The War in Iraq is Real

[invisibleman]

Oh boy.

Are cliches not your thing? :biggrin1:

Yeah, I know. :smile: It is my liberal media education that is at fault.

After all, I could follow the George W. Bush mode of thinking...

"It is un-acceptable to think." --George W. Bush.

 

[WifeOfBath]

You get a lot of whiners in low motivation units like the National Guard or non-combat MOSs, but there is a rampant feeling among Marines and elite units like the Airborne (which my brother is in), Rangers etc, which is one of eagerness, 'chomping at the bit' as I've heard him describe it.

You're completely full of shit. Again, you come off talking like you really know what's going one because your "brother" is one of THOUSANDS of men and women in Iraq, all of whom have an opinion. And guess what, not everyone shares your "brother's" opinion. You don't have a monopoly on knowledge.

Fuck you very much on your characterization of National Guard units. Remember that brother I mentioned? He was active duty army then National Guard when he was deployed first to Bosnia and then to Iraq. I don't think motivation really comes into play when you're in 10+ IEDs and have to scrape your low-motivation buddies body parts off the ground. Or how about when you go home and you have to tell your friends' wives and kids that their low motivation husbands are dead? Tell me again why your airborne "brother" is better than mine, please. Where are his purple hearts? Where is his silver star?

The anit-military anti-republican media has convinced the world that American military personnel commit suicide at frightening rates, often citing statistics that their rate has doubled.

Guess what, even now, even at the increased rate, they are still LOWER than that of the equivalent civilian age group and lower than the overall national rate.

How about the rate of PTSD and the rate that soldiers are coming back with things that are pretty much untreatable like TBI. Do you really realize what these guys are coming home with? Maybe my perspective is different than yours because my low-motivation sibling is home and now my whole family has to deal with him being disabled physically, psychiatrically, psychologically, and neurologically disabled. Yeah, it's great that these guys are all gung ho when they first get there, but after 7 of their buddies get blown to smithereens they don't come home right in the head. It's bullshit if you think they do.

In other words your 'compassion' is often met, by the 'high speed' crowd- the ones actually tracking down suicide bombers and other scum- with contempt and disdain.

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You sound like a 19 year old kid whose gung ho ready to join the army himself and bought the kool aid that it's all testosterone killing raghead fun and games. It may be talked about that way by some soldiers while they are there or to psych themselves up on the way to get there, but that's how these guys are coming back.

Let me explain something to you as a military granddaughter, daughter, and sibling-- war fucks people up in ways that nothing else does. They aren't looking at people's compassion with disdain, they are too busy trying to figure out how to live the rest of their lives after living the horror that is war. My uncle told me offhand that he still has nightmares every night about being in Vietnam in 1968. 40 years later. 40 years and he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep.

I'm glad your "brother" and his elite units are above all that and are going to avoid getting killed or scarred and bring democracy and love for the US to the Middle East. I'm glad they are so gung ho for a cause... whatever that cause is.

Oh, by the way, that letter that was apparently written by a SpecOps in your "brother's" unit, it's all over the internet and has been since 2003, attributed to various people to fit their stories, like what you just did:

Email From Irag
"the canned hams from the networks" - Google Search

Let's look at that date again. 2003. Does that really accurately reflect the military 5 years later, do you think?

 

[BXRBRFSCOWBOY]

For those of us "crazy white boys", me (and my partner), who signed up for the army after the Iraqi war was well under way... I don't know how to describe the feeling. I went to Iraq in 2005-6 and now my partner of 6 years is in Iraq... In the beginning everyone had a different feeling about the war and the situation at home. But now the war has been going on for 5 years or so and the mood has definitely turned with the people that I know. In my unit, which is combat MOS oriented, I don't know of anyone who is "chomping at the bit" to go back. There are the young ones just out of basic who haven't gone yet who are more gung-ho about our possible upcoming redeployment, but the ones who have already been know what is coming up and that is something none of them is remotely eager to relive. So, you can blame the "liberal media" for spreading lies but I feel that they are communicating my views and those of many others who are enlisted. Will I go back? Damn right I will- it is my job and I volunteered for it, but this time without the bit-chomping.

 

[invisibleman]

OK here is the letter:



I'm no longer baby-sitting the pukes from CNN and the canned hams from the networks, but have a combat mission coordinating a bunch of A teams, seeking, finding and rooting out the mostly non-Iraqis that are well-armed, well-paid (mostly with funds raised in the U.S. by 'untouchable' mosques and front organizations) and always waiting to wail for the press and then shoot some GI in the back in the midst of a crowd.

