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Several points to make -
-Indeed, there are speed limits / stop signs near checkpoints. If someone isn't obeying them, then it's likely a bomb. We've been blown up enough to 'know' that.
-Secondly, some reporters (not all) like to put their own spin on what they see happening. I had two reporters, one of whom was actually a reporter, the other was an anti-war reporter. The latter took anything that was said, heard, seen or otherwise observed, and put a bloody bigoted sexual/racial/-ism harrasment or other label to it.
-When bullets are fired at anything, (I didn't read the article) but if they are fired in rapid succession, the force of firing has a tendency of lifting the weapon, and causing your aim to go higher. So, if it wasn't ricochet, it was because they were perceived as an immediate threat. The italian SS agent got himself killed... he should've known to at least play the part of a 'normal driver' until after he was well within the checkpoint.
-I've buried five of my friends this past year. We react in the best way possible - it's an attack until proven otherwise. Why? Drivers with broken-down vehicles on the side of the road are set in the middle of kill zones for ambushes. A four year old who crosses the road, slowing down a convoy is wearing a vest and there are trashbag IEDs lining the garbage on one side of the road or another. We've seen even younger kids with TNT strapped all over their bodies before, where they'd run up to us, asking for candy or something, and sometimes, it just might be a matter of taking that vest off of a confused child (which is something I'll never do - I'll go get a bomb squad to do that).
-I don't agree with the reasons why we went in there. I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion of that situation. It sucks. In many, many ways, at many levels. It's a situation that we're stuck with, originally done by a president that we re-elected, and there are many things that could be done to help, or to hinder any efforts of getting a peaceful solution out of it.
I'd love nothing more than to have to stop burying my friends. But until some 'extremist' groups over there either give in or go away (it may be almost impossible to find 'sleepers' without a George Orwell 1984 kind of situation - I'd rather have the sleepers), it's what I'll continue to do.
Someone is going to ask me why I still serve - I get that feeling already. Before I joined, I thought poverty was the projects. I thought that lack of respect for the dead was not burying somebody. I thought that tyranny was using civilians as human armor for vehicles.
We take our freedoms for granted simply because many of us have had them all our lives. Even Bosnia and Kosovo don't really compare to Iraq and Afghanistan. I learned in Iraq that poverty includes walking around the desert damn near naked looking for food or water. I saw a six-year-old walking on H1 with calluses so thick on his feet, he didn't need shoes to comfortably walk on asphalt in 120 degree sunny weather. I don't think a 9mm bullet would even peirce the skin on his feet, it was that thick. Lack of respect for the dead isn't only leaving them unburied, it includes mass graves. I saw two of those, both had between three thousand and five thousand rotting bodies. I still occaisionally plea to some higher power as to how such things could be allowed to happen. I've been haunted by some things I cannot change, simply because of the magnitude of those things. I won't even go into tyranny today. I could go for many days.
It's wrong. It's not a good situation, and it hasn't been for many years. I doubt even as an English colony was it a 'good' situation. We're there now, and there's no plausible option to leave, so we're stuck with a job nobody wants to do. Or get killed for.
I am not angry at any of you for the opinions you hold. In many ways, I take a perverse view of it, proud that you hold the feelings that you do and wish for a peaceful world. I'd actually be scared if everyone in the 'free' world held the same opinion as their government. Total war (such as WWII), with high nationalistic pride and action, is more dangerous, and powerful than almost any other tangible force I know. It is what allowed us to use the atomic bomb in the first place - as an alternative to a ground invasion.
There are only some things that Bush can take the blame for - generally, I'd only try to fry the chain of command two levels higher than where the incident happen - and likewise, give credit only up to that much higher than the action that caused merit. One example is that President Bush didn't make the decision to ground all planes on 9/11. That was done within the FAA.
Anyhow, I apologize for the length of this comment, but I've pretty much spoken my feelings as thoroughly as I can on the subject... Not that I had a whole lot to add beyond the 4300 character comment limit...
Original comment posted here. I read the article, and realized that the wounds caused were all shrapnel wounds from pieces of the engine block flying into the vehicle. When the investigation is complete, we'll all be more knowledgeable as to what happened.
