Hi Bill Ulrich; Re: "Carl, 6 of those 9 deaths are not from enemy fire, but from accidents like Humvees hitting pot holes."
Go look on the Vietnam memorial. You will find there inscribed the names of guys who were killed in accidents in Vietnam. (Hostile deaths were 47,359 while "non-hostile" deaths were 10,797. That's cause the memorial includes all "combat zone casualties".)
Maybe you haven't thought about this, so you feel that we should get a jack hammer and remove the names of the guys who died when their helicopter had a mechanical problem. Maybe I should explain the exigencies of war to you.
Maybe you don't read the papers, but the fact is that our convoys are still being regularly ambushed. Now suppose that you were 21, driving a truck in Iraq, and wanted to live to be 22. Do you suppose that you'd be a little, uh, aggressive, in your driving habits? And what with the convoys getting shot up, don't you think it might be a good idea to use helicopters to move stuff around instead? That's right, our military isn't stupid, so they drive faster when they're in "Indian Territory", and they use (inherently dangerous) helicopters more when ground convoys are subject to ambush. And that raises the number of accidental deaths.
So don't take a jack hammer to those 10,000 names on the Wall just yet. Instead, have some humanity for the boys who made a promise to defend the Constitution, and are now dying (in accidents) for the President's short sightedness.
-- Carl |
