Tomorrow Morning

I'll be getting a call from my wife's nephew who's flying in. He has to be on post on Fort Lewis by Midnight. He just finished Basic and AIT and is going to be shipping out to Iraq next month. He was hoping his father would pick him up so they could spend a little time together before he had to go, but apparently that wasn't in the cards. His dad called to say he wouldn't be able to make it.

If, God forbid (just an expression) anything DOES happen to him, I can guarantee his mother isn't going to be standing outside of Bush's ranch in Crawford or anywhere else, for that matter. She's been missing for three months herself, most likely having crawled inside a crack pipe somewhere.

He's a kid who's grown up out of a pretty shitty situation--a drug addicted mother and a father who, according to his grandmother and aunt (my wife), is a flake himself. Not like that's a surprise.

I met him at our wedding in Vegas. He struck me as a good kid, just a little older than my eldest is now.

Here we go. Now I'm going to have someone I'M going to be personally worried about over there. Not the first, since I've known a few others sent there, if only in passing. But this kid is family.

I ain't happy about it. I wasn't happy about his grandmother pushing him into the army (she was trying to get him out of the drug culture he'd fallen into, but still...) When my wife told me he was coming to Fort Lewis, I groaned aloud. I knew what that meant instantly. She nodded. "He's going to Iraq next month," she told me.

FUCK.

All I've got to say to every motherfucker with the power and the voice who isn't doing EVERY FUCKING THING in his or her power to end this illegal debacle is FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

So bash Cindy all you like. At least she's using her public face to push for the same thing she's been pushing for from the beginning. Ending this goddamn war. If some of her efforts seem over-the-top, maybe it's just because THERE'S NO END IN SIGHT.

war is never the answer. killing people only makes their relatives and friends want to kill the killers, and on and on. I am so sorry your nephew is going to be spending time there.

Shipping into a combat zone as a replacement without one's own unit is the insanity that was 'Nam. I just don't know how they're doing it these days - they were supposed to have LEARNED. Do they com back when their UNIT is rotated or after their own 'tour' is done? (SSDD, I guess.)

I just know he's very recently out of AIT, supposed to report to post tomorrow at midnight, and is shipping out the middle of next month.

:hug:

I'm waiting to find out if my cousin will be sent back again. :(

Bless you and yours.

The bar's over there.

-Hoot