Reply #2: A personal story, if I may...

[KansDem]

This sotry sickens me for the following reason--

I guess you could say I come from a military family. I never served but my uncle and my dad did. My uncle retired from the Air Force as a general and my dad “retired” from the Navy as as Lieutenant after a service-connected disability prevented him from serving any longer. He died a few months later.

During the height of the Vietnam War, my mom, a life-long Republican, had a falling out with my uncle (her brother), a life-long ultra-right wing Republican. He was a colonel then. My mom was a moderate Republican, not uncommon then, and against the war. One phone call she had with her brother the Colonel (my uncle) about the war ended when he referred to the Vietnam War draftees as “scum.” It was a heated argument that lead to a period of several years when they didn’t speak to each other.

Now, one must keep in mind that my mom lost her first husband, a member of a bomber crew, over Germany during WWII and a second husband due to a disease contracted while on an extended cruise in the south Pacific. He contracted diabetes and when his ship docked, my mom didn’t recognize him when she went down to pick him up. In fact she walked right by him; he lost that much weight. This was the summer of 1954. He retired that summer and died the following November.

So my mom knew what war and serving one’s country meant in terms of sacrifice. Her first husband died in WWII, and her second served in WWII and Korea. My uncle never saw action. He flew one mission over North Vietnam in the late 1960s as an observer but was prevented from doing it again due to his “importance.” He joined the USAF at 17 and served in WWII but only stateside. He spent the last part of his “service” in Germany acting as a liaison between the USAF and German officials. I imagine he attended many "wine-and-dine" soirees with his German hosts. He never saw war and retired a General.

I never forgot my mom’s anger and disappointment with her brother; that a USAF colonel could call draftees “scum.” It made me wonder about the code of “honor, duty, country” that military types like to proclaim. And it affected my decision not to join the service during that time (I did talk with a Marine recruiter in my late teens but decided not to pursue enlisting).

I always wanted to say to my uncle, now deceased, “If you think draftees are ‘scum’ then don’t start the fucking wars!” It's absolutely disgusting for US military officers to had such contempt for the ones doing the actual fighting.

Iraq apparently is no different.