Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Us Death Toll in Iraq

The death toll for American service members just approached 2000.

Over the weekend I found in my local book store a book by Michael Moore entitled, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again? " . I wouldn't say it was written by Michael Moore but it contained e-mails from servicemen and women from OIF to back home. I am not a Michael Moore supporter, but the letters in the form of e-mails struck a chord that seemed all to familiar as a one who spent some time in the sandbox.

A common thread in a lot of the letters is a feeling of being torn as serving as a loyal American soldier with a reverent " Ours is not to question why " attitude to then actually wondering about the situation and questioning why. Freedom is certainly not free, and there are those of us that has to stand up and defend those freedoms when our leaders ask us to do so...but this situation that a lot of us has found us in has us puzzled as to whether OIF falls into that category. I think most uniformed personal understand and were willing to do what needed to be done in Afghanistan for OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom), but OIF has a lot of us scratching our heads.