Troops

That monkey is hiding behind you.

He's using you to cover his ass! Don't let him use you anymore! The monkey keeps saying that the only way to support the troops is to send them to be sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. That's not supporting our soldiers, it's sending them to hell.

The whole argument that if we leave now, all those deaths would have been in vain.... is bull.

The truth is that the majority of Iraqis want us to leave.

After a year in Iraq, 3700 Troops from Ft. Wainwright don't get to come home. The move is a blow to morale of the unit’s soldiers and their families back home at Fort Wainwright, Alaska...

And they're going into the heart of the violence, with 6,000 civilians killed in the last two months alone, most of those were in Baghdad. Here's a few thoughts from Soldiers currently in Baghdad:

"Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat."

"It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving around waiting to get blown up."

"No one wants to be here"

By Dr. Doug Rokke

While U.S. and British military personnel continue using illegal uranium munitions—America’s and England’s own “dirty bombs”—Department of Energy and Department of Defense officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing and use of uranium munitions. The reason for the doubletalk is obviously to avoid criminal liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive and toxic material—depleted uranium (DU).

How do I know this? Fourteen years ago, I was asked by the U.S. military to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War I.

These telling quotes from a couple of young soldiers were buried at the end of this Salt Lake Tribune article

Who is responsible for the near daily bombings?
"I don't know," she says. "I suppose insurgents. Trying to get rid of us, I guess. I guess they hate us because we done blown up half their country."

Standing nearby, Spc. William Clark playfully tugs at Gitten's leg to lighten the mood, but he himself doesn't stay jovial for long.

"You know, the president and all these people say it's al-Qaida, but no one knows who al-Qaida is," says Clark, a Virginia farm boy who just began his second tour in Iraq.

The first time around, with Saddam Hussein still on the lam and with the hunt still on for the dictator's alleged stash of weapons of mass destruction, Clark figured he knew who the enemy was.

This time around, after leaving an infant daughter back home, he's no longer so certain. "How can we know who is our enemy," he says, "when we don't even know why we're here?"

Listen to these words of Wisdom from an Iraq Veteran
Aidan Delgado MP3

My name is Aidan Joshua Delgado, I’m 23 years old, I’m a veteran of the 2nd Iraq war, I served one year in Iraq- 6 months in Nasiriya, 6 months in Baghdad correction facility at Abu Ghraib.

I just want to say that I’m not a politician, I’m not a general- I was an E4 specialist, I was the least of soldiers, I’m just here to give my experience and my narrative of what I saw in Iraq and maybe it’ll touch on some larger issues or bring home a little bit of the reality from the war.

... Working closely with the prisoners is what really began to change my mind and my heart about serving in this war... When I saw the faces of the people that I was hurting, I really began to change on a spiritual level... I looked at these guys and saw young, poor, uneducated guys who didn’t have a lot of choices in their life, and now they’re forced to fight us. And I looked at the guys in my own unit and thought, "man, we’re exactly the same." All the guys in my unit were young, poor, didn’t have the best education or choices in life... and when I came that realization I felt all of my fighting spirit just bleed out of me.

I looked at these people and I thought why would I hurt them, what is the purpose of me being here?

this audio is mp3 #1 of 3 here
Listen yourself, or better yet, play for others.

"Every day you read the articles in the States where it's like, 'Oh, it's getting better and better,' " said Lance Cpl. Jonathan Snyder, 22, of Gettysburg, Pa. "But when you're here, you know it's worse every day."

“I thank George Bush for making my son a killing machine,” the father of a soldier who is said to have confessed to killing his wife in Lakewood said on Thursday at his home in Ohio. “All he could talk about was how many people he killed over there and how easy he could do it,” James Pitts Sr. said. “He said he ran over kids and everything over there. . . . He went to Iraq, and he was fine. He came back a monster. How many more monsters are going to come back?”

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Altogether since 2003, there have been seven homicides and three suicides on Western Washington soil involving active troops or veterans of Iraq, based on an accounting of medical examiner, military, and news reports. Fives wives, a girlfriend, and one child have been slain.

Army Spc. Thomas R. Stroh, 21, strangled his wife, Brittany Stroh, 17, and son Dylan Stroh, 2, at their Fort Lewis home. He later committed suicide driving head-on into a semi truck in Oregon.

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During the summer of 2002, four soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, killed their wives — and three of them killed themselves. Three of the four men had been taking Lariam before their suicides…

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Nine days after Pfc. Stephen S. Sherwood, 35, came home to cheering crowds at a welcoming ceremony at the post near Colorado Springs, neighbors reported hearing gunshots at the Fort Collins home he shared with his wife of seven years, Sara E. Sherwood, 30.
An autopsy Thursday evening found Sherwood shot his wife five times in the head and neck with a pistol before killing himself with a shotgun blast to the head.

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I suppose there’s lots of Americans committing murder/suicides and the army is no exception…. or is something happening to people after they join the army that makes them more violent, like the notorius Anthrax shots?

Four soldiers kill their wives in a two month span.

The [medical] team also said the anti-malaria drug Lariam, given to troops sent overseas, was unlikely to have been at fault. Side effects of the drug, also known as mefloquine, have been known to include psychotic episodes.

Two then committed suicide, the others were charged with murder. Oops, make that three, the third soldier was found dead in his cell - he was planning on using Lariam as his defense.

60 Minutes II Correspondent Vicki Mabrey reported in January that Wright was considering using Larium as part of his defense. Lown, now an ordained minister who visited Wright in jail every week, said Wright was “very confused, he was very paranoid, and I was like ‘Wow this is not the Bill that I knew’…About the fifth week after that, he was coherent. He was fine. He even said, ‘Well, I’m thinking a lot better now.’”

What does Lown think caused his change? “I think it was the medication. It took about two months for the stuff to clear out of your system.”
Lown and his unit had names for the days they took Lariam: “Everybody would call it Manic Mondays or Wild Wednesdays.”

Manic Mondays??? Psychotic episodes???

We’re giving our troops drugs that cause dangerous side effects? Then charge them with murder?

Are they still giving troops Lariam? Yes.

Do they tell High School Recruits about the psychotic episodes and murder/suicides? No.

Do people that order such practices really support the troops?

The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who’d taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises that such cases would be publicly disclosed.

!!!!!!!!!!!! SUPPORT THE TROOPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arrest the sons a bitches that withheld this information!

Instead, a parade of generals and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving the shot from 1998 through 2000.