Over At 'Vet Voice'

Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq one of the best Iraq memoirs out there--has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I've specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve--instead choosing to cheer from the bench--while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.

This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it's wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.

Here's part of Buzzell's take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:

SNIP

A War of Choices

As far back as I could remember, I wanted to be in the Army. I don't know where it came from (my dad was a Navy veteran, after all), but I was enthralled by military history. I couldn't get enough of it. But it wasn't enough to simply read about the military. I wanted to be a part of it as soon as I could.

...I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, "it was his second deployment" in my obituary.

That's at the very end of the article that deserves to be read in full by every single breathing American citizen. Buzzell expresses a sentiment felt by nearly every veteran I know: Americans have not only failed to pick up the slack of a two front war, but they've dumped all the hardship, responsibility, guilt, heartbreak and exhaustion onto less than %1 of the population - service members and their families. There's a word for that: serfdom.

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Fallen Soldiers Treated Like Dogs, To Save A Dollar

Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls it "insensitive," I call it something else:

The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.

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Residents Fleeing Sadr City

For weeks, the US Army had a blockade around Sadr City to keep vehicles from entering or leaving the dangerous area. Residents of the besieged district complained of skyrocketing food prices, trash piling up in the streets, and claustrophobia from being trapped indoors. Several lawmakers staged sit-ins to protest the blockade. That blockade has been lifted, and residents are now being asked to leave.

SNIP

Now back to some of my own thoughts:

I Still Want To Know
Why neither one of these youngsters is Serving, and any of their young guests for this weekends ceremony??

Daughters do look for the 'daddy feature', come from a 'chickenhawk' marry a 'chickenhawk'!!

Manufacturing Obedience

The greatest lie in American history was the Vietnam War.

The Iraq War is rapidly gaining ground.

Once you see the truth, you are reborn.

I did not serve in Vietnam with the U.S. Army,

I served in Vietnam with the R.C. Army,

The Ruling Class Army.

Thank God, I don’t live in a gingerbread house anymore.

Lying Is The Most Powerful Weapon In War.

Mike Hastie
R.C. Army
Vietnam 1970-71
May 5,

A Military Mom Writes to a Chicken Hawk
A 'Gold Star Mom', for 'Mothers Day'

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

I write to you this Mother's Day as the mother of Lt. Ken Ballard, who was killed in Najaf, Iraq four years ago, fighting in a war that you have criticized but continue to fund.

I hope that this Mother's Day you are lucky enough to be surrounded by your children and grandchildren, to share thanks and hugs. But I also hope that you will think about the thousands of mothers of U.S. troops who will never see their children again -- and the tens of thousands of mothers of troops now serving in Iraq who live in fear every day of the phone call or the knock on the door telling them their child has been injured or killed.

"Stop Loss" Military and Military Family Perspective

The reviews you should be reading and listening to, from Military Personal and Family members Of. The ones, small numbers they are, who are actually sacrificing and understand the meanings some of these movies are trying to bring out, that the greater majority, the civilian population, really need to be explained to. Especially in these conflicts they do little to nothing as a sacrifice, most important not wanting to pony up the cost of these Wars of Choice and the Huge longterm Costs of!

Stop Loss:

Retention policy of keeping solders in the military past their contractual obligation

We have a local movie critic, I caught his review of this movie the other day. Usually he isn't to bad on his critiques. But this movie critic, looking still young enough to join, showed in this one he has never served, doesn't understand the military, knows nothing about 'Stop Loss' nor the messages the movie is trying to convey about PTSD, personal , and reality within the communities of Military Personal and Veterans of Wars of Choice.

I've heard other critiques, before the movie opened last night, 3-29-08, some pretty good showing they got it, others to simplistic showing they didn't or didn't care to. Reason the ones that will matter are from those I pointed out above.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but the trailers I've caught tell me there are a number of messages trying to be conveyed.

One who has, last night, has written a critique over at Vet Voice the interactive blog site of Vote Vets.

