As A Vietnam Vet I Can Say It Is A Waste To Risk Your Life In The Military For A GOP Run Govt.

[Victor_c3]

24. I joined in 1997

I grew up in a republican leaning household and I saw what the government was doing with our military deployments during my childhood. As an 11 year old kid, I watched the first gulf war unfold and believed and followed it on TV. I saw the US involvement in the Balkans and in Haiti. I believed that the US military was a tool being used by our military to make the world a better place. I honestly felt that we had learned the lessons of Vietnam and would never entangle ourselves in a conflict like that again. I joined the army believing that I'd be contributing to make the world a better and safer place.

In 1998 I received an Army ROTC Scholarship and earned a degree in chemistry. I graduated in May 2002 and I volunteered to be an Infantry Office (I don't know what I was thinking). In 2004, I found myself spending 13 months in Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader and I saw first hand what war is all about and what our foreign policy means to the people who it is inflicted upon. That experience turned me HARD to the left with my ideals.

I started writing this with a specific intent of where I wanted my message to go, but I've lost my focus on where I was going with this. My head is kind of off in a different place today as today is one of those solemn anniversaries of one of those shitty sort of circumstances I experienced in the war. There are a couple of dates that are significant to me and this happens to be one of them.