Reply #19: It really wasn't ever an option, or consideration, to say something mean. [View All]

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Not the other day when I saw him again. I sure felt like it in NOV 04 when he was busy getting in everybody's face. But now, talking to the guy, I just felt kind of sorry for him. We just traded a few sea stories and made small talk, and he told me about the PTSD and his medical board.

At the time I wrote the other thread, he knew he was going back to Iraq but thought he had avoided his combat medic job (one of the more risky jobs you can have) to be at the big combat hospital. At the time of that thread his status was up in the air, but he did in fact receive orders to go be a combat medic again. I'm assuming that's when the hearing damage happened, and maybe the PTSD too, although the seeds of that were already there I think. He had spoken of the disturbing effect all the exposure to death, the sights and smells of it, had on him.

He has the president, the war, the PTSD, and the VA system that he voted for. So he deserves all that. But it's not in me to say "you still loving your boy Bush?" or anything like that.