Wow....I'm getting chills just from watching the excerpts from "Body of War"....

[marmar]

.... on Bill Moyers' Journal right now. Phil Donahue and his co-producer are on there talking about it now. I can't wait to see it, though I can already see that I'm going to walk out of the theater enraged.

[virtualobserver]

1. the scene with Thomas watching Bush on TV

from his wheelchair as Bush jokes about looking for WMD under white house furniture is astonishing to watch.

[marmar]

2. Totally.....It filled me with hate. And I don't like hating anyone, even BushCo pigs.

n/t

[virtualobserver]

3. I don't want to hate either.......

but I would like for every person in America to see that scene.

[sharesunited]

4. Do you believe DOD active duty and

reserve forces retention (re-enlistment) statistics?

Why are they so high?

Why is morale supposedly so high?

Is it all a lie or do we as a society really love war this much?

[marmar]

5. Sure. Whatever.....Enjoying your night out at DU?

BTW, we don't like the taste of KoolAid here.

[sharesunited]

6. Hey I am suffering a genuine disconnect here.

I want out now, but how do you deal with the little problem of so many willing to march right into the meat grinder?

[marmar]

7. Sorry. I saw your low number of posts and read your first few lines and assumed you were a Freeper..

.... I apologize.

[sharesunited]

9. Ever vigilant.

You are up on the wall for the good of the site. We all benefit from that. Thanks.

[Mr Rabble]

8. I do believe them.

They clearly show that "stop gap" and "backdoor draft" combined with extended deployment/tours are being used to bolster their numbers.

If we simply look at their recruiting goals- before they DRAMATICALLY reduced the benchmark in 2006- we can clearly see that NO ONE wants to join.

Further, morale is in the toilet, at least if you believe the internal reports from the Pentagon. These are widely available by using the Google.

Perhaps you should think about looking into some of these things before you go ahead and post things that are demonstrably false.

[sharesunited]

10. Yes, stop loss does help explain it.

Googling stop gap didn't turn up anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy

[Bigmack]

12. Why re-up? Human psychology.

Being with their brothers in Iraq has become their new reality. Their unit is their new family. Nobody else knows shit about anything that's real. Being "back in the world" is weird, scary, and gives you waaaaay too much time to think about things.

In the shit, you're the best you'll ever be.... not morally, but you're the most attentive, the sharpest, the most competent you'll ever feel. If you come home and somebody asks you what you think about some clown on American Idol, you feel like you are from Pluto.

You feel like you'll never be able to do anything else as long as you live. You imagine what it would be like to sell shoes at the mall or bag groceries or some other entry-level job, when you just recently held the power of life and death of those around you in your hands.

Morale is high because it's you and your brothers against the whole fucking world, and DAMN, you are good!

Shit like that.

[sharesunited]

14. Wow Mack, great observations.

It is the self-esteem and self-actualization which everyone wants, but resulting from the most unwholesome of situations.

Makes you wonder how anyone ever manages to come home again?

[Elidor]

15. I doubt that morale is all that great, but the real attraction for many in the military

Is the order and security of military life. That's not something that's easy to walk away from, especially when they're called on to go to war. For many who serve, this is the only life they can imagine, or at least it was before our armed forces were abused. They can faithfully do the mission without agreeing with it. It's not easy for them to reconcile all the conflicting things going on, but duty is an automatic reflex for most of them.

I don't think they like it. They just hope to endure.

I think someone misunderstood your post, but I understand what you're asking.

[babylonsister]

11. I got chills, too. That was such a great show! I have to see the

whole doc. The Senate's votes vs. pills? Byrd? :(

[Bigmack]

13. Let's see them make a Pat Tilman...

out of this guy. Never fired a shot, and now he's fucked for life!

Right now, people clap and cheer when he speaks, but if he's lucky and lives another 30 years, who in this fucking country will give a shit about anything he has to say?

Fucking Bush to troops in Afghanistan: "It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."

I don't think Tomas thinks it was so fucking romantic.

We just gotta stop making so many veterans... wounded or otherwise.