Very sad article in my local paper today.

[Rainbowreflect]

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/11/17/top_story/doc419af89892388934187541.txt

A 23-year-old U.S. Marine from Omaha died while serving in Iraq on Monday — the same day his wife gave birth to their baby.

Cpl. Shane Kielion's son was born at about 10 a.m., and Kielion died just hours later, said his aunt Karma Matthews.

Her nephew never heard he had become a dad, Matthews said.

[rvgwinn]

1. ARE YOU listening

Mr. Bush?

[Spinzonner]

2. Rapturously

[BJ]

3. Yes, it's very sad but remember this...

He is, or was, a volunteer. He was there because he wanted to be there. No Selective Service board snatched him up out of civilian life and dropped him in the middle of Iraq. When he took the Oath of Enlistment he did so fully understanding the inherent risks:"...I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me,..."

The saddest thing is that it seems that he enlisted out of economic necessity.

[Rainbowreflect]

4. But being a "volunteer army" does not make the lies true

or the immoral, moral.
The damage this illegal, immoral invasion has caused is greater than I can even imagine.
I sat down & sobbed when I heard this story this morning.

[BJ]

8. No. But remember.

When Milton Friedman fathered our current all volunteer force in the Nineteen Seventies, in the wake of the trauma of Vietnam, the left blithely went along. At that time the military draft was so hated that the cry went up from the left, "Let those who want to be there, be there." I feel those are words that we will all rue some day.

[UL_Approved]

5. Voulnteer for your lives!

The phrase "volunteering out of economic necessity" is an oxymoron. IF he had another way to make a living, then it is volunteering. When it is the only way to make a living, that is economic slavery. People have yet to wake up to the fact that the force of poverty has replaced the force of law when it comes to enslavement. People of low income are no better off than people who were enslaved in the 1800's. The idea of poverty and social status keeps this up. Make sure that you understand the difference.

[Rainbowreflect]

6. Very good point!

The poor & working class seem to just be fodder for their wars & slave labor for their corporate greed.

[BJ]

7. You have to remember that an Army boot gets a better rate of...

...pay than a kid out of high school flipping burgers. The last time I checked a new recruit in boot camp received about $13,809.60 a year. Plus all the "educational insentives" that are dangled in front of high school seniors it's hard to resist the Siren Song of the recruiter.

And remember, Jessica Lynch enlisted for the exact reason of "economic necessity" out of her improvished area of West Virgenia. Except for Wal-Mart there were no jobs.

But you are right in that it is also economic slavery for, as I see it, the young man mentioned above had few options. Not knowing the economic circumstances of his family we can't say one way or another if he volunteered out of other than economic reasons.