Why did we learn, only after his pleas had been ignored and he had killed 13 innocent people, that the psychiatrist soldier who did it was being forced against his will to fight in Afghanistan?
And the military Stop Loss policy has not ended either. We just decline to complain about it now that we have a president we want to love. Things are much, much better now except for the Afghanis and for the troops -- our underclass -- that tiny minority of "volunteers" whose fight for freedom could not be more ironic. By the logic of markets, even slaves and indentured servants are never forced to kill and die.
These brave "volunteers" still shoot themselves in the shoulder or foot to avoid being deployed in the middle east to become occupiers and war criminals in nations they realize are not a threat to anyone on US soil. Or they commit suicide each week, in higher numbers than ever before in history.
Thanking them today seems cruelly inadequate. We should more rightly consider them hostages, and find ways to rescue them.
An honest volunteer military would be an essential first step towards respecting the troops. Keeping them lower than slaves while setting aside a day to "honor" them? That's a holiday for hypocrites.
If we can't convince a fraction of 1% of Americans that occupying a foreign country makes us safer, anyone who doesn't want to fight is obviously absolutely right.
Free the US Hostages - our soldiers.
UPDATE
To my surprise, a loud pile of Kossacks objected to this diary in the same tone I've seen from chickenhawks at RedState. Troubled, I was considering deleting the diary when an actual veteran spoke up:
I am a 30 year veteran
and I can't contradict anything in this diary. Look up how many lower enlisted members are eligible for food stamps. The National Guard has been used and abused with deployments. How many officers are getting out. So many that instead of getting rid of the dead weight we keep them in, while the best and the brightest get out. These two occupations have no clear ending in sight. A good friend of mine son had his legs blown off while on stop loss. Only the economy is keeping recruiting goals met. Veterans benefits are hard to come by, I know that for a fact. I'm lucky, but I know a lot of vets that aren't. Any one of the 101st chair borne commando brigade that wants to enlist and try it out, go ahead. I doubt that there are any takers. The military wants you young and dumb. I enlisted at 20 and got out at 50. I served from Viet Nam to Desert Storm, and I thought that we would never be stupid enough to get ourselves in this position. Colin Powell could have stopped it but he didn't. At the time he could have he wimped out. Now we are paying the price. If you don't like hearing this from a vet, as they say in the Russian Marines tough shitski.
Thanks for rescuing us, Northern Light. Out of respect for veterans today, this diary stays.
Right now most of the Recommends for this diary are from veterans.
I'm sorry there aren't more of us with the courage to stand up for you.