Military enlistment crisis continues

[tristano's ghost]

Not that that's really a surprise, or news, even:

enlistment crisis

How about those 101st Fighting Keyboarders? I nominate Jonah Goldberg of NRO to be an official human IED detector.

[Gary Sisco]

Don't worry. It'll get worse.

[lynn]

Lawmaker: Maher treads near treason

Published May 24, 2005


Comedian Bill Maher's mouth has landed him in hot water--again.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) says Maher's comment on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" May 13, that the U.S. military has already recruited all the "low-lying fruit," is possibly treasonous and at least grounds to cancel the show.

"More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club," Maher said of the Army's low recruitment numbers for April. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies."

England was accused of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"I think it borders on treason," Bachus said. "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country."

In a statement released Monday, Maher defended his support for the U.S. armed forces.

"Anyone who knows anything about my views and has watched my show knows that I have nothing but the highest regard for the men and women serving this country around the world," he said in the statement.

Bachus said he was appalled after watching a rerun of the show on his return from a visit to Germany, where he had met with a paralyzed U.S. soldier.

Numerous television stations pulled Maher's previous show, "Politically Incorrect," from the air in September 2001 after he argued terrorists weren't cowards when they slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon a week earlier. Maher later apologized.

----------

The truth really hurts.

[Slurpy]

Originally Posted by lynn

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) says Maher's comment on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" May 13, that the U.S. military has already recruited all the "low-lying fruit," is possibly treasonous and at least grounds to cancel the show.

"More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club," Maher said of the Army's low recruitment numbers for April. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies."

England was accused of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"I think it borders on treason," Bachus said. "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country."

But lying in order to justify starting a war is okey-dokey?

What a butt-kissing goober Bachus is.....

[GoodSpeak]

Personally, I think we need to bring back the draft.

Oh, yeah.


Forcing men/boys to serve in a war they don't support is sure to get tons of grass roots support. I mean...abso-freaking-lutely.


Draft the young teenage bastards and teach 'em a lesson.





Maybe we can even lower the draft age to 13, huh?

[john williams]

"I think it borders on treason," Bachus said. "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country."

The rest of the world's sick to death of listening to American polypticians waffling on about US national security.

How many innocent non-Americans will be killed so y'all can feel safe and snug again?

Who'd want to join the US military? We all know how they fuck over their own.

Is it really worth fighting the VA for Gulf War Syndrome? It seems to me they just want to identify you to ridicule you and deny you benifits. I served in the Navy from July 76 until Jul 96 when I finally retired with my full 20 as a Chief Fire Controlman FCC (SW). I went out after spending nine of my last 12 months of active duty on limited duty. In July of 1995 I had a doctor who had been after me to go on limited duty for about six months and after getting a complete a$$hole for an XO I took him up on his offer. At the time I was having problems with weakness in my left arm, (MRI's showed a herniated disc in my neck and a couple, out of many, nerve tests showed some pinching of a nerve) at the same time I was seeing a rheumatoligist for joint/muscle aches, headaches and what they called DIMS ( Deminished ability to Induce and Maintain Sleep). Mind you I had been hiding the joint and muscle pain for years in fear of getting a medical retirement. During the course of the exams I was having the doctor was having a hard time loacting reflexes in my left arm so he sent me to Bethesda to see a neuro surgeon so off my wife and I went. During the exam in Bethesda the doctor told me he was unable to get any reflexs anywhere in my body to react at all. He belived I had Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and should go back to my doctor in Mayport. I went back to FL and my Doctor did a spinal tap ( man talk about the mother of all head aches) and ruled out MS, in the mean time I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I was sent to Charleston on 9 month TAD orders to be close to my family, went back to Floridqa for 3 months, finished out my 20 and retired, no retirement cermony or party, no end of service award, no thank you for your service, no transition assistance program, no benifits briefing , nothing, just one day I wore a uniform and the next day I didn't.

