...and he tosses them away when they get broken. Rummy will buy him some more.
I'm giving this a night-shift kick toward morning, so hope you'll get some more replies. Thanks for saying you'll hold Kerry's feet to the fire on behalf of progressives.
I don't have anything specific or personal for you, but as I've mentioned before I've been volunteering with my local chapter of Vets for Peace since September 2002, and I've really gotten sensitized to the way this country treats its soldiers and vets. Here's some things Sen. Kerry should really follow up on, though:
Equipment. A young man named John Hart, from my sister's congregation in Bedford, MA died outside Kirkuk last fall. He was all of 19 or 20, and a friend of my niece. Anyhow, he phoned his dad from Italy to say that his equipment was just not right: old weapon, old flak jacket, wrong ammo. Then he was ambushed outside Kirkuk and died along with two others. I may not have all the details, but that's the gist, and since it's a Massachussetts family you should be able to verify easily, especially since they were interviewed by the newspaper. I don't think they supported the war in the first place, and they have been left with terrible doubts about whether he might still be alive if the military had equipped him better.
Two-tier medical treatment for the wounded. Regular Army to Walter Reed, which is state of the art; Reserves and Guard to outlying forts where they sometimes wait for months for appropriate treatment. Apparently some of them just give up and ask to be discharged so they can go home -- where the VA of course will likewise ignore them. Apparently the excuse is that these segments of the military didn't have a medical system set up for casualties because they were not expected to ever be used the way they are now being used. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH -- IF YOU SEND PEOPLE TO WAR IT IS A GIVEN THAT THERE WILL BE CASUALTIES, SOME OF THEM MAIMED FOR LIFE. Heads should roll. Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. An article was forwarded to me last fall, but I couldn't independently verify it for weeks and weeks. Finally I wrote to our local congresswoman just about the time Senator Ted Kennedy gave a news conference on the subject. Fine, but I have the creepy feeling that nothing has really changed.
Suicides and other abnormal behavior. Could be linked to lariam, the anti-malarial drug (developed by the Army?) but the military of course is denying that this could be so. Nevertheless, there is an uptick in these medical emergencies, and they are being handled with all the insensitivity for which our military is known.
Depleted Uranium. The United States is essentially using nuclear weapons by utilizing so-called "depleted" uranium, but like lariam there couldn't possibly be a problem with this and if we all just ignore it...
Destruction of civilian job protections for military personnel (and by extension, all of us). It's that trick of the Bushies of redefining who gets overtime pay, and I don't know if this is a done deal yet or not. Turns out that the skills you pick up in the military magically turn you into a white-collar management type who works for salary and isn't entitled to overtime pay.
The Bush administration is loathsome and will provide the Kerry campaign with endless material without even looking very hard. I just pray they use this goldmine.
Hekate
"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." ~Donald Rumsfeld
"But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many,
what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you
suppose? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my
beautiful mind on something like that?" ~Barbara Bush
"Do they live on another planet?" ~Hekate
ARLINGTON WEST, SANTA BARBARA CALIF.
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Default.htmclick on the large photo of AW to go here and scroll down:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Arlington_west_121003.htm 
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