The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of shit that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a camera man from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC.

If they did kill those cunts, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us.

I saw a bunch of 19 year-olds from the 82nd Airborne not return fire coming from a mosque until they got a group of elderly civilians out of harm's way. The Iraqis saw this too.

A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields. The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guy jihadist throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital.

The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn't been a problem in that neighborhood since. How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, never get reported in the 'fair and balanced' press? You know, nada.

The civilians who have figured it out faster than anyone are the local teenagers.
They participate less and less in the demonstrations and help keep us informed when a wannabe bad-ass shows up in the neighborhood.

The younger kids are going back to school again, don't have to listen to some mullah rant about the Koran ten hours a day, and they get a hot meal.

They see the same GIs who man the corner checkpoint, helping clear the playground, install new swingsets and create soccer fields. I watched a bunch of kids playing baseball in one playground, under the supervision of a couple of GIs from Oklahoma. They weren't very good but were having fun, probably more than most Little Leaguers

The place is still a mess but most of it has been for years. But the Hospitals are open and are in the process of being brought into the 21stCentury. The MOs and visiting surgeons from home are teaching their docs new techniques and One American pharmaceutical company (you know, the kind that all the hippies like to scream about as greedy) donated enough medicine to stock 45 hospital pharmacies for a year.

Safe water is more available.
Electricity has been restored to pre-war levels but saboteurs keep cutting the lines. And The old Ba'ath big shots are upset because they can't get fuel for their private generators. One actually complained to General McKeirnan, who told him it was a rough world.

The MPs are screening the 80,000 Iraqi police force and rehabbing the ones that weren't goons, shake-down artists or torturers like they did in East Berlin, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

There are dual patrols of Iraqi cops and U.S./U.K./Polish MPs now in most of the larger cities. Basra has 3.5 million inhabitants.
Mosul is a city of 2 million.
Kirkuk has 1 million.

How many and hundreds of other small towns have not had riots or shootings? The vast majority.

I heard one doofus on MSNBC the other night talk about how the streets are still 'deadly' in an area that I know he has never been to and it is an area that has not had an attack in 8 months.

The [MSNBC turd] is the same jerk who reported on the air that "dozens of GIs" were badly burned when two RPGs hit a truck belonging to an Engineer Battalion
Three GIs received minor injuries (including the driver who burnt his hand) and three warriors of Allah were promptly sent to enjoy their 72 slave girls in Paradise. Hell of a way to get laid.

A mosque in that shithole Fallujah blew up this morning as the the local imam- a creep named Fahlil (who was one of the biggest local loudmouths that frequently appeared on CNN)- was helping a Syrian Hamas member teach eight teenagers how to make belt bombs.

Right away the local Feyhadeen propaganda group started wailing that the Americans hit it with a TOW missile (If they had there wouldn't have been any mosque left!) and the usual suspects took to the streets for CNN and BBC.

One fool was dragging around a piece of tin with blood on it, claiming it was part of the missile.

The cameras rolled and the idiot started repeating his story, then one of my guys asked him in Arabic where he had left the rag he usually wore around his face that made him look like a girl.

He was a local leader of the Feyhadeen.

We took the clown in custody and were asked rather indignantly by the twit from BBC if we were trying to shut up "the poor man who had seen his mosque and friends blown up."

I told the airy-fairy who the raghead was and if he knew Arabic (which he obviously didn't) he'd know he was a Palestinian.

I suggested we take him down to the local jail and we'd lock him and his cameraman in a cell with the "poor man" and they could interview him until we took him to headquarters. They declined the invitation.

Guess what played on the Bullshit Broadcasting System that evening?
Did the Americans blow up a mosque?
See the poor man who is still in a state of shock over losing his mosque and relatives? Yep. Our friend the Palestinian.

Okay, where is your source? You got to site it so that people can check it out. Otherwise, who is to say that you didn't make this up?

 

[marleyisalegend]

the letter had a good point, espeially about the biases and sensationalism of the media, although i'm doubting the authenticity.

 

[deleted15807]

Let me explain something to you as a military granddaughter, daughter, and sibling-- war fucks people up in ways that nothing else does. They aren't looking at people's compassion with disdain, they are too busy trying to figure out how to live the rest of their lives after living the horror that is war. My uncle told me offhand that he still has nightmares every night about being in Vietnam in 1968. 40 years later. 40 years and he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep.

WASHINGTON (May 29) - Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing ever higher this year as long war deployments stretch on. At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year, the Army said Thursday.


