Every time I think of this I just shake my head in disbelief

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/15094538.htm

Cheney re-enlists wounded soldier at rally for troops

FORT STEWART, Ga. - During a rally for more than 8,000 Georgia troops, Vice President Dick Cheney administered the re-enlistment oath Friday to a 24-year-old Army gunner determined to remain in the ranks after losing his left leg last year to a bomb blast in Iraq.

Flanked by risers crowded with his fellow 3rd Infantry Division troops, Cpl. Jerrod Fields of Chicago raised his right hand before Cheney and pledged to serve another four years. The Army approved Fields to remain in his cavalry unit after he passed his physical fitness test with flying colors, including running 2 miles in 14 minutes, 9 seconds with a prosthetic leg.

"I wasn't going to let the bad guys, the enemy, affect a decision I'd already made," said Fields, who was wounded by a roadside bomb while driving a Bradley armored vehicle near Rustamayah, Iraq, in February 2005.

Fields opted to have his leg amputated below the knee to improve his chances of returning to active duty. He said Cheney offered words of personal praise offstage.

"He just told me job well done," Fields said. "He was happy that I decided to stay in and said just to keep pushing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/campaign/01CHEN.html?ex=1398830400&en=1c0259e620183dd6&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

Cheney's Five Draft Deferments During the Vietnam Era Emerge as a Campaign Issue

WASHINGTON, April 30 — It was 1959 when Dick Cheney, then a student at Yale University, turned 18 and became eligible for the draft.

Eventually, like 16 million other young men of that era, Mr. Cheney sought deferments. By the time he turned 26 in January 1967 and was no longer eligible for the draft, he had asked for and received five deferments, four because he was a student and one for being a new father.

Although President Richard M. Nixon stopped the draft in 1973 and the war itself ended 29 years ago on Friday, the issue of service remains a personally sensitive and politically potent touchstone in the biographies of many politicians from that era.

For much of Mr. Cheney's political career, his deferments have largely been a nonissue.

[QuettaKid]

1. a very wise man once said. . . .

"GO F*CK YOURSELF MR. CHENEY"

truer words were never spoken.

[Ezlivin]

2. It's Official: We have a cult

How else to explain the vacant-eyed minions who never question, never challenge and show no inquisitiveness of any degree but simply line up to get their "atta boys" for a job with no end?

As a veteran I can understand the motivations of some of these guys, but having Cheney oversee it is a bitter irony.

[Tin Man]

6. I think a lot of reenlistments are driven by sense of loyalty to comrades

...and in that sense, I think it's laudable (although in a larger sense, misguided) that soldiers like Cpl. Fields would return into harm's way in order to protect the comrades-in-arms that they've grown to love.

What I find reprehensible is Cheney/neocon efforts to mischaracterize a soldier's support for his buddies, as a soldier's "support for the war". Cheney needs to go to hell.

[Captain Hilts]

8. That's exactly right.

I've talked to severely wounded soldiers at Bethesda Naval and Walter Reed and they actually feel guilty about not being with their units.

[goforit]

3. Warped mentalities flock together. Jumping off the bridge blindfolded.

These zombies amaze me as well.

[spanone]

4. I hope Cheney lives long enough to do real time.

Evil incarnate.

[Missy M]

5. You can't get much lower than Cheney. Encouraging a soldier...

who already lost a leg to stay in and pursue more active duty is despicable. Never believed in the devil but I am beginning to now.

[librechik]

7. Sociopath Cheney will never feel any shame--no matter how low he sinks

and luring an amputee back into battle is about the lowest thing I ever heard of. Not from Cheney, but in general.

[zbdent]

9. I would suggest that Cheney go over to Iraq

but our military forces have suffered enough casualties ...