The Death and Mistreatment of a Volunteer Army

Soldiers have such a tough time coming back to the world because as terrible as combat and war is this stinking world is worse. These last wars are much different from those of the past. More mature men are in the fight. Rather than an imbalanced age range as in Vietnam with a host of kids 18 to 21 we now have many troops in their 30's and even early 40's. The kids in Vietnam, Korea, and WWII felt like fodder, they banded and bonded together out of a feeling of isolation from command structure. Now the kids are properly led with rank in the field taking and sharing the dangers. They bond with command and each other. Our older relatives came home from Europe and Asia with a sense of freedom from everything military and set about leading their own lives. They gave and then they lived. These volunteer chumps in Afganistan and Iraq are forming unnatural war bonds. They lack the wonder of forgetfullness, remain too attached to those still in the field and come home with no feeling of fulfilment because they are soon turned around to serve again. The troops want to go back to fortify the brotherhood many time to the detrement of their families. They are protectors not of political or military ideals but of the lives of their freinds.

Here at home we feel so little brotherhood. It is a sniping society. Soldiers come home and are freaked by the insensitivity, lack of cooperation and the self orientated. They are tossed around a military system that seeks not to provide and sees a society and government unable to come together. They wait it out for a year or two then go back to what they understand. We provided a hateful and unwelcoming reunion for the Vietnam soldiers and we are providing a even more confusing welcome for our new patriots.

If we would allow these young men to bring their feelings of brotherhood back to this selfish, divided country rather than be abused and turned around again and again, maybe something postive might ignite. They are the only citizens doing real work for our country but hey are still treated like fodder. Send in the posturing Congress, the stifling old men of the Senate, cook up the draft and let every family suffer or propose a national army (like WWII) always deployed until all our indeolgical and paranoid suppositions are satisfied.

Bring them home, spend some of the billons to get their minds right. These wars should end if not for any other reason than we have used up, killed and abused enough good men and owe their honor and bravery a moment of peace.

The peace and stability of the world does not so much rest on the mindset of governance but of the mindset of the populace. We as a people have been thinking badly for years. No one is willing to sacrifice but we pay for the chumps willing to go to war? A stupid made up war.

Our brave men come home to idiocy and think of suicide.

The world will never lack mad men.