Soldier Suicides Hit New High - AOL News

 

[anettenorge]

Omg, are you serious, you think I just made that up?

 

[invisibleman]

For those of us "crazy white boys", me (and my partner), who signed up for the army after the Iraqi war was well under way... I don't know how to describe the feeling. I went to Iraq in 2005-6 and now my partner of 6 years is in Iraq... In the beginning everyone had a different feeling about the war and the situation at home. But now the war has been going on for 5 years or so and the mood has definitely turned with the people that I know. In my unit, which is combat MOS oriented, I don't know of anyone who is "chomping at the bit" to go back. There are the young ones just out of basic who haven't gone yet who are more gung-ho about our possible upcoming redeployment, but the ones who have already been know what is coming up and that is something none of them is remotely eager to relive. So, you can blame the "liberal media" for spreading lies but I feel that they are communicating my views and those of many others who are enlisted. Will I go back? Damn right I will- it is my job and I volunteered for it, but this time without the bit-chomping.

I am not hating anybody for joining the military. I guess someone will think that it is all the liberal media's fault for you guys being over there. Hehehe.

 

[marleyisalegend]

Omg, are you serious, you think I just made that up?

it sounds like somebody's pulling the wool over somebody's eyes. apparently the letter has been in circulation for some years now.

 

[invisibleman]

Omg, are you serious, you think I just made that up?

Put source citation(s) up. Where did you get the letter? Website? Magazine? The more details the better. People should be able to ascertain the veracity of your sources.


Unless you are going to say that the liberal media stole your sources?

 

[anettenorge]

Sargon, suicide rates go up in the military during any armed conflict, but did you not read my post?(and you can check the data)

Suicides in the military are STILL LOWER THAN THE EQUIVALENT CIVILIAN POPULATION. Meanwhile farmers are committing suicide at FOUR TIMES THE NATIONAL RATE.

Stop with this phony concern about military personnel and put a bumper sticker on your car for farmers.

 

[WifeOfBath]

Put a source citation(s) up. Where did you get the letter? Website? Magazine? The more details the better.


Unless you are going to say that the liberal media stole your sources?

It's all over the internet from 2003-- I edited my earlier post. Here's what a google search found:

"the canned hams from the networks" - Google Search

There is no verified source that I can find.

 

[anettenorge]

About my 'liberal media' comment:

During the eight presidential elections for which data on the media’s preferences are available, each Democrat won landslide support from journalists, sometimes by four-to-one or five-to-one margins.

The percentage of reporters selecting the GOP candidate never exceeded 26 percent, even as the public chose Republicans in five of the eight elections.

During Clinton v Bush '92, 89% of journalists voted for Clinton and 7% for Bush.

These are the people that bring your news everyday (if you don't watch FOX and yes they are the ONLY right wing biased TV outlet) so calling it the liberal media is very accurate.

It is not even denied among the media, in fact they often flaunt it. What rocks have you been hiding under?

 

[HazelGod]

No, I was directly the addressing the use of goodbye photos of volunteer adults doing their job, by strangers to post on the internet to bolster their anti-war arguments.

I was describing a world of eagerness for war that is not covered by the media and a resentment against the people who use them for the opposite cause.

You completely missed the point of the photo...but given your responses, I can see how.

You erroneously assumed that the audience was supposed to identify with the soldier. The fact is, it's the brother who stayed behind whom we identify with...not the soldier eager to rush off to kill, but his family who is left behind to live out their days with an enormous hole in their hearts after he returned home in a box.

Yes, it's the soldier who gave up his life, but it's his loved ones who are left to pay the mortgage on that sacrifice. And for what purpose? That's the crucial question. To bring freedom to a nation that hasn't asked for it? To stabilize a region of the world where our energy interests lie? Good fucking show on both counts.

Enough already. The rationale for war was, and continues to be, a terrible lie. Come November, do the right thing. Do it for yourself. Do it for this nation. Do it for the families of those already lost, and to spare more families their sorrow.

 

[anettenorge]

thats not the original version wifeofbath, I have the original in an article in an publication only printed in theatre, which was taken and edited/possibly distorted. But thanks, at least I dont have to defend that I MADE IT UP as the groundswell seemed to be going that way!!

 

[WifeOfBath]

You completely missed the point of the photo...but given your responses, I can see how.

You erroneously assumed that the audience was supposed to identify with the soldier. The fact is, it's the brother who stayed behind whom we identify with...not the soldier eager to rush off to kill, but his family who is left behind to live out their days with an enormous hole in their hearts after he returned home in a box.

