From Iraq-Nam of DailyKos

[fabucat]

ONE OF THE BIGGEST CONFLICTS of my daily life is my view of our troops in Iraq.

Often I meet them only in death. And often (after, for instance, seeing pictures of a little brother with his eyes downcast in unbearable confusion at a funeral , or when reading about a farm worker family the slain soldier was desperate to support) I weep.

But in the

Comments

[fabucat]

those aren't my words and i didn't want to edit that paragraph out...in retrospect i probably should have. all in all still the good outweights the bad in this article.

[soldiergrrrl]

It's okay. I know those aren't your words.

It's been a bad day for the Catamount family, myself included, so I'm more sensitive than usual.

Please forgive me.

[fabucat]

oh no. i'm sorry! :(

[soldiergrrrl]

There's a reason I don't read Kos.

I'm sure that it's nice to be self-righteous and all, but it's amazing that I can quote just as many soldiers who, even after being shot, burned, blown up, or having their friends turned into names on a casualty report, still get through the day without laying waste to entire city blocks becuase they're "killers." Soldiers who don't consider "Iraq-Nam" and who resent like hell the comparison. (I would be one of those soldiers, btw.)

As for the female PA specialist who was told she couldn't cry at the memorial services? I don't know what crack her officers were smoking, but every single memorial service I ever went to, men, women, officers and enlisted were crying, holding on to each other for support and helping each other grieve. In fact, after one crew chief died, I held an NCO in my arms while he cried. I have pictues of the battalion SGM crying at the memorial service, his head in his hands, and tears dripping between his fingers,