ThisDudesArmy, a front page poster there, wrote Stop Loss: A Review

He starts off with this:

The movie Stop Loss premiered nationwide yesterday, and in its wake I was asked how I thought soldiers were portrayed in war movies. Two days before I saw the movie, I offered my view and what I predicted would be the same with Stop Loss:

The link within the block takes you to and article in the Killeen Daily Herald, Killeen Texas.

Read the article in the block than visit the review 'This Dudes Army' wrote, on the front page of Vet Voice.

At the review you will find a number of comments already from military personel, military family members and veterans.

You get one from Combat Infantry Bunny

Putting that aside though, I thought it was well-acted (country hick and all) and made some really valid points . . . showing the emotion and anger so many soldiers feel at being abused by the government. The emotions were raw enough that I left feeling a little nauseous, not because it was a bad movie, but it put me through a range of feelings.

Just a snip of

As well as IraqWarVeteran

Before the movie began I looked around and the overwhelming vast majority of the audience was active duty servicemembers. Probably close to 70%.

My favorite part of the movie was when SSG King said to his Battalion Commander "Fuck President Bush". The audience here at our theater errupted with applause and hooting and also repeating what SSG King said (they must be phony soldiers!!!). It was freakin amazing!!!

A few snips

And CarissaPicard of Military Spouses For Change and has started writing for Military.com

Part of a draft of what I have written for military.com:

Carissa starts her draft with this:

The majority of the 30 or so soldiers I spoke with this evening actually liked the movie. The general consensus was that the movie was not what they expected it to be from the previews. Most said they thought the movie was relatively realistic and none felt it was anti-American or anti-military. Lower enlisted and junior NCOs were more sympathetic to Sgt. King's struggle than senior NCOs were. In fact, two senior NCOs were quick to point out that technically soldiers join the Army for 8 years--three to four years of active duty service plus 4 or 5 years in the IRR (Inactive Ready Reserves).

Now, from personal experiance, IRR was to be used Only In Extreme Military Emergencies as in the contracts signed by all who serve, reason you no longer put on the uniforms, nor attend any military drills etc., if Country Calls, in Extreme Military Defined Emergencies, than you are required to report for duty.

Reason 'Stop Loss', in the present day, is actually a Backdoor Draft, there isn't an Emergency to Country, just a shortage of Troop Strenght, these Soldiers have finished their Contracted Duty and been Discharged if not caught first in 'Stop Loss', they are not Compensated with any Bonus, like those who Re-Up, and following the numbers of recruitment, from the DoD, one gets the feeling they are being counted into the figures of those who actually do Re-Up, in the monthly totals.

This is the Draft the supporters said would never happen, because they don't want to serve nor have family members forced into service, No Sacrifice, just War Support, Wars of Choice not Need, and have Others Sacrifice with Multiple Tours and a Huge part of their lives away from their Children, Wives or Husbands, Families and Friends, in Combat Zones!

These movies and docs, coming out, are extremely important, they are coming out in Real Time as the Theaters of Operations are still happening! They touch on many issues and give descriptions of those issues, like PTSD, real time feelings, the reality that Wars are as they are happening.

In way to many of the movies and dramas, of our day 'Nam, they came out after, Well After. Way to many portrayed us 'Nam Vets as Drug Addicts and Criminals, lumping us all together, and while we had finally given a name to what Wars do to the Human Mind, Post Tramatic Stress, it isn't a disorder, it's a reality, they didn't explain it enough, thus it was pushed aside and the research on it was only taken up by a handful of caring people serching for knowledge and a better understanding for what happens, not only in wars, but in the Societies we live.

Messages within movies like 'Born on the Forth of July', 'Coming Home', 'The Deer Hunter' and especially 'Apocolypse Now' went Way Over The Heads of the greater populations, came to late, weren't explained strongly enough, and the people had already crawled back into their apathy and denial. Even movies like 'Rambo' should have rang bells, it didn't, all they wanted was movie blood and guts, not reality of War!

Pay much more attention to what Real Soldiers, Real Military Family Members, Real Conflict Veterans have to say!

Not spin from talking heads who give their knee jerk reactions coming from their own thoughts, not experiance, their own ideologies, pure partison, and most certainly don't pay attrention to anyone who won't bother seeing these movies or docs but will tell you what they are all about, those are easy to recognize.