[Rhodes22-list] Politics: A Few Good Men/Boys - War Sucks!

[Bill Effros]

Len, (and Brad)

I stop to read the names of the fallen in the newspaper every day, and take a minute to reflect on those they left behind.  There are so many of them.

What troubles me is that I don't have the slightest idea of why they died.  I don't mean that in a global sense.

What I mean is that I read news reports about every time Moqtada Sadr has a hangnail that is bothering him, or Osama Bin Laden has a bunion.  Somehow we say that we know these things.  But you tell me about attending a service for 2 soldiers killed this week in Afghanistan, and this is the first I heard of it.  Where did they die?  What were they doing?  How were they defending Liberty?  What is going on over there?

Good people are coming home dead in large numbers and nobody knows about it except those personally connected.

Some of us can remember when the Vietnam dead were at the same levels and our leaders were telling us we had to stay the course.  Needless to say, ultimately we cut and ran.  Depending on how you count them, we must have over 200,000 people involved in the fight by now.  They are in the middle of a multi-ethnic tribal war that our leaders clearly don't understand, which gets more out of hand every day.  

Virtually no one thinks we can prevail without enough troops to do the job.  What do you and your friends think we should do?  Is this the right fight?  How many troops would it take to win it?  Where can we get those troops from?  Should we restart the draft?

I don't have the answers, but I do have a lot of questions.  Our leaders must give us more than platitudes and dead soldiers.  This won't stop until we all speak up.

Bill Effros  


----- Original Message ----- 
From: GrahamLBN at aol.com 
To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org 
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Politics: A Few Good Men/Boys - War Sucks!


To All who read:

As a civilian member of Special Operations, I just attended the memorial 
service for two of our brave Special Forces Soldiers who were killed this week in 
Afghanistan.
This was a gut wrenching occasion. One Soldier left a young wife and son, 
while the other was the father of three young children and his wife. 

Both men were eulogized by their team mates for their great soldiering, 
wonderful sense of humor, community service and other achievements.  Bottom line is 
that we are losing many gifted soldiers and civilians in the War on terror.  
The church was packed to overflowing with the same kind of determined brave 
Soldiers, paying respect to their comrades, and ready to do their duty.

Both men were known most for their love of country, and courage to defend it. 
 

Staff Sergeant Robert Stacy Goodwin, 3d Special Forces Group (ABN)

Staff Sergeant Tony Bruce Olaes, 3d Special Forces Group (ABN)

May God Bless the United States of America

De Opresso Libre

Len Graham
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