yeah but 35 other convoy patrols have given out MRES and water and gifts before kindly that asshole soldier came by. thats why they are running after them. Its habitual and they get a kick out of it.I was there and I threw 10 boxes of MRES over the barbed wire to a family of Iraqis and there children near a camp site we were at during the war. Some soldiers are asses but the majority of us are there because we felt some duty to them after we toppled their leader. I was told not to do what i did with the MREs but i gave them to em anyway. And my Platoon joined in .We were rolling out the next day to a new position and nknew we would get more.plenty to go around. We are the Us you know.We supply ourselves so why not them. Anyway you still cool with me.

Why are we paying taxes for a war in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and that - quite frankly - we could have replaced all their entire national output in oil and gas with by building American manufactured wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, clean coal and other sources in the US, where it would create jobs that then reinvest the money earned back here?

Oh, wait, cause the neocons are morons.

Never mind ...

Occupations are humiliating to the nation being occupied. Im sure the majority of the soldiers dont engage in this kind of humiliation, but a big chunk of them do. And another perhaps smaller percentage engages in brutality. Yes a lot of soldiers are kind and civilians are attended in US field hospitals, but the ones that engage in the humiliation and brutality erase all that. Also, the so called civilian contractors which are nothing more than mercenaries engage in all kinds of brutality and the Iraquis dont see the difference between them and army/marine regulars, they see them all as just Americans. The mercenaries are not regulated and are probably responsible for the big chunk of civilians that are killed by occupation forces. The majority of civilians die at the hands of the sectarian and Islamic terrorists, but another chunk die at the hands of the occupation forces. The longer the occupation lasts, the more the foot soldiers dehumanize the Iraquis. It has nothing to do with American or non American, it is just what happens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3sxop1-PkI&NR
just to show in counter to the video posted for this slog the other kind of soldier in Iraq. There parents are fueling the hate not us. and infact they play with sunni and shiite kids together. Kids and soldiers do not pick sides over their. the Iraqi and Iranian parents do. bring our toops home now.

These guys will make great cops when (if?) they come back to the US.

that left me feeling kind of sick.

Sputnik> Please learn the difference between "there" & "their"...

Doug, I think the LAPD and NYPD have recruiters snapping them up right now.

sorry its just that my wireless keyboard probably needs new batteries. misses some letters and its like annoying pressing backspace all the time and retyping. I'm not trying to make out an graduate essay online either for my professors. But i'll try to keep the spelling correct. I'm mixing work and this together so its kind of a speed thing too. later.

eah and to to Will or Doug those soldiers will be your Lawyers, your fireman, your future war protester, or the guy who may make pot legal in Seattle because he became a politician or lobbyist. He may be also be the drunk of the week , a bank robber or bipolar nut with an attitude. Like it or not Soldiers are human after all and some are in it for the paycheck where as others are not. Back home citizens don't really care but in the Army and Marines they do. Personally i was in it at first for the paycheck, but it dawned on me there was even bigger benifit in helping the oppressed. I agrree however, that the war is futile and we need to come home now. We just exsposed to them what they already knew from the start. How much they hate eachother and in conclusion they don't need a civil war. Hell if were so hated it would be perfect scenario for them to team up and battle us. But they don't. because we are not the object of their hate. They just were shown they have other options. Now its time to go home. I feel for their kids though. The Adults over their are frigging nutzoid.Thats my belief and i'm sticking to it. 3 tours and you start getting a bit cynical thats all.

Sputnik: The pity is, even with a small minority of soldiers being total asses is enough to turn the tide against everyone. Un-does all the good work done by those with honor.

Watching this video reminded me of those horrifying moments before an un-avoidable car accident. Everyone is screaming, more gas! turn! break! Nothing left to to but brace and tuck.

It doesn't really hurt yet, but it soon will.

#11 or how about a Combat roll?!
You can always spring back to your feet after that one.

Look, I have friends who've been injured in Iraq, you don't have to preach to me. I'm just saying, it's time to pull the plug. Yesterday.

Sputnik: Thank-you for your service.

I'm not sure any army could have succeeded at creating a functional democracy out of Iraq. These are cultures that have been biding time for mass slaughter since the Ottoman Empire.

If only Kurdistan holds together, it will be a near-miraculous event.

RIght you are, Sputnik. And some will be Tim McVeigh and the DC Sniper. These two guys on the back of this truck are assholes.

Reading...

Like it or not Soldiers are human after all

I think it's easier for people to ascribe generalizations to a faceless monolith than it is to square stereotypes with real people. I've met several soldiers the past few years that have taught me a lot about what it means to be a strong leader, and you have to respect that in people no matter who they are or what they do.

Personally I think it's pretty lame to paint soldiers with a shitty brush because they're the ones paying for the mess in iraq, not us. they didn't start the war, and it's because of them that we get to sit on our asses and blog all day. I'm thankful for that.

If you really want to know what went wrong in iraq, read fiasco by thomas e ricks. Way more enlightening than a video on gootube.

I think there's more and more research out there that indicates these types of "non-combat combat" situations do a lot of harm to soldiers' psyches and overall effectiveness.

Take a bunch of (mostly) guys in their 20s, train them up for organized, squad-based tactical combat against an organized opposing force. Then throw them into a desert city that is falling apart at the seams societally, where they have to run patrols in underarmored jeeps (in the classic sense) and deal with being a glorified police officer, solving domestic squabbles, religious infighting, as well as unseen people who are actively trying to kill you, but not in the same manner in which you were trained to respond. Throw in very little downtime and you have a breeding ground for discontent and a feeling that somehow you really aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Basically you can turn into a jaded fuck pretty quickly when there is no tangible outcome or progress from a day's activity in the field. Sputnik, if any of this runs counter to what you saw or experienced, just let me know.

The same thing happened in Vietnam...My Lai, the booming heroin trade, incessant bombing campaigns by the 70s...I fully expect any day now for the Air Force to just start bombing the everloving shit out of Baghdad's outlying neighborhoods. That's when you know we've reached rock bottom strategically.

Laterite you are exactly on target. I was an Air defense artilleryman trained in stingers. i was not an MP. military police officer. We got there and were told we were to escort and patrol because we had nightvision capability. It was totally diffeent than the training we got for 10 years trying to nst the former soviet union. or north korea for that matter. Everyone switched rolls over there in iraq and we learned to adapt. I still liked the job(someone has to do it) but it was overnight training for my platoon and Battalion. Anyway its ironic that the only guys blowing up our airsupport over there and using airdefense techniques were the enemy. I had trained since 1989 to shoot down migs...what gives. Oh yeah we are non conventional war like army now thanks to Rumsfeld. I'm done with war now. gettn to old for that crap.

To twist a Yakoff/Slashdot joke too far:

When it comes to Iraq War, you don't choose to be grunt, grunt chooses you!