Kinda says it all

Ok time to play devil's advocate yet again...

What is the price for one's own freedom? A human life? 2000 human lives? 30,000?

What about someone else's freedom? Someone who isn't even of your race, nationality, or religion?

There's a few things here to consider:
1. The price of freedom is blood, and it must be refreshed from time to time.
2. There is no price too high for one's own freedom.
3. Our military puts their lives on the line EVERY DAY for your freedom, whether you're the same religion, race, or nationality as our military. I'll take a moment to prove this last point -
A Jewish Rabbi in Israel who's never come to the United States is protected because some African-American Christian serviceman is out in Iraq giving the Muslim terrorists someone else to shoot at. An Iraqi child is saved because an Oriental Bhuddist Marine disarmed a bomb right outside his home. A new democratic/republic is born and nurtured because one country was willing to spend billions of dollars and the lives of its own patriots to topple a corrupt regime.

What is the price of freedom?

Nuff said.

I think we are all on the same page, a big page, but the same one. Every person's death diminishes me. In today's terms, 2,000 is a large number. Not just that it is the list of casualties for the US, but that in proportion to the total force deployed, it is high. It is high due to the nature of combat today. One soldier today--armed, trained, supported and deployed--represents a much more lethal, capable and effective force than has ever been possible in the past.

To see the number increase weekly, and watch the names on the screen every Sunday on This Week, is hard.

We were involved in Vietnam from 1960 to 1974. We lost in excess of 50,000 in that time. It was the first time that we saw the war on TV, in our homes. The impact of the seeing lives lost and witnessing the horrors of war is what drove the anti-war movement and fundamentally changed this country.

Yeah, that was 30 years ago, but we still remember the pain and it colors how we respond to what we are witnessing today. Good or bad.

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Originally posted here by foxyloxley
And irrelevant was not the best choice of word, inconsequential is a better fit ........
as in, the number of casualties makes NO diference to the fighting capability of a unit.

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This is just flat wrong, we have 150K total, 2k killed and 10'sof thouands wounded is what we are looking at. a signifigant protion of our force over there. More over no one back home is signing up to replace them. we have lost whole units. batalions are running at 50% strength do to lack of replacements. We are giving the insurgants larg swths of land that we just don't have the manpower to defend. We are blowing up bridges to try and hamper the insurgents ability to move..this is not the sign of a fighting force that hasn't lost its capability to fight.

When the commander of the national gaurd states that his will be a brokn force unless enlistments go up/casualitys go down...welll i would say that the number makes a ver big diference. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4150749.stm

Note this isn't some nonothing civilian this is the lt general in charge of the reserves makeing this statment. We didn't have enough bodies on the ground to begin with, every casuilty makes that much worse.

Overall the U.S. Military recruiting outlook is not really all that bleak. Yeah there are some rocky points alond the path, but that is to be expected anytime the military is engaged in an active conflict.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joini...cruitgoals.htm

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Originally posted here by foxyloxley
In 1916 in one morning Britain lost SIXTY THOUSAND troops [The Somme]

American losses are [militarily speaking] irrelevant ........
America took an entire country in a matter of DAYS, with losses in the '00s.
No military EVER has had the capability to do this, and the insurgency is just a natural consequence of those who now have nothing to stop for.
They can be stopped quickly, but the cost [to Iraqi's] would be EXTREMELY high, and would entail utilising Soviet tactics, something that the US military has never considered.

War IS hell, and people die.
but in this war, the numbers are so low, that we [home based civillians] are in danger of losing perspective on this, and we need to remember the MILLIONS that died in the major wars / conflicts of the 20th century alone, to remind ourselves how lucky we are that we still have personnel who are prepared to 'walk the walk'

In a few days we [UK - not sure if it's done in the US ?] shall remember the dead with the wearing of a poppy.

that day is November 11th, as it was at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 that WWI finally ended.

and we are still killing each other :confused:

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Originally posted here by OverdueSpy
Overall the U.S. Military recruiting outlook is not really all that bleak. Yeah there are some rocky points alond the path, but that is to be expected anytime the military is engaged in an active conflict.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joini...cruitgoals.htm

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Even if 40% of the troops over there are actually reserve, that's not a bad thing necessarily. That's the entire point of reserve. They are used when the primary force needs numbers. Reservists are aware of this when they sign, and should expect to serve the country as they promised to.

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In a few days we [UK - not sure if it's done in the US ?] shall remember the dead with the wearing of a poppy.

