Again the plight of our soldiers has been widely ignored. Some of which are now being recalled after already being discharged for a few years. Conscription is the word to describe the practice of recalling soldiers who have already been removed from the armed forces for a few years. Right wing supporters can point at the fine print all they want, but the entire concept of ‘fine print’ is that you’re trying to dupe someone. When I enlisted it was told to me that the ‘fine print’ was only there in case the US was under attack and desperate for bodies. The US is not under attack by Iraqis and never was. The only reason I received an explanation of the fine print was because I asked.
‘Support Our Troops’ I honestly don’t know how someone planning to vote for Bush again this November could have this on their car or front lawn. The concept is so far away from the realities of politics in this country. Reinstating the draft is an answer, another is permanent expansion of the Army, but neither is pursued for various reasons. The draft will not hit the table because there’s an election to be won…the election hopes of Bush come before the troops, fact. The expansion of the Army won’t take place because the pentagon continues to blow smoke and in spite of all that’s gone wrong in Iraq, continues to plan for the best, when the worst is what we’ve ended up with so far. Their justification for not creating more battalions of soldiers is that by the time they’d be trained the mission will be over. This was the same line they used last year and the year before. Where is our country’s leadership coming from when support for our troops is on the table?
Who in this administration is looking out for the well being of the soldiers? An issue that was argued today was about whether Rush Limbaugh should be on Armed Forces Radio, and the government just involuntarily scooped up some more of our fellow Americans and forced them into slavery. The tracking devices for military vehicles to detect roadside bombs are still not available to the majority of our vehicles over there, and the political motivation behind trying to remove Rush Limbaugh from the radio is the press-worthy issue?
Not only does the Bush administration care not for a single soldier anywhere in the world, the media’s deplorable non-coverage is absolutely wrong. I saw the front of the New York Times yesterday and there the story was, yet on Fox News and CNN it was all about the Edwards nomination and has continued to be that way. There is no outcry anywhere in this country over what’s happening to our men and women in uniform, yet I can’t drive a mile down the street of my hometown without seeing at least five ‘Support Our Troops’ signs or bumper stickers.
We’re all so comfortable not having to be the unlucky ones going through all of this, and the right wing has the tagline, ‘well they signed on the dotted line’, which to me is basically them admitting that the soldiers were suckers for enlisting in the first place. This is the political spin being put on all of this, yet nobody points out the fact that it’s calling the soldiers suckers. How can you claim to support them and call them suckers at the same time? What is going on in this country? Does anyone care about this at all? This connection being made on one of the drive-thru news broadcasts could hurt ratings, which too come before the troops. I get the impression that the population would rather their summer not be interrupted by bad news. Hang out a sign, slap on a bumper sticker, and I did my part.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is par for the course, as are physical debilitations and sleep disorders for anyone who’s been exposed to what these soldiers have been exposed to already. Gulf War Syndrome has never been admitted to even existing by the pentagon, yet I’ve seen it first hand many times during my time in the Army. Those soldiers were breathing something funky down there. The VA’s funding is being cut in next year’s proposed budget, just in time for these poor souls to arrive back home. It’s my impression that the government would really appreciate if these suckers would die as soon as possible. It’s a fact that in 2005 a veteran will have to pay six times more for treatment and medications that he did in 2004. Is this a coincidence?
We’re all in this together, something the partisan champs don’t like for us to remember. We’ve all got blood on our hands here. You can scrap the he said she said partisan nonsense, scrap the environmental fight, scrap the campaigns…scrap it all. The exploitation of our soldiers is what needs to be hollered about from coast to coast at the top of our lungs. The way it will probably be brought to everyone’s attention though is when some of these people who our government’s used and tossed out with the garbage start realizing what was done to them and get to feeling that Tim McVeigh wasn’t such a crazy guy after all. Say what you want about monster he was, we were all sure as hell listening to what he had to say after he blew it up, didn’t we? We were captivated by the interviews, and even though any rational person would see him as scum, what drove him crazy was right there for all of us to see, only it wasn’t us, so nobody cared. The same dynamic causing our apathetic view of the plight of these soldiers was how we all most likely viewed Ruby Ridge and the government’s denial of Gulf War Syndrome.
After this war all bets are off. Get ready for it everyone, because unless these soldiers find themselves an advocate anytime soon, their lives are over whether they survive the war or not. If you’re putting your politics in front of the lives of those you claim to care about today, you could become one of their victims tomorrow. Fear of death might prompt us to snap out of it, but gratitude for their sacrifice should be enough.