just a tad..

Went to visit the Missus at her new posting for the weekend. She was part of the send-off services/ceremonies for the next roto heading for Afghanistan.. 3500 troops [ including the future son-in-law heading back after leave ]..

Mighty impressive, the huge drill hall filled with men and women in desert cam [ and all so young!! ]. Good Padre did her usual great job of comforting the troops and families just a bit after the big generals all gave their rahrah speeches...

THough there was the usual press gangs there, wasn't surpriserd to see that the event got short shrift in the newsrags and on TV ..mostly buried on the inner pages and the reporters zeroed in on the soldiers with cute kids or preganant wives/sweethearts... standard milking of the story, but little substance to the whole thing...

guess its getting to be old news fast....even three soldiers killed by IED outside Khandahar the day before the sendoff didn't make the front pages or the lead item on the news...

gauls me to think that the ' novelty' has worn off so fast and folks are getting bored with the whole issue of making a difference for folks far away...

More worried about cost of gas at the pump and what the kids need for back to school to think about things, I guess..

anyway...

I remember seeing a small item on the CBC on troops going over but it was very short and had nothing to do with the Olympics.

We see the same thing Rocketeer they are more worried about Political correct than our children.I watched part of Demo. Convention and saw some of the Demostraters outside.

This was in the weekend paper

says it pretty clearly, I think...



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2008...23/BNStory/National/

Oh, troop deaths barely raise an eyebrow in the US.

Yea, but don't let gay people do anything (not that I agree with what they do) that pisses off the religious right.

So far there are 5 of us here that care. I care, but I don't care about those who don't. I'd rather have 5 people care about me than 100,000 dopes who toss up my picture at the end of Nancy Grace.

I've lost some friends there. I wonder how many more must make the ultimate sacrifice to bring freedom to this far away land of anything but.

These fine Afghan folks deserve better than what they've had and hopefully we can be a part of bringing about that change.

Count me as one who cares.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Weatherman1956,

I care what happens

Sure we do care. I would imagine that when I was serving, that blogs and forums (had they existed) would pretty much mirror our actions and sentiments posted in here.

As for the public? Looks like they are getting pretty de-sensitized to the efforts and lives of the troops. As long as all the bad things are happening over there, (anyplace other than right here) it will always be this way.

I saw this Afghanistan set movie a few weeks ago. It was really good.


http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/

Of course the other one is Charlie Wilson's War.

Love Julia Roberts. Tom Hanks as that Texas Congressman was spot on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson's_War

not only is my lip quivering today, but I've definitely got a tear in my eye.. 3 more of our lads were killed and 5 injured in an ambush.

That brings the total to 96 since landing in Afghanistan.. not much by WWII standards but more than enough to sadden a lot of people..

Where was this guy before when we needed him?
Retired US Army General speaks out, and, from my viewpoint, he's right on.. Guess he was ' muzzled' by restrictions when serving and his' comments' were ignored, trashed or he was a 'victim' of ' larger policy' by the numbnuts politicos who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2008.../BNStory/Afghanistan

If NATO/UN/the West isn't careful they'll snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Rocketeer I am so sad about all of our Military losses and I also praise and cheerish their services and the most important part is I hope their sacerfices are not in vain.

Damn!.. the Taliban nutters got another one.. Bringing the Canuck total to 97 KIA..guy was week short of shipping home [ he had survived an earlier IED attack and was MID for his efforts in saving others during that event ]..

See they also managed to hit a police station with two suicide bombers in the city just to prove no one is safe...

No one said this was going to be easy, but.. with Canuckistan now in the grips of a Federal election you can bet the softy-lefty bunch will be decrying this and demanding 'early withdrawl ' as an 'option' to placate the peaceatanycost'ers ...

I'm sure there's a few of the same softylefties in USA will be mouthing the same over the recent spate of ' collateral damage' the Afghanis have suffered at the hands of American air strikes... already saw a story that ' some' are demanding the US forces take more care in checking for civilians before ordering a fighter/bomber or armed drone down on ' insurgents', when the troops are under attack...

" Hello!.. Taliban? Can we have a bit of help here ? Those who are innocent civilians move to the right and those fundamentalist insurgents, could you stand in the open, just for a moment?

Thank you..."