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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (107741)	8/26/2005 11:58:41 AM
From: Oral Roberts	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I really find it offensive that you keep claiming that recruits are brainwashed. It's bullshit and no matter how many times you say it, it still won't be true. I really wish you would stop.

To: Grainne who wrote (107741)	8/26/2005 12:16:59 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

That's the whole point of boot camp- to make young men more fearless in the face of death. Intuitively we try to protect ourselves, and in many ways being sent out in a war is antithetical to that- so it does take a certain amount of sleep deprivation and stress, to program young men to respond the way the military wants them to. It's very cult like- so I agree with you that it is like brainwashing, or is brain washing. Of course many people like the results, so they see it as either benevolent brain washing, or they are unable to see it that way at all- but the stresses and yelling and sleep deprivation of boot camp are clearly aimed at breaking down the individual identity and make the individual group oreinted. That's what brain washing is all about. I think it's completely ok for Cindy to have an agenda. Don't we all have an agenda for our lives? Mine is to have a good life, fight for what I believe in, and make damn sure my kids have the best possible lives they can (as far as I can do that.) If a child of mine died, and I thought I could prevent that grief happening to another mother, I would probably make that mission a part of my agenda. Since I feel that way I am deeply sympathetic to Ms. Sheehan's activities, even if I don't agree with every word she says.

To: Grainne who wrote (107741)	8/26/2005 1:26:03 PM
From: Alan Smithee	Respond to of 108807

And we will never know how Casey Sheehan's opinion of whether it was a good idea to re-enlist and volunteer for a rescue mission would have changed if he knew he would die doing it. Young people consider themselves immortal. They don't always weigh everything appropriately. I wonder if he thought the mission was worth his life, and whether all the military boot camp brainwashing made him change the way he thought so he couldn't really think clearly, either. You're not serious, are you? Do you really think that Casey Sheehan did not know each and every day over there that he could die at any minute? I have a friend who was in Iraq last year as a civilian employee of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He knew every minute of every day that a mortar round could fall right next to him. Casey Sheehan likely had an even better sense of what could happen to him. The statement "they don't always weigh everything appropriately," is absurd. Casey Sheehan was not a kid. He was a 24 year old man. He had been in Iraq for one tour of duty, and he voluntarily chose to reenlist and he volunteered for the mission during which he was killed. He was much like the young man I met on an airplane a few weeks ago. He was the same age as Casey Sheehan, had attended and graduated from Washington State University, and had enlisted in the Army. He was headed back to Iraq after a leave to come home and visit family. This young man was *looking forward* to getting back and rejoining his buddies. I can tell you grainne, I spoke to this young man at length, and he was no deluded youth lacking in judgment. Finally, I find ("feel") that your constant harping about "brainwashing" of army recruits is offensive and demeans the thousands of young men and women in the service of our country in the armed forces. Sure, they're given training in the goals and philosophy of the armed forces, but they are by no means are brainwashed. To suggest such is to suggest that thousands of our finest young men and women have no free will and are incapable of thinking for themselves. Since you have not spoken to even one of these young people, and apparently are unwilling to do so, you hardly have standing to contend they are "brainwashed."