[dude1394]

Originally Posted by rmacomic

Dude.
What were your "silly little" reasons for not serving?
In Vietnam?

Well as I said in my second post, I tried to enlist but was not accepted. Failed the physical.
As far as Vietnam it was before my time. This was right after I believe...lesseee...I was about 18-20, so that would be say 1970ish I guess.

I'm not Knocking your patriotism, my man, just your reasoning for Americas youth to die.

Are you advocating for no military service? Your question seems funny. You either have no army, have a volunteer army or draft people it would seem to me. Unless you are advocating disbanding the military your question makes no sense in this argument of how you create that army. If there is one, someone's in it.

Let me put this to ya.
My best friend, Marco the Fish (his real name is Marc Williams http://www.myspace.com/marcothefish) is serving his second sentence in Iraq. And I mean sentence. He is going back over a dispute about his politics. And this is something most of the public doesn't know. If you voted against Bush and you serve, you get to go back in the "surge."

So his voting records were checked (as were all soldiers) and if you voted against bush then you go back, if not you don't. I'm sorry that sounds like hogwash. If we cannot keep a top secret wire-tapping program from the public, I don't expect this could be either.

I trust the opinion of my father far more than yours and he is disgusted by the way the common soldier is being treated. If you have kids you don't go back, if you are an active republican you don't go back. If you have a Kerry/Edwards sticker on your car you ARE DEFINITELY going back. This is no longer a war, more a punishment for military who don't agree with the current administration.

You should listen to you fathers opinion over mine. However he sounds wrong to me, flat out wrong. Your father sounds like a great man, even great men are wrong and in this case, this sounds like a fantasy. Michael Moore and the koskids might have come up with it.

Maybe you don't know, but the guys going back are the ones who have been vocal against the war. In the last year I have done over a dozen USO/Military base gigs, and the general consensus is that there are two camps in the Military right now. The guys who support the war (and aren't going over) and the guys who don't (and are going back for their second and third tour)

No I don't know that and nor do you. I think it great that you've done the USO shows and I know that the soldiers are really having it tough over there. But again, you'll have to give me a lot more than your opinion or the opinion of folks who are repeating what sounds like an urban myth for me to believe that.

And for your elitism argument . My Grand Father served in the Battle of the Bulge, My father served for 30 years, are you saying that when they didn't want me to serve they were being elitists? I see it as they felt the family served enough.

They did and that's to be commended. In some respects you are making my point for me. Some desire to enlist and in general it's made up of a particular sort of person. But in this society, I believe it's in our best interests to have a cross-section (of all classes) in the military. ESPECIALLY those who will probably wind up being the elite of the society, those people in particular I think would be well-served by serving their country. Those folks are not doing that today.

For someone who doesn't have a personal perspective you sure seem to to have an opinion.

For someone who does have a personal perspective, your opinion about stop-loss seems fanciful at best. With respect to my personal opinion the only one I have is my son-in-law who is slated to go back for his third tour in december. And he's trying to find a way out of it which I support he on. He is at the mercy of his 8 year committment.

What's your point?

And forget your new arguments, my beef with you is the war hawk attitude of your first post.

What's a war-hawk? Nowhere in that first post was there even anything about going/not going to war. The post was about the benefits to society (and people) in serving in the armed forces.

And if it was free form, why did you edit it?

I didn't.