Am I A Terrible Person?

For thinking that the idea of sending a camouflage teddy bear to the parents of soldiers killed in Afghanistan is incredibly condescending and insensitive?

It's disgusting. People with too much time on their hands take up a new hobby and pretend that it means something, while all they are doing is entertaining themselves.

<curmudgeon> And I am sick of hearing every dead soldier being referred to as a hero. It just ain't true, folks. (And I don't like the word fallen instead of dead.) Grow up, please! </curmudgeon>

Fox News is still paying Dick Cheney to be a commentator -- who thinks not enough soldiers have been killed yet.

One wonders how many will be enough, and what the ultimate goal to be achieved is.

Source

The graphs answer your questions: they are quantities of dollars - the only thing that matters in the USA.

_Howard wrote:

And I am sick of hearing every dead soldier being referred to as a hero.

They are (mostly) young kids serving honorably under (often) difficult conditions. I respect their professionalism and focus on the mission.

However, we have NO BUSINESS being in Afghanistan or Iraq anymore, none at all. The mission is flawed. Every day we're still