-Indeed, there are speed limits / stop signs near checkpoints. If someone isn't obeying them, then it's likely a bomb. We've been blown up enough to 'know' that.
-Secondly, some reporters (not all) like to put their own spin on what they see happening. I had two reporters, one of whom was actually a reporter, the other was an anti-war reporter. The latter took anything that was said, heard, seen or otherwise observed, and put a bloody bigoted sexual/racial/-ism harrasment or other label to it.
-When bullets are fired at anything, (I didn't read the article) but if they are fired in rapid succession, the force of firing has a tendency of lifting the weapon, and causing your aim to go higher. So, if it wasn't ricochet, it was because they were perceived as an immediate threat. The italian SS agent got himself killed... he should've known to at least play the part of a 'normal driver' until after he was well within the checkpoint.
-I've buried five of my friends this past year. We react in the best way possible - it's an attack until proven otherwise. Why? Drivers with broken-down vehicles on the side of the road are set in the middle of kill zones for ambushes. A four year old who crosses the road, slowing down a convoy is wearing a vest and there are trashbag IEDs lining the garbage on one side of the road or another. We've seen even younger kids with TNT strapped all over their bodies before, where they'd run up to us, asking for candy or something, and sometimes, it just might be a matter of taking that vest off of a confused child (which is something I'll never do - I'll go get a bomb squad to do that).
-I don't agree with the reasons why we went in there. I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion of that situation. It sucks. In many, many ways, at many levels. It's a situation that we're stuck with, originally done by a president that we re-elected, and there are many things that could be done to help, or to hinder any efforts of getting a peaceful solution out of it.
I'd love nothing more than to have to stop burying my friends. But until some 'extremist' groups over there either give in or go away (it may be almost impossible to find 'sleepers' without a George Orwell 1984 kind of situation - I'd rather have the sleepers), it's what I'll continue to do.
Someone is going to ask me why I still serve - I get that feeling already. Before I joined, I thought poverty was the projects. I thought that lack of respect for the dead was not burying somebody. I thought that tyranny was using civilians as human armor for vehicles.
We take our freedoms for granted simply because many of us have had them all our lives. Even Bosnia and Kosovo don't really compare to Iraq and Afghanistan. I learned in Iraq that poverty includes walking around the desert damn near naked looking for food or water. I saw a six-year-old walking on H1 with calluses so thick on his feet, he didn't need shoes to comfortably walk on asphalt in 120 degree sunny weather. I don't think a 9mm bullet would even peirce the skin on his feet, it was that thick. Lack of respect for the dead isn't only leaving them unburied, it includes mass graves. I saw two of those, both had between three thousand and five thousand rotting bodies. I still occaisionally plea to some higher power as to how such things could be allowed to happen. I've been haunted by some things I cannot change, simply because of the magnitude of those things. I won't even go into tyranny today. I could go for many days.
It's wrong. It's not a good situation, and it hasn't been for many years. I doubt even as an English colony was it a 'good' situation. We're there now, and there's no plausible option to leave, so we're stuck with a job nobody wants to do. Or get killed for.
I am not angry at any of you for the opinions you hold. In many ways, I take a perverse view of it, proud that you hold the feelings that you do and wish for a peaceful world. I'd actually be scared if everyone in the 'free' world held the same opinion as their government. Total war (such as WWII), with high nationalistic pride and action, is more dangerous, and powerful than almost any other tangible force I know. It is what allowed us to use the atomic bomb in the first place - as an alternative to a ground invasion.
There are only some things that Bush can take the blame for - generally, I'd only try to fry the chain of command two levels higher than where the incident happen - and likewise, give credit only up to that much higher than the action that caused merit. One example is that President Bush didn't make the decision to ground all planes on 9/11. That was done within the FAA.
Anyhow, I apologize for the length of this comment, but I've pretty much spoken my feelings as thoroughly as I can on the subject... Not that I had a whole lot to add beyond the 4300 character comment limit...
Original comment posted here. I read the article, and realized that the wounds caused were all shrapnel wounds from pieces of the engine block flying into the vehicle. When the investigation is complete, we'll all be more knowledgeable as to what happened.
