Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	11/21/2004

Casualties

Myself and most of the people I associate with don't personally know anyone serving in Iraq so the dead and wounded counts generally don't have the impact for me as for those who do.

While I was in Jacksonville (home of the world's largest marine base) this last week, I did meet with a long time Birch member whose husband is a pathologist in the Navy. As we talked about spreading the message of the John Birch Society, she mentioned that unlike herself, her husband simply did not have the time to stay up on everything as he goes to work early in the morning and usually does not get home until after 7. She said that his schedule has become even more pressed of late and then almost in passing mentioned that for example just yesterday (Thursday) his hospital had 30 casualties come in from Fallujah. That struck me as more than just a statistic. I also wondered how I would feel to be seriously wounded and have to be air freighted almost half a planet away. The hospital bases in Kuwait and Europe must be full or have the wrong specialists.

We moved on and talked about the FTAA and the effect it will have on the economy. She talked about her son who has honored his devoutly Catholic Philipino mother with eight grandchildren. Her son is a Marine helicopter pilot based in California. What careers would be good for his children? Her husband (the grandfather) was advising this much: Don't go in the Navy and don't become a doctor. "The Navy does not treat its people well and medicine is soon to be socialised and made just as bad as the Navy."

Her son has been gung ho on the Marines but has been growing concerned over the last year or so. He spends two weeks out of eight away from his family on the otherside of the country flyiing Blackhawks on patrol over Washington DC. When he is back home near San Diego he flies Homeland Security drug interdiction agents over the border with Mexico. This merger of the Drug War, the border patrol and the miltary has not been going well. In his mother's words he is "alarmed at the corruption in the new HS structure." He holds out hope though. He has been testifying to a Congressional investigation committee looking into the various charges against how HS is opertating in Southern California.

There is much going on and it was good to get at least one data point from a military wife/mother's perspective.

This morning via the antiwar.com site, I read this story from the Austrailian press. I don't watch or read the main stream news in the US enough to know if this is something that would be covered. I know I have not heard anything similar on NPR while driving the highways and byways on my job. The on the street reality depicted in this article probably goes a long way to explaining why another Marine might shoot a wounded Iraqi in the head.

(As I write this, my kids who are yelling "kill him, kill him!" to their VoIP connected Halo II partner on the otherside of the country insist that their's is just a game.)

10:32:56 AM

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