Serving My Country

[Mongol-Swedes]

I joined the Army and sacrificed nearly all of my freedoms, receiving, in compensation, consumer discounts, free housing, free food, access to classified information (much of it quite startling), clothing, and the opportunity to witness a combat zone and gain a rare perspective on war for those from my old community. Ontop of that, I gained a new respect for my body and a new appreciation for the freedoms I once had (apart from those that had been silenced by the PATRIOT Act of 2001). However, Basic Training, and even JobCorps, was not a substantial wake-up call to grow up. I was already fairly mature in certain aspects, and naturally intelligent.

 

It was the fact that this intelligence had gone largely untapped, with mitigating factors in my life preventing me from being able to explore my potential, as well as an unresolved trauma in my past involving the loss of an immediate family member, that led me to my present place in life.

 

John Kerry was on the right track with his 'botched joke', but, like many progressives, he couldn't find the right words for the masses to clearly understand his true message: America's armed forces, especially the Army, is full of young and old draftees.

 

This is no simple 'all healthy males' draft like we witnessed in the past. Disguised as a volunteer Army (and technically it is one), the Army has capitalized on the terrible socio-economic plight we face here in the States, where fearful high-school seniors, and even older citizens with long-established careers simply looking for a secure retirement, that their only road to success is college. And higher education is getting increasingly expensive, with the Reaganites all the way up to the Second Coming of the Bush*tes, having eroded every single progressive social policy the American People sought for in the past since the Great Depression, ALL SO THAT THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX COULD MAKE A QUICK TRILLION.

 

And I'm no stranger to the 'college draft'. I wanted to continue my education because I sincerely wanted to learn more. I couldn't achieve it with JobCorps, with its leadership having chosen to cut the services they claim to provide that would allow for those who showed potential (I completed the high school cirriculum a year and a half ahead of my old high school class!!!) to find affordable, if not completely free, higher education through a local community college and get an associate's degree, and take that to a better college elsewhere and achieve my dream.

 

I swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Anybody with a sensible bone in their body can tell you that leaving your backside exposed to an enemy is completely foolish. There are enemies in our homeland. They are not 'Hadji'. They are not Al-Qaeda. They are not 'terrorists', 'Islamo-Fascists', 'Muslim Rag-Heads', none of that BIGOTED CRAP!!

 

They are Bush and his 'Cabinet' oligarchy, his business pals both at home and abroad (SAUDI ARABIA, most of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as most of the international terrorists that threaten the United States, WERE/ARE SAUDI!!), the Congressmen and Congresswomen who voted for his policies all the way from the PATRIOT Act of 2001 to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Sieg Heil, OR ELSE!!), it is the bastards at Faux (excuse me, FOX) News, the Christo-Fascists who supported the completely bogus 'War on Terror' (MORE TERRORISTS NOW THAN EVER!!), and anyone who still refuses to acknowledge that Bush and his cronies are NOT here to protect us.

 

I can barely put on my U.S. Army uniform anymore as I witness my fellow citizens failing time and time again to see the truth. But I also understand that it's difficult to find the time to care; the economy is failing. Granted it's performing better, true, but who's reaping the profits? Not the hardworking factory worker who's bent over backwards more times than Bush has made Americans look like complete idiots, while trying to put her kids through school and having to tell them that she can't pay for their college, that their only chance might be in the Army.

 

What kind of America are we living in where we have to choose between fighting for a totally false cause, or resorting to fricken beggin on the streets in one of the richest countries in the world? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over?

 

Flags are hanging upside-down in this nation for a reason.

 

[Tamurin]

I hope that now, after the democratic victory in the elections, the era of Bush will come to an end and that the american people and their representatives in both houses of the congress will begin to find out what really happened the last 5 years and also begin cleaning up the mess they're now in.

 

And by doing so I hope that your frustration about the american people will decrease and you'll again feel better wearing this uniform.