Good poetry ...

A phrase you don't hear much from me. Not big on poetry, I'd rather they be set to music but that's just me. Our pal Sumo has a couple poems up, written by a Marine in Iraq, but it's Sumo's comment afterwards that got me:

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Me [Sumo]: how much more of this stuff do we think is out there just like this one, anguishing over their roles in Iraq or Afghanistan. There must be miles and miles of it...waiting like a coiled spring...ready to snap...most likely to do harm to themselves because they can no longer live with what they did, witnessed or simply couldn't help their dying buddies ...

Exactly right. Guys came back from Vietnam fucked up after serving one tour. Think about these guys who are now on their third or fourth. And the Rethugs don't want to talk about Iraq. Know why? Because then they'd have to admit all this, the blood, the waste, the tragedy, is on their, and only their, hands. They had the majority and they enabled the Chimp, Cheney, and the neocons in their quest for American Empire and they will have to answer for this.

It's time to do the right thing.

Update:

As I've said on numerous occasions (I'm lazy and ain't digging up links; there's a search box on the left if you're interested), the Chimp only supports the troops who are able to fight ... barely. This via our pal Montag:

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Lost paperwork for new uniforms has forced some soldiers to attend their own Purple Heart ceremonies and the official birthday party for the Army in gym clothes, only to be chewed out by superiors....

....One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication at Walter Reed. "I went to Medhold many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said.

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Update:

Shakes blogwhoring in comments ... heh. She has an excellent look at the WaPo story:

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As usual, perhaps the worst part about this is the sickening propaganda for which parts of Walter Reed are used, while Building 18 and its occupants are hidden away from view like the flag-draped caskets of their brothers and sisters. Who, exactly, is helped by celebrating wounded veterans as heroes in photo-ops if they're then treated like shit for the next two years of their lives? It ain't the veterans; that's for sure.

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