After I retired I approcahed civilian life just like I did military I worked hard to be sucessful. But things were getting harder and harder. When I first got out I applied for benfits for my neck and I had bad knees as well as sinus surgery, knee surgery and a rebuilt ankle. I continued to work hard ( as a Realtor). Being a sucessful Realtor takes long hours, working 60+ hour weeks and never having a day off. You have to be there when your clients are ready, day night or afternoon, weekday or weekend. So please all of you appreciate what your Realtor does for you. Any way after a while the body aches became to much and I was not able to put in the hours I once was able to. The fatigue was getting to me and there began to be days that I just could not fuction. I asked fro an increase in my compensation fro fybromyalgia (which at the time was only 10%) and I began to go to Voc Rehab training because I knew I would not be able to continue the long hours Real Estate required to earn a living. In In Jan 2003 I became ill and was having severe pain when breathing, my doctors took some x-rays and decided I had pneumonia and treated me with 10 days of antibiotics, a follow up appointment showed no improvement, they then started antother course of stronger antibiotics. Another follow up with no improvements. The x-ray showed a large amount of fluid on my left lung. My doctor took me aside and explained to me what was going on. He had consulted with another doctor and I was going to have to go into the hospital for some test to rule out TB and cancer. I went in, they drained 900ml off my left lung. Spent 10 daqys in hospital. Tets were neg for TB and cancer. Was out of hospital for 10 days when it all started to happen again. This time fluid was too thick to drain and I ended up with having my chest spread open and having lung surgery to remove the mess. I spent 4 days in ICU and 10 more days in hospital. I now have only about 50% lung capacity. Subsequent follow up with the consulting rheumatologist shows it was an autoimmune attack due to unspecified rheumatoid disease. I had a similar episode in 1985 but the doctor ( an internist) was never able to figure out what happened. I applied for benifits based on that and ofcourse the VA denied my claim. They say there is no service connection and it is probbaly related to the fybromyalgia for which I already receive compensation. I asked my doctor to review my active duty service record which he did and he pointed out several things that were over looked and why my current illness was undiagnosed while on active duty, that there were signs of it going all the way back to 1979 and that it was completely seperate from my fybromyalgia. I filled an appeal and have another C&P exam with the VA in a week. I am currently rated at 70% ( they droped me from 80 to 70 because they said that even though I now have 2 more herniated discs in my neck and one more in my back my degenerative disc disease is getting better). I am hoping to finally get a 100% rating because due to my illness and the side effect of the meds I take I haver been unable to work since May of 03. I now suffer from near constant muscle/joint pain, fatigue, depression, headaches ( that can last as long as a month at a time), have trouble sleeping, morning stifness, and fogginess. I tried for Social Security ( on my own) with out knowing the system and was turned down. hey told me to go back to Real Estate. So much for the goverment you protected supporting you. I was too embarassed to appeal. I guess I should try again.

How does all this tie into the Gulf War. I was over there aborad ship but I never figured I was effected by GWS. I was over there long after the peak of hostilities were over ( first half of 93). Of course we got an array of shots and pills prior to deployment but I don't know where my shot record is and there is nothing in my medical record. As a Fire Controlman I worked on the Navy's Close In Weapons Sysytem (CIWS) which fired 20mm DU rounds. We fired the rounds all the time and of course had to clean the gun and police up the deck for the sabots and debris as well as daily exposure to the magazine. This of course meant exposure to solvents when cleaning the gun and its systems. Shipboard life naturally meant some exposure to pesticides because the corpsman would have to routinely spray for pests. How much if any of this can or has attributed to where I am todqay I don't know but is it worth going to the VA and having them poke and probe me even more then they have? Is it worth them trying to discredit what I have already fought so hard for? It seems to me the people who would have the most exposure were the ground troops envolved in the actual ground war. Belive I could be wrong as I am as far from being a knowledge source as one can be. It just seems that the VA should be there to support the Veterans not to make their lives a nightmare. The worst part is is that it seems like no one cares. We are yesterdays garbage set out to the curb for collection and disposal.

I was in the Navy in the Persian Gulf Conflict in 1991, and i got really sick (along with everyone else on my ship, Uss Cape Cod) after they gave us the experimental vaccines. I was a high pressure pipe welder, (and i have been reduced to cleaning houses for the past ten years because that has been the only type of job i could handle doing.) My health immediately began to deteriorate. in Sept. 2003 I finnally realized what my problem was, what i had. (Gulf war illness). I immediately went to my VA hospital to try to get Doxycycline , and it has been a tremendous battle to get this medicine, and to try to get my life back on track, but it is slowly returning to me. (For now) And i can honestly say that i am not always sure that my recovery has always been worth it because this last year has been so ridiculously difficult. I feel like i am slowly waking up from a nightmare

http://www.gulfweb.org/fusetalk/mess...7&threadid=258

[tristano's ghost]

More on how Bushie & Co. have wrecked our military. Quoting Robert Novak, of all people (yeah, yeah, I know, he's relatively "anti-war").