Yes, it's the soldier who gave up his life, but it's his loved ones who are left to pay the mortgage on that sacrifice. And for what purpose? That's the crucial question. To bring freedom to a nation that hasn't asked for it? To stabilize a region of the world where our energy interests lie? Good fucking show on both counts.

Enough already. The rationale for war was, and continues to be, a terrible lie. Come November, do the right thing. Do it for yourself. Do it for this nation. Do it for the families of those already lost, and to spare more families their sorrow.

Thank you.

 

[WifeOfBath]

thats not the original version wifeofbath, I have the original in an article in an publication only printed in theatre, which was taken and edited/possibly distorted. But thanks, at least I dont have to defend that I MADE IT UP as the groundswell seemed to be going that way!!

uh huh, so all these people posting it from 2003 have it spot on, but here 5 years later you have the right version. when was your brother first deployed to Iraq again?

 

[anettenorge]

You're completely full of shit. Again, you come off talking like you really know what's going one because your "brother" is one of THOUSANDS of men and women in Iraq, all of whom have an opinion. And guess what, not everyone shares your "brother's" opinion. You don't have a monopoly on knowledge.

Fuck you very much on your characterization of National Guard units. Remember that brother I mentioned? He was active duty army then National Guard when he was deployed first to Bosnia and then to Iraq. I don't think motivation really comes into play when you're in 10+ IEDs and have to scrape your low-motivation buddies body parts off the ground. Or how about when you go home and you have to tell your friends' wives and kids that their low motivation husbands are dead? Tell me again why your airborne "brother" is better than mine, please. Where are his purple hearts? Where is his silver star?

How about the rate of PTSD and the rate that soldiers are coming back with things that are pretty much untreatable like TBI. Do you really realize what these guys are coming home with? Maybe my perspective is different than yours because my low-motivation sibling is home and now my whole family has to deal with him being disabled physically, psychiatrically, psychologically, and neurologically disabled. Yeah, it's great that these guys are all gung ho when they first get there, but after 7 of their buddies get blown to smithereens they don't come home right in the head. It's bullshit if you think they do.

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You sound like a 19 year old kid whose gung ho ready to join the army himself and bought the kool aid that it's all testosterone killing raghead fun and games. It may be talked about that way by some soldiers while they are there or to psych themselves up on the way to get there, but that's how these guys are coming back.

Let me explain something to you as a military granddaughter, daughter, and sibling-- war fucks people up in ways that nothing else does. They aren't looking at people's compassion with disdain, they are too busy trying to figure out how to live the rest of their lives after living the horror that is war. My uncle told me offhand that he still has nightmares every night about being in Vietnam in 1968. 40 years later. 40 years and he hasn't gotten a good night's sleep.

I'm glad your "brother" and his elite units are above all that and are going to avoid getting killed or scarred and bring democracy and love for the US to the Middle East. I'm glad they are so gung ho for a cause... whatever that cause is.

Oh, by the way, that letter that was apparently written by a SpecOps in your "brother's" unit, it's all over the internet and has been since 2003, attributed to various people to fit their stories, like what you just did:

Email From Irag
"the canned hams from the networks" - Google Search

Let's look at that date again. 2003. Does that really accurately reflect the military 5 years later, do you think?

I am not trying to disrespect you or your brothers service and sacrifices and by no means am I belittling him because he is National Guard, I mean I hear the 101st Airborne screaming eagles referred to as the 'puking chickens' all the time by my brother, that does not mean he doesn't not respect them to the utmost.

You just find more of the gung ho types in Airborne Rangers etc, it was my only point.
You're probably the only person on this thread right now other than cowboy who understands the military.

I never said all soldiers feel that way just as all soldiers don't support the war either.
I just read the link you gave, nothing has been altered in the letter other than a few lines, whether my version is the original or not it doesn't matter, I was just sharing it with other people who never get to see that side of the war.

I thanked you for finding it online as I was being accused of making it all up.

This is just too heated and too many people are talking about the military who don't know anyone in the military. Goodnight.

 

[B_jacknapier]

God Bless our Troops!

We've got some real brave boys over there!

 

[anettenorge]

For the record, I wasn't implying that my brother knew the guy, but he gave me an article from a 'newspaper' that was being printed by the operating base they were at, its not even armytimes, it is very low quality btw and all he said was some spec ops guy wrote this for the publication, it obviously made it's way to the internet.

My brother jumped into Iraq as part of operation northern delay in 2003 which was an exclusive 173rd abn op, you can look it up too, but I really don't want to get into this again, after PROVING my last COMMENT. Sorry if you felt disrespected.