Letters to the Editor
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Expectations? Oh. Oh. I know this one.
Anonymous...
One of my sons enlisted long before 9/11 and Bush. He passed on Georgetown Law School and chose the military because he thought he could bring something to it. He respected the institution of the Marine Corps. And he wanted to be a part of something that combined discipline and strategy. Brawn and brain. He knew it would require him to live up to his potential. Up or out.
On his last tour, his men were sent out on one of the most dangerous stretches of road to protect a Halliburton....ICE CREAM TRUCK!!! He asked me how he would tell the mother of one of his men how her son had died if there had been casualties.
My second son enlisted in the reserves a few days after 9/11. He expected to go to Afghanistan and hunt down the people who had brought such pain and tragedy to us. As we know, that WASN'T SADDAM HUSSAIN. IT WASN'T IRAQ. He's still in the reserves and Bush says he doesn't think much about Osama Bin Laden anymore.
Most of the people in the military did not enlist to fight Bush's battle of the ego. In fact most of the people who are being buffetted back and forth in the National Guard units, were in service long before Bush. Their expectations were to be available to help their friends and neighbors in their home state in times of national disaster. Like Katrina...case in point.
People in the reserves enlisted to be available in times of real need. Not in Iraq, caught in the crossfires of a civil war. They did not enlist to be the private army of a man playing war from the comfort of his sun-rug bedecked office.
Most career military likewise were in place before 9/ll and did not enlist to fight in a war based on rigged intelligence and neocon wetdreams.
The idea that all of those people walked into this in full swing is nonsense. Get over it.
So. Ex.pec.ta.tions.
Fight when NECESSARY.
Be treated with dignity and respect in exchange for their service.
Never, ever, be used as the pawns in a political game.