Has this become the Daily Kos' sister site?

Are there any other sites you read besides these two, TG?

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Has this become the Daily Kos' sister site?

Are there any other sites you read besides these two, TG?

Quite a few, actually... both jazz and news/blogs. The blogs esp. are great at catching a lot of stories that fly under the MSM's radar for various reasons.

What did you think of Novak's report?

Haven't had the time to read it yet. Will let you know.


Bloggers are taken with a grain of salt in my world.


Remember, that's how Drudge essentially got started. Too often those stories flew under the radar of the mainstream media for a reason.

By the way, what part of that mess is Novaks?

[groover]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

By the way, what part of that mess is Novaks?

Click on the highlighted word "treads" in the first line.


Army's recruitment crisis deepens





May 26, 2005 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak...t-novak26.html

[Gary Sisco]

Fuck every single one of the talking heads of whatever stripe.

If you want to know what is what in America's Iraq, read *Generation Kill.*

If you don't want to know, and most don't, don't read it. Just run your mouth.

Allow me to translate, folks.

What Gary is saying here is:

"Fuck any of the people you get your information from. They are all wrong. I know, because I'm the only person here who knows anything and I'm always right. Read Generation Kill by Evan Wright. Mr. Wright is a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, and although you dimwits haven't the slightest clue, I will tell you that Rolling Stone is one of the last bastions of truth left in America, and their reporters are the only people left on the planet that know anything, other than myself. Reading this book will not make you as smart as me, but at least you will finally be getting the truth and nothing but the truth. If you refuse to read this book, it clearly shows what I, and only I, have known all this time. You do not have the capacity to think for yourselves."

-Sisco Of The Universe

It's gotta be tough being not the center, but THE entire universe of truth.

How one man can carry that burden is absolutely amazing.

I personally don't think I'd even have the strength to sit at my keyboard.

My hat's off to you, Gary. You are a billion times better than I.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Screw Bachus. I'd be willing to bet studying the Bill of Rights wasn't a major part of his upbringing.

If anyone takes the time to read England's bio, Maher's comments makes sense. The voluntary Army is better than one filled with conscripts. But let's face facts, the so-called "elite" aren't joining the military in droves. The majority of the cats joining are joining to get away from some "thing". Low prospects, some dead end town, a screwed up enivironment, poverty, etc. Hell, I joined back in '74 for the GI Bill, so I can relate.

Kids with bright prospects or guarantees of college (except the service academies) aren't signing up. They weren't before the war and they certainly aren't now. Let's be real. Kids aren't willing to risk their lives over some dubious cause. Saddam wasn't Hitler and the Baathists weren't the Nazis.

"Low-flying fruit" means you're fruit easier to pick. Without a doubt there are cats who joined because they may have a chance to see combat. But I'd love to see a poll of current military members who joined for that reason.

I'll never forget the time I saw a woman on television during the first gulf war whining like some helpless bubblehead:


"He joined the military to get a decent education, not to fight in some stupid war".


As I look back, I'm pretty sure that was the day my brain snapped.


Permanently.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I'll never forget the time I saw a woman on television during the first gulf war whining like some helpless bubblehead:


"He joined the military to get a decent education, not to fight in some stupid war".


As I look back, I'm pretty sure that was the day my brain snapped.


Permanently.

I agree that using a government-funded college education and the promise of govenment-funded world travel as recruitment hooks for decades had some people thinking that getting killed as payment for that travel or education was unlikely was deceptive at the very least.
Of course, telling naively gung-ho highschool students that joining the military, learning how to kill strangers in a foreign country in pursuit of an imperialist agenda would have been much less effective.
You'd be hard-pressed to see ANY reference to the recruit being trained to kill, either from the air, or by aiming deadly weapons, or in hand-to-hand combat in any of the beautifully illustrated, full-colour brochures.
OOPS.
The first line on the text of the brochures should be a reference to the country needing fresh young bodies to send to foreign countries to kill for politicians' ambitions. BUT THAT ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN ANYTIME SOON, IF EVER.

