In Search Of Utopia: Reinstate the DRAFT

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April 14, 2007

Reinstate the DRAFT

Word of the extension arrived almost by accident here at the rambling villa in the countryside east of Ramadi that the men from Company B, First Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment of the First Infantry Division, have turned into an American-Iraqi military base.
Shortly after midnight, First Sgt. Jody Heikkinen spotted an article about it on the Internet, and the company officers were caught off guard. “We’re trying to figure out what it means,” said Capt. Chris Calihan, 31, the company commander.

The soldiers had been scheduled to return home in June, but the announcement appeared to extend their stay until September.

Among those soldiers who were still awake, there were muffled outbursts of anger and frustration laced with dark humor.

“If I get malaria, I get to leave, right?” Specialist Rodney Lawson, 30, said to no one in particular.

The soldiers wondered if their relationships back home could weather an extension and predicted that divorce rates in the military would spike. They muttered about three additional months of forced celibacy and fretted half jokingly about impatient wives and girlfriends. “Now a lot of cheating be going on,” said Sgt. Jonathan Wilson, 29. “I’m serious.”

Specialist Lawson had planned to take a vacation with his former wife, with whom he has two daughters, after he got back to the division’s home base in Schweinfurt, Germany. They were going to give the relationship another try.

“This has totally wrecked everything I had planned,” he said as he slumped on an empty explosives crate.

“Now I’m never going to get together with my ex-wife,” he said. “I’m scared that the longer it takes, more things could happen.”

The soldiers also worried about the extra months of dodging snipers’ bullets and roadside bombs.

To all those Conservatives who are living in a fantasy world of these guys all having wonderful morale and wanting to be over there.... Time to fucking suit up and do your part.

Posted by David A at April 14, 2007 12:44 PM
Filed Under Iraq | 327 Words

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Comments

To all those Conservatives ... Time to fucking suit up and do your part.

Many of us already have and many of us still are.

The fact is that's a damn downer for the troops over there, but at the same time people fail to realize that sailors routinely go out on 6 month deployments - even in times of peace. It's part of military life.

And stop insinuating that all Conservatives are sitting around like armchair quarterbacks and don't care about our "brothers" over there. We're all one big family once we join the service.

And yes I was in Gulf War I, as was my mother, my father was in Vietnam, my brother-in-law a carrier sailor who routinely deployed for 6 months at a time, my step-brother who was a marine in Iraq and then went back to Iraq as contract security after a medical discharge, my cousin currently deployed in Iraq, the list goes on...

Not to be offensive David, but you talk like someone with no military experience at all.

Posted by: Digger at April 16, 2007 09:43 AM

Nope I don't have any. And I think you took what I said as a general statement. The message is for people like Michelle Malkin and Jeff G, who sit back and play cheerleader, while these people LOSE their lives, their jobs, their spouses... Its easy to be a cheerleader when you dont have to do your part.

Posted by: David Scott Anderson at April 16, 2007 12:34 PM