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Not to diminish what you said,but would you mind not excluding the "Commonwealth" the next time you want to talk about something that the "UK" was not alone in. ;)

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They shall grow not old

as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them

nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

and in the morning

we will remember them.

LEST WE FORGET

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http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-...r/tributes.htm

More people are killed each year in North America by Vehicles and guns then what you will lose in any theatre of war at this time, everything is surgical, no one is jumping up from a trench or foxhole and running at a machine gun nest, or from a wide open beach. If you can bomb the Sh*t out of them first, and save more lives, then that's the way to go, if you watch carefully you will notice that what they are trying to do eventually is design the ultimate fighting machine, "no humans" need apply.

Allready testing remote controlled fighter jets, so eventually the deaths will decrease for the military, but not so for the real casualties of conflict, the Old, Young and Women.

I am in no way belittling the amount of deaths and casualties by the US/UK Servicemen and women, but as was stated, we all should be extremely thankful it is only "2000", this could have been a whole lot worse, lets not forget, after the initial euphoria of whipping the overly matched Iraqi army, who didn't really want to fight in the first place (re first Gulf War),now everyone is entrenched in guerilla warfare. What if the enemy had been a match for the US/UK armies, what if they had of used Gas, I am sure instead of 2000 dead that we would be witnessing a whole lot more, and the uproar back home would be deafening.

The media are at fault for one thing, exposing the ugly truth to what war/conflicts are really about, blood and guts, death, grief, hate, paranoia, apathy, rape, abuse, just all around crap.

As for the unavailability of moving in reserves, what is happening is some of these units are being sent back after being home for a short time, so in effect they could do in an 18Mth span 12 Months,(6Mths there, 6Mths back, then 6mths again)this has a very debillitating affect on an individual, (just put yourself in their shoes after being back from doing a tour allready and the prospect of going back to the meat grinder, makes me shudder just thinking about what this must feel like) not a very good incentive for recruitment.

just my milk crate for today (in UK soapboxes in Canada milk crates) :mad:

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Originally posted here by dalek
More people are killed each year in North America by Vehicles and guns then what you will lose in any theatre of war at this time...

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The media are at fault for one thing, exposing the ugly truth to what war/conflicts are really about, blood and guts, death, grief, hate, paranoia, apathy, rape, abuse, just all around crap.

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I couldn't dissagree with you more on this. The media is capitalizing on and sensationalizing the war as much as they can. Like you said about how more people are killed annually by car accidents, etc in the US than this war thus far. Why don't I hear about ever car victim who was walking home from school, or every random child snuffed by a drive-by-shooting (even on the local news). They don't, because it isn't sensational.

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As for the unavailability of moving in reserves, what is happening is some of these units are being sent back after being home for a short time, so in effect they could do in an 18Mth span 12 Months,(6Mths there, 6Mths back, then 6mths again)this has a very debillitating affect on an individual, (just put yourself in their shoes after being back from doing a tour allready and the prospect of going back to the meat grinder, makes me shudder just thinking about what this must feel like) not a very good incentive for recruitment.

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There is more harm from a war than physical. For as many medics as they have, they have psychological support staff. Learning to exist durring a war is part of your training as well, not just how to fight one. People enlist full-well knowning what they are getting into, especially these days. I don't know why everyone precieves enlisted to be naive morons incapable of making rational choices. They enlist as a compitant adult to do a service willingly. How is that difficult to understand? We don't second-guess the choices of police officers or security guards when they are wounded or killed. How is the military any different?
Besides, recriutment is fine: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joini...cruitgoals.htm

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I couldn't dissagree with you more on this. The media is capitalizing on and sensationalizing the war as much as they can. Like you said about how more people are killed annually by car accidents, etc in the US than this war thus far. Why don't I hear about ever car victim who was walking home from school, or every random child snuffed by a drive-by-shooting (even on the local news). They don't, because it isn't sensational.

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There is a difference between the journalist who reports on "War Crimes" (re Bosnia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, you get the picture) then the talking heads you watch on TV, who are fed crap by the directors and media moguls (Ted Turner, Conrad Black etc).

When I said the media report on the ugly truth, I was talking about the men and women who get stuck in on the conflict wherever it may be, and a lot of them have been killed in the course of their getting at the information, so don't confuse the two, what you see on Prime Time is I agree sensationalism (it sells), but what you don't see, is the extraordinary accomplishments of some of these individuals who manage to stay alive and get the information out.

