It’s been a while since I’ve seen some press about the Individual Ready Reserve in Iraq (oh, here’s some), but Saturday night I met a young lady who’s father was called up to go kill people 20 years after being discharged from the army. He is opposed to the war, and told his kids before going that it was unjust. Apparently he thought it was his duty to go anyway. As misguided as that belief is, many good men have died for having it. Her little sister has had a chance to meet her father only once, the day she was born, then he was off to the wonderful land of liberation and democracy that is Iraq, where he gets to play the IED lottery for the chance to never see her again.
I can report to you that this man’s absence has caused great pain and fear for this family – my neighbors. The girl became particularly upset while decribing her frustration with mass media. In all the hype surrounding this war, she says, there is a distict lack of focus on the lives of the individuals doing the fighting and dying on all sides. Remember the Dover test?
When the life of a dead American soldier is brought up in the press, it is invariably a pack of lies used to exploit their foolish sacrifice in some PR stunt.
Many US troops don’t want to be there at all – some say so outright, and some refuse to fight, but most shut their mouths and do their “duty,” keeping their fingers crossed and biding their time.
The fact that this conflict, which even that traitor Bill O’Reilly calls a “war of choice,” is being fought by guardsmen, the IRR and those unfortunate enough to miss the cut and get “stop-lossed,” is an outrage.
Any American who is for the continued occupation of Iraq, yet has not signed up to go take the place of a man who wants to come home is a pathetic coward and hypocrite.