Are you personally connected to the Iraq and Afgan Wars?

I had one friend recently come home from there and one about to go back again.

 

Do they have a lot of middle-class prisoners in Southern and Fly-over 'burbs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/us/14military.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/E/Education%20and%20Schools

 

I know too many people to list.

I know seven who have died and was VERY close to one of them.

 

A close friend of mine from college is still serving, at age 30. He is a graduate of a prestigious public university with a chemical engineering degree. He is also a third-generation Marine and on his third tour in Iraq.

Last year, his brother, a decorated Army captain with a degree from West Point, was killed by insurgents, when they took over his vehicle in the middle of a city. Shot him right through the heart and neck.

It may be easy for some to think of the military as people that didn't have the drive/grades/money for college but I just have to look at these two examples. Men who didn't need the military but where serving was part of their fiber.

 

I don't personally know anyone who fought or is fighting in Iraq, but a friend of mine has an old friend there now. She said whenever he comes home, he's a little more worse for the wear. She has no doubt that when he's done with his service, he'll never be close to the same person he was before he left a few years ago.

 

We have family serving in Iraq now, family and friends who have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan and are home now, and a close family friend who lost her son to a roadside ambush.

There are not enough good things to say about the courage of these men and women.

And not enough words for the rage and contempt I feel for our government's inept, reckless and misguided foreign policy.

 

For what it's worth, my comments weren't intended to shun the soldier class and weren't intended to make them seem like poor folk, all of them.

I'm just saying, that's my experience here, growing up in the northeast. I'm sure it's much different outside the I-95 world.

 

What is interesting to note is that I'm not sure that this war is being fought so much along "class lines", as Vietnam was, but along rural lines, where options may be the fewest.

This is all anecdotal on my end but, in my little pocket of the world, the casualties are almost always from the smallest towns and cities in our coverage area, not from the larger cities. One "city" here, population 1,900, lost two in the Army and one Marine in a twelve-month span. I ache for those little communities.

 

I work in Public Affairs at a base here in Germany, where all of the wounded troops and contractors, etc., are brought.
I am serving the U.S. government, albeit as a civilian employee.
There are 15-20 on average who come from downrange everyday.
Not all are battle injuries. Some have everyday maladies like gall stones or dental problems, post-traumatic stress or simple back problems.
Others are pretty banged up when they get here from frontline fighting.

 

A lot of the guys and gals I know that are soldiers are both reserve enlisted and officers, mostly law enforcement officers in civilian life doing rotations from everything from MPs to Special Forces. Many have college and all are solidly middle class. And I know JAG lawyers, including my friend who was killed in action and buried in Arlington, who have served in Iraq. My neighbor's son who is an Army helicopter pilot.

So, with all due respect to the Times and their article, our Armed Forces is staffed by quality people of education and integrity rather than street thugs with no other choice.

It's the civilian leadership and the general officer corps that seems to be the thuggish ones, not the line soldiers and officers.

 

Have known and met and still know dozens, if not hundreds of those in uniform, from E-3s all the way up to three stars, even one four-star from Desert Storm, from kids I covered playing high school soccer to guys I played basketball with who begged to go back over because their old unit was ticketed to go even though they had a billet that ensured they would never have to deploy again. Almost all middle class and from big cities and also Lower BFE. Almost all - not all, but almost - love what they do.
The generals and senior officers I've known have been pretty straightforward with me and they tell me their soldiers tell them we're doing the right thing. Can't say we've experienced a great deal of forthrightness from the Pentagon and from Foggy Bottom. But we ought to be damn glad we've got the kind of folks serving whose asses are on the line every day over there.

 

When my brother-in-law returned from Iraq, I wound up covering his unit's return.

One of the hardest things I've ever done journalistically was keep my professionalism intact while he came down the stairs of the plane, then went through the receiving line. He kept sneaking looks over at me and giving me slight waves of his hand. All I wanted to do was run up to him and hug him. I stood there, snapping pictures and biting my lower lip.

The colonel in charge of the media shuffled us off to another area and I lost track of my BIL. Soon we were being led back to the area roped off -- family and friends were kept quite a ways back from where the plane landed. Before we made it back there, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I'm sure some of the other media folk were wondering about the back-breaking hug exchanged between a small town newspaper hack and a camo-clad soldier.