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Grubble Grubble
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004 :::
rant
So, I read in the news today that the U.S. Army is now calling up Ready Reservists. 5,600 of them.
For those that don't know, when you join the military, you sign up for 6 years (at least that is what the term was when I was in during the '80's). Usually, half of that time is spent on active duty, and the other half you are a Ready Reservist. Basically, it means you are out, but Uncle Sam can yank you back in at will. I happened to me. It sucks.
So, we have handed over power to the Iraqis. Does this mean we will finally start cutting back on troups like the beady-eyed facist promised oh so long ago? Of course not. Due to all the insecurity and terrorist actions (we can debate that term. As far as I am concerned, we are just now getting to the meat of the war that supposedly ended months ago.) we need to increase the number of troops we have in Iraq.
The problem is: we don't have any more to spare in certain MOS's (job descriptions). In this case, it is mostly Military Police (MP's). So, we are going to take people that have started the next segment of their lives and tell them that they need to put all that on hold. We have to send you to a hostile environment so Haliburton can keep sucking contract money from the government (was that my out-loud voice?). Since many MP's leave the military to go on to civilian law enforcement, we are just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
In essence, this is the beginning of a draft. This is an involuntary call-up of troops. I can fairly well imagine that all but a very few (and that is debatable) don't want to do this. They can expect several months of training here in the U.S. followed by a year-long tour in Iraq. Some will die.
The argument can be made that they knew what they were getting into, but that is specious at best. Calling up Ready Reserve troops is a very infrequent action (I guess I just got lucky back in the '80's) and the last time it happened was during Gulf I (gee, wasn't our President named Bush back then too?).
How long before we institute an overall draft? In Afganistan, the Army asked retired and former SF soldiers to come back in based on needs of the operation. How long before we start requesting that former MP's and such come back in to help the cause? MP was my primary MOS, but I certainly would never go back. Not to help the beady-eyed facist fight his illegal war.
How many other people must pay the price so that Bush and his cronies can feel safe?
/rant
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