[Leica] Veterans Day 2012

[scleroplex at gmail.com (scleroplex)]

"*Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a solder dying on the
battlefield will think hard before starting a war.? **~ Otto Von Bismark.* "


i wish!!!!
:-I


here is today's Boston Globe -

"Some veterans wonder whether the public, largely disengaged from the wars
while they raged, is now playing catch-up. Reflecting on the welcome
received following his Army tour in Iraq, Lowell native Sean Casey confides
in a poem that such a ?celebration of his violent profession unnerves him.
He understands now, by his time in the desert, that if they knew the true
story of his profession, they?d be more reserved. He shares his views in
writing, he says, because doing so helps bring ?order to the internal
chaos? he feels.

While the vast majority of US military personnel do not publicly question
what they were tasked to do in the two post-9/11 wars, some express
bitterness at the lack of accountability of those who dispatched them into
the fray. In his ?Letter to the War Presidents? ? among whom he includes
chief executives who presided over earlier wars as well as the global war
on terror ? Raymond Camper, who served in Iraq with Virginia and Minnesota
National Guard units, makes an impassioned appeal to US commanders in chief.

Would you shed one drop of blood

for the gallons that we?ve given,

would you last one day in the conditions

we?ve spent years in?

Would you be able to sign on the dotted line,

and follow the directives sent down from on high

when they went against your convictions of wrong and right?

Would you be able to look your family in the face,

and tell them it was worth it,

when you can?t forgive yourself,

for the carnage you partook in?

You have not engaged your enemy at close range,

seen the sweat and fear upon his face,

before you forever erased him away.

My generation has done this and more,

some of us while questioning,

others while adoring,

nonetheless,

we are the children who you will bury,

without ever knowing what our level of sacrifice feels like."

Veterans and new-breed veterans? groups are challenging not only presidents
and members of Congress but also the American public, to whom elected
officials are accountable. Aidan Delgado, posted at Abu Ghraib, is
convinced that ?if people could see the bodies, the blood, they wouldn?t be
able to support this war with a clear conscience.? Some veterans believe
and hope that long after the last American body is repatriated, questions
about the wisdom of the wars and the effectiveness of the strategies and
tactics employed will continue to insist on answers.

The airport ?thank you?? ritual, like the yellow ribbon campaign before it,
strikes some veterans as a substitute for dialogue rather than as the
opening of a serious conversation. "

bharani


On Nov 10, 2012, at 9:21 PM, Quan Tran <quantran101 at gmail.com> wrote:

> To our veterans:
>
> http://fluxlux.blogspot.com/2012/11/veterans-day-2012.html
>
> --
> -Quan.
>
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