Truman's Conscience

A belated welcome home.....

Canofworms had a post back on March 21st that I wanted to recommend as a must read. It's not often we can get the insight, especially from someone so articulate offered from an on the ground perspective, first hand. As a brother to an "Operation Desert Shield" vet and a son to a father who served in WWII, Korea AND Vietnam (he used to tell me, "son, I hit the trifecta on military service) I can appreciate the service and commitment from returning vets and I'm always interested in valuing what they have to say. Reading this particular post from Canofworms, I think his name is Jack, really affected me when he discussed his thoughts on the invasion and his body armor:

"At this point in the invasion (which I had been against even as a soldier whether they had WMD or not, and I suspected they didn’t) this was a real war. We even stopped and acted all GI Joe like and tried to detect where gunfire was coming from that was being fired at our convoy. We all assumed defensive positions around the vehicles, where the magical canvas that covers a humvee would have blocked anything being shot at us. (sarcasm)

I remember thinking that since they only issued me one ceramic plate for my body armor, if I had been shot in the back, would I have any chance at all? It seems as if the bullet would go into my back and bounce off the back of the plate I had in the front, and exit out the side or back, surely hitting vital organs."

I guess affected isn't the right word on second thought. It's more like anger. What kind of governmentwould spend millions on 'pych opt" programs like propaganda news articles for local consumption pumping up the 'positive aspects' of this war from the pentagon's pov at the expense of proper body armor for our troops in the field? It's not too hard to imagine that Harry Truman's conscience wouldn't even dare to allow this to happen.

Since I've been reading Canofworms for a while now I will do something that should have been done on my earlier visits. Give a hearty and hale, though belated, welcome home. Thanks for your service to our country.