Please Don’t Support My Troop

Michael Gaddy
Oct. 12, 2005

My son returned from Iraq last weekend after a year’s service. I confess to breathing much easier now that he is out of that quagmire.

I have a personal request for all of you George W. Bush supporters and Christian warhawks: please do not support my troop. I have visions and aspirations of having him around, seeing him settle down and start a family at some point, and being near as I grow older. Your support would mean that he would be sent back to this war started and continued on lies to become a target for those who would rather live their lives without the interference of a foreign, empire-seeking, new-world-order, invader.

Actually, my son completed his contractual obligation to the military several months ago, but thanks to your support, he has been stop-lossed and has no idea when he will be allowed to resign his commission.

Why would I not want your support for my troop, you ask? Considering your support of our criminal government has led to the death, destruction and misery of millions of people on this planet, that is basically a no-brainer.

Of course you supported the troops back in WWII and thought that was a good thing, but somewhere along the line your support of the State led to the leaving behind of over 20,000 of our soldiers, those liberated from German POW camps by the Russians, never to be heard from again. I’m sure those families appreciated your support.

Back in 1950, you supported my father as he left my mother and me to go to war in Korea. He never returned, giving his life somewhere in that foreign land. Because of the loss of my father, my mother put a vodka bottle to her head and pulled the trigger. Your wonderful support took both my parents. Thanks again!

Your continued support in Korea led to the abandonment of over 8,000 POW’s and MIA’s to the enemy. Do you wonder why many find your support lacking? Just ask the families of those who have been left behind by this government you support blindly.

Some of you supported us as we went to the jungles of Southeast Asia; some chose not to. The results were the same; with or without your support, our criminal government cares nothing for those in uniform! Those of you who supported us claimed that those who didn’t were responsible for us losing the war. Horse Apples! We lost that war for the same reason we will lose the one in Iraq: wars started on lies to increase the bottom line of campaign contributors are seldom won because the war must be extended for as long as possible to insure the corporatocracy gets a full return on its money. There is a black granite wall in DC so all of you warhawks can go there and read the names of the 58,000+ charred souls you killed with your support. Just exactly where did that get us? Does Vietnam have a "democracy" today? Your continued support for a corrupt government led to over 2,000 military personnel being left behind in that war; with grieving families never knowing what happened to their loved ones.

Your support in Beirut cost the lives of hundreds of Marines and Soldiers as people who wanted us to hell out of their country destroyed our soldiers' poorly protected barracks. Please give me the upside to this loss. Is Lebanon better off today because those good soldiers gave their lives?

I can still see the faces of the young Army Rangers that were killed in the illegal invasion of Panama. With your support, they gave their lives to assist in serving a drug warrant on a foreign Head of State, one our government had supported for years. Is it not ironic that we later went to war with Iraq for doing to Kuwait the same thing you supported our soldiers doing to Panama?

Your wonderful support led to the unspeakable horrors inflicted on those soldiers who were in Somalia! You should be especially proud of that one. Those dead soldiers dragged through the streets would not have been there had it not been for your "support." If you have trouble remembering this, some time spent with the book Black Hawk Down should jog your memory.

Only in a true Orwellian society could citizens send off poorly trained and equipped soldiers, serving in a politically correct military, led by a civilian leadership that has spent the majority of their adult lives in a revolving door between the military industrial complex and government service, and call the damn thing, "supporting the troops."

Why do we call people who prefer to live their lives without having their land bombed, their women, children and old folks killed, their national infrastructure destroyed and foreign soldiers on their soil, terrorists? Have you ever wondered what word the American Indian had for the U.S. government back in the middle to late 19th Century? History tells us we referred to them as "savages" and "those Red Devils" because they fought and died for their land and their culture. What did our ancestors call the British who were doing to the colonists precisely what our government does to others today?

Time to come clean, America: you do not in any way support troops by sending them to die for Halliburton and Bechtel’s bottom line. This is analogous to sending your teenager out in a car with no brakes and bald tires, accompanied by a child rapist high on crystal meth, and calling that "supporting" your children.

Rush Limbaugh was actually right for a change: there can be no support for the troops without supporting the war and the government that sent them there. Your misplaced support for the troops is actually support for a criminal enterprise in which the military serves as the enforcement arm of that enterprise. If you want to support the troops, do not allow the State to send them to their deaths for corporate profits in wars sired by lies!

October 12, 2005

Michael Gaddy [send him mail], an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.