Military affairs

A BlueNC lurker send me these emails from the wife of a soldier in Iraq:

My husband who is currently in Iraq wrote a letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper. Days after the letter was aired, though he had family and friends from the area cheering him, he was threatened with being charged with treason and disloyalty simply because he gave his views on what he had experienced while serving in Iraq and how those who were immediately in command of him treated the soldiers in his unit who weren't "perfect".

The Child King paid a visit to Walter Reed hospital today, eager for a photo-op with the troops to bolster his illusion of leadership. He was rightly criticized for offering too little too late.

Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton: "I'm convinced he would honor them more if he would refrain from using soldiers as props in political theater. I would be very happy to see him do the Walter Reed visit more like the commander and secondarily as an inspector general, rather than as a politician," he said.

Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America: "Walter Reed is not a photo-op. Walter Reed is still broken. The DOD health care system is still broken. ... Our troops need their commander in chief to start working harder for them."

By now you've heard the solemn words of the Theocrat currently serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” he said. “I do not believe the United States is well-served by a policy that says it is O.K. to be immoral in any way.”

The general told The Tribune that he would not want acceptance of gay behavior “to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior.”

As an ex-Navy officer who spent three years in the company of Marines at Camp Lejeune, I can tell you with certainty that General Pace would soon find himself with an Army of NONE if he aggressively prosecuted so-called immoral behavior. The Bible doesn't approve of any sex outside of marriage. Which means anybody who has ever gotten laid without the benefits of god's blessing in marriage should be discharged immediately from military service.

I never had to choose between fighting in an insane war or going absent without leave. Vietnam was winding down when I got into the Navy - and except for officers like John Kerry who served on Swift boats, the duty on ships wasn't all that hazardous. But I often wondered what I would have done if I had been forced into combat.

The truth is, I might very well have done what Ehren Watada did last year as a first lieutenant in the US Army.

At the center of the dispute between the judge and the defense is Watada’s intent when he did not deploy with his unit to Iraq. The defense has consistently tried to call into question the legality of the war, because Watada said the war is illegal and a command to fight in Iraq is also illegal. But the judge has said the argument over the legality of the war is not a matter that can be settled in military court.

Maybe this is why Mr. Mike is behaving like Silent Sam when it comes to the OLF travesty. Could it be that the good Guv is afraid that if he tells the Navy they can't screw over family farms, they'll stop pouring money into NC bases?

To which I say, bullshit. The military has too many sunk costs in North Carolina to "unfund" anything of significance. If Easley tells them they can't crash their jets in Washington County, they'll just find another place in North Carolina, which is what they should have done in the first place.

Gov. Mike Easley on Friday asked North Carolina’s congressional delegation to help ensure that Congress approves full funding to carry out BRAC mandates.

The U.S. Senate will take up the funding issue next week when it considers a continuing resolution for the federal budget. The House on Wednesday passed its version, which Army officials say puts the base realignment and closure projects at risk.