"Support Our Troops"
08/06/2007 04:59 a.m.
Nothing cracks me up more than those funny little yellow ribbon stickers on the sides of everyones car saying "support our troops". It's great to be appreciated, and I'm greatful to live in a time when the war approval rate is down the gutter, that people remember that there are still american lives on the line, every day.

So what makes it so funny? Seeing one of these stickers on a behemoth Cadillac Escalade that guzzles gas quicker than a college student on a three day bender. Or, better yet, one of these stickers on a car with an Exxon/Moble parking sticker on it. Yes, the world is a funny place, and people do have particular politics.

I watched the Democratic/Republican debates (not for fun, they just happened to be on) and I laughed my way through most of it. I realized that Bush's pile of doggie poop that we call America's State Of Affairs is going to go into the hands of one of these lucky contestants (I mean... canidates). Iraq. The Economy. International Relations. Taxes. Who ever gets the lucky lotto number this time around is going to have their hands full for at least two good years... maybe even three or four. America's a bit messy right now, and I don't see to many able-bodied people who have the stones to make it right, or something resembling it.

Recently, a soldier just died in Iraq, and it was his fifth tour. Fifth! Now, of course, it probably didn't say that he went to Kosovo or Bosnia, or that he was in Afganistan once and Iraq twice, but think about that. We've got guys now who've been at war longer than World War II. Most guys there only served around 12-14 months. Some did a long haul (like the unfortunate ones in the philipines, or the survivors of the consentration camps or the bataan death march) but many soldiers do two tours, some three, and a few even more than that. I'll even throw in the air force and the navy into that, doing repetitious deployments, 6 months on and off since October 2001. I know an air force (tech sergeant? e-6) who's done seven tours. That's 3 1/2 years of middle east time by itself, not including the in betweens. Makes for a heck of a lot of combat pay.

So, when are we coming home for good?

I'll answer that question for you on Jan 11, 2009, the first day for the next president. I hope we'll know then.
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