Kerry Says Military Servicemen Stupid, page 6

Kerry is right. Most of us did not have college educations. The volunteer force is made up mostly of lower middle class, and poor Americans that joined up out of financial necessity. I retired this year after 20 years. I can tell you most of them (US GI's) (99%) are not dum or uneducated.

I hear the Army is lowering its standards though to keep up with recruitment needs and that is probably not good.

All of them (US military) are patriots, though many joined out of financial need and not patriotism or a will to go fight and die in Iraq (Bush is deluded if he thinks that is true). That does not mean they are not patriotic.

Many of us agreed that Saddam needed to be removed, but less of us think we owe Iraqi's who in large part don't want it, our lives for their freedom. Many think our lives were/are hijacked because of a misguided policy of "stay the course". What course would that be sir? Take the mountain and give up the mountain...sound like Vietnam to me. That is the course we are currently on by the way.

We were not trained to police a country and install a government. We where trained to kill the enemy military and in that we exceeded beyond all measure.

All of us have integrity, duty and honor so we will hold on to that, and follow the orders of our elected President even when we do not agree with his orders. In that you can be sure.

Many of us feel we accomplished our mission and we are now dieing unnecessarily. We are not defending American freedoms there, and that is not what we intended when we spoke our oath, though we will stick by it regardless.

If you have ever seen the movie Red Dawn. That is how you should view the Iraqi insurgents. No not the terrorists, but the ones that are Iraqi and fighting us to get us out. They feel exactly like those children did in Red Dawn. I think more not less Iraqi will join the insurgents over time unless they release the Army, and really put fear into them.

Face it, if Faluja had been carpet bombed the Iraqi's will, would have been broken, and it would be over. That is horrible but that is the kind of thing it takes to break the mass will of your enemy. We do not have the stomach to do that anymore so we should stick to destroying threats and leaving when we accomplish our mission.

We cannot win otherwise in my opinion. I do not want to carpet bomb. I would rather leave and let the Iraqi's settle there disputes the same way we did in American (Civil war). If that is what they chose of course...

If Iran becomes a threat we have more than enough missiles and bombs to destroy any threat they may pose (nuke plants come to mind). We wont need to invade countries anymore to protect our nation. We cannot afford the lives or money to protect every human on earth or police every land that is under the control of evil dictators.

I think repressed peoples will rise up when the time is right and will bring freedom. They have to do it though, to buy in. Right now, the average Iraqi has not bought in to America bringing them freedom.

Our money and resources should be going to border security and research and development of alternatives to oil.

I believe what we are doing is breading new hatred of us. I mean all those dead Iraqi's probably had children. How will they view America? I do not think they are going to think their dead daddy's were fighting for a bad man (Saddam), and love America for killing their evil daddy. Do you?

More die every day and they wont blame themselves no more than you would blame yourself. Bush needs a really good human phycoligist on his staff and not that out of touch Rumsfeld to take advice from.

Kerry should embrace his words and clarify his meaning. It was really bad choice of words but it is true at its core. He should apologize and extrapolate on it.

I am glad he did this because he will not have a shot at president now =).

The American military really does not have a mission there now other than "duck". The eye is on Iraq right? Is that good even though Americans are dieing anyway?

I wanted to add something. All though the (conservative) press will tell you different we (GI's) have thick skin and do not mind or care if Americans rally against the war. In fact we all embrace and are defending your right to do that. We also do not lose morale even if most of the US is against the war.

We would lose morale if you expect us not to follow the orders given to us by the people you elect or if you dislike us for doing so. We all swore our lives to you and our god to do that, so support your troops because you need them to follow orders, but do not elect people who do things with your troops that you do not like.
If you dislike the Iraq war do not elect those who support it and vice versus.

You all need your military to follow orders or chaos would ensue. Never ask for or expect anything else from them

[edit on 1-11-2006 by Xeven]