Particia, please........


Anyone who is so fucking stupid that they have absolutely no concept of wars and who fights them by the time they are legally old enough to join the military would be diagnosed as mentally disabled and not be allowed to join the military.

Deceptive.......

To whom?

And your weak excuses are just that: weak.

[groover]

It is tragically Darwinian, but if you can't read between the lines, you may as well be cannon fodder.

Well, I almost said if you're that fucking stupid maybe you deserve to die.


But that would just get the huggypoo's here in an uproar.

[Gary Sisco]

This much I know, all politics aside. If I was hanging on the corner while they sent my father or mother or grandfather or grandmother (one from VT was sent to Afghanistan not long ago) off to war, I'd die of shame.

HST would have to change it to Generation of Shameless Swine, to describe today's lights.

[patricia]

I agree with all of you. If a person doesn't equate being in the military with waging war, they are not as smart as the average bear.
My point was that the recruiters emphasize the educational and travel aspects of enlisting WAY over the killing of strangers one.
I also agree with Gary that to expect fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers to defend the country from invasion is incredibly self-centred.
BUT these days the military is being used to invade a country which posed no threat to the U.S. on a pile of lies. They are not being deployed to defend the country from invasion by Iraq and they never were. That's the ultimate betrayal of the brave, patriotic young men and women in the military who cannot trust their government's motives.

I respect the military, but I think that the present administration's using the military to further the agenda of the neo-cons is inconscionable.

Originally Posted by particia

BUT these days the military is being used to invade a country which posed no threat to the U.S. on a pile of lies.

Do you realize that one more post, and you'll have said this 4200 times?!

An amazing level of focus.

Oh, and who's the grandmother that was sent to Iraq?

[Gary Sisco]

These days?

When was the last time the US used its military to defend the US itself? WW2. Most of those vets are long dead and those still living are dying at a thousand a day. Very soon, they'll be naught but a memory, and soon enough, not even that, given the ever shrinking collective memory in the US that only barely reaches back to last Tuesday as it is. But that's how long ago it was, three generations. (Never mind that most of what memory does exist is formed of Hollywood movies.)

That has nothing to do with the kind of shame I'm talking here. Politics aside, there comes a time to step up to the plate, regardless, because you're a man, if nothing else. When you see grandfathers and grandmothers being sent off to war because a generation of young people hasn't the gumption to turn off a computer game, that time's long passed. Indeed, even if under direct attack, I have serious doubts if such a society ought to be defended at all.

One thing is for certain: Historically, it has been empires that rely on mercenary militaries. All a mercenary military is, is one that is paid to fight. A professional military, in short, one of the most hated things of all to the people who made the U.S. to begin with.

Republics and democracies have historically been defended by citizen soldiers, which is to say, citizens who are only temporarily soldiers, and who view their soldiering as a sometimes unfortunate historical necessity, not as a way to make a living.

This is a lesson from history that is telling us something deep about the U.S. and that something has nothing to do with either hippy prattle on the one hand or superpatriot gibberish from chickenhawks on the other.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Do you realize that one more post, and you'll have said this 4200 times?!

An amazing level of focus.

You've counted??? Who has the amazing level of focus??
No matter how may times I, and others have said that, it doesn't make it less true.

Originally Posted by patricia

You've counted??? Who has the amazing level of focus??
No matter how may times I, and others have said that, it doesn't make it less true.

Or true, period.

By the way, your post count is under your name.

Originally Posted by Sisco Universe

When was the last time the US used its military to defend the US itself? WW2.

Going into Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks would qualify.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Or true, period.

By the way, your post count is under your name.

I know that my post count is under my name and it is about half yours.
My posts are about a variety of subjects, not just Iraq, as are everybody else's.
My position on the war in Iraq has always been what it is today. I was astounded at the acceptance of the American people of the segue from the retaliatory attack on Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq, seemingly because they were in the neighbourhood. I still am. Now they are up to their hips in a war that needn't have been launched.

Originally Posted by particia

Now they are up to their hips in a war that needn't have been launched.

4,202!!!