If there were no cameras recording the action in Serbia, do you think Milosovic would have been implicated and later charged with the crimes he was responsible for?

And are you kidding me on the people who join the reserves knowing fully that they may be called up to the front lines, hah, at most a lot of them (due respect to those who actually do expect to be called up) are in it for the part time paycheck and the weekly campouts, or the one night a week get togethers.For the most part, whenever someone joins the reserves they are completely oblivious to what may be required of them, lets face it the difference in training standards between the professionals (regulars) and the reserves is probably like night and day in some states, depending on whose budget for training is the biggest, here in Canada the reservists get the scraps (leftovers from the regs), so while the regs are running around in a nice new M1 Abrams battle tank, the reserve unit might have some humvees to tool around in.

Military Recruitment Down for the Year

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The Department of Defense (DoD) announced on Oct. 11 that the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force met or exceeded their active duty recruiting goals in September. In terms of retention, the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps exceeded their annual retention goals; the Navy achieved 91 percent of its mid-career goal. Three of the six reserve components, Army Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve and Air Force Reserve, exceeded their September recruiting goals. Regarding reserve forces retention, DoD said, “Losses in all reserve components in August were within acceptable limits. Indications are that trend continued into September.” DoD did not give specific numbers. For the year, the Army has not met its active duty recruitment goals and the Army National Guard, the Army Reserve, the Navy Reserve and the Air National Guard have all fallen short of their recruiting goals.

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Don't confuse the two as well, Police Officers make a career choice, reservists do it for either furthering their education, or as a step to the professional ranks, a lot of reservists are already working at full time jobs, heck some reservists are probably active police officers who are probably ex service and figured they would like to keep in touch with the Military.

The emotional scars that this conflict is causing will be felt for many years.


Robert Shrode can't sleep.

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At night, in the fly-speck town of Guthrie, Ky., in the rented farmhouse he shares with his 20-year-old wife, Debra, he surfs the Internet, roams the house. He lies down and gets up again. He drinks a beer and stares out the window at the black fields beyond. Hours pass. He can't sleep. Before the war, he could have six beers and sleep like a baby, but now that works against him. Drinking may help get his head to the pillow, but it also ratchets up the nightmares. For a while, he sweated out his bad dreams on the living-room couch, and it drove Debra crazy. She would come down from the bedroom, touch his shoulder, ask what the problem was. Shrode would just turn his back to her and not say a word. Now she knows better than to ask, though occasionally when the silence between them gets too deep, she'll put it out there, What're you thinking about?

''Iraq,'' he'll say. And then the silence falls again.

He pops Ambien to coax some sleep. The results are mixed. On the advice of his doctors, he is taking three different pills for pain, a pill for swelling and another pill for depression. There are days when he is unrecognizable to himself, a guy who a few years ago was a party-loving bartender at a Mississippi casino and who is now 29 and engaged in what can feel like a never-ending battle to see his own future brightly.

The only person who understands him is his buddy Brent Bricklin, a restless, dark-haired 22-year-old and fellow Army specialist in the 101st Airborne Division, who is also home after serving in Iraq. Most mornings, Shrode picks up Bricklin at Fort Campbell, the sprawling base that straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee state line where both men are stationed, and they go driving. It's always more or less the same. They drive through the buttressed gates of the base, patrolled by armed National Guardsmen, and turn onto Fort Campbell Boulevard, passing the check-cashing outfits, the strip clubs and gun-and-ammo shops that, during peacetime anyway, boom with military business.

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Read the rest here http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...anentscars.htm

Evil Moo: The yare not bing used as reserves they are being used as regular army, 18month toures over see fallowed by a few months down then back for another tour...this is tearing their lives and families apart.

Oh as for the recuritng crisis...sure they came close to the goal after they lowered the number by 5000 http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f...925-900996.php

Oh and they started accepting more marginal people http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0614-03.htm

Talkign ot some of my recurter buddies, well you can get in now by gettign scores on the asvab that you should get by breathing....Now I doubt anyof you have taken the asvab, I scored a near perfect half drunk and sleep deprived...teh army y nesisity is accepting people who would have been considered to have faild it last year.


So they have increased the bounses (you et 20k for signing up now), lowered their standards (they are accepting people with out HS deplomas and who faild the asvab) and cut 5k off their goal and still can't reach it. Ya your right Evil Moo there is no recurting crisis. Orwill would be proud

bballad - think you need to type a bit slower mate!