me some sense of atonement for what I did in the war in Iraq. The government broke me and I fully believe that they owe it to me to help me take care of myself and to have the opportunity to provide for my family.
I'm so grateful for the help and benefits I receive. Without the government I'm pretty sure I'd either be dead or homeless. There is no way I would have any semblance of a normal life without our government.
Anyone who doesn't agree with me can eat dirt with the rest of the guys I buried in the war.
yup
I really need to develop my opinion a little more I think.
I understand where you are coming from in your post against the draft above. True, the top tier of society won't face the same sacrifice as the bottom tier, but I do believe that you'll get a much more representative sample of our population in the military than we currently have right now - and that is vitally important to mobilizing the entirety of America against war on the level of Vietnam protests.
I love my country and I loved the Army. I worked a lot of great people and minus the war the military really did a lot of good for me and my life. It made me the strong confident person I am today (I used to be a fat nerdy kid who played the clarinet in the high school band - no joke).
I'm very against war. I love the opportunity that the modern military gives people and me to move up in the world and there are a lot of valuable life lessons you can learn by going through things like basic training, Airborne school, Ranger school, etc. However, the bottom line is that the military is a tool of war. And, if you aren't prepared to fight in a war, then get the hell out - which is exactly what I did. I'm not going to argue that some wars are justified, but those ones are few and far between. But I think we agree on this.
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Member since: Wed Aug 15, 2012, 02:17 PMNumber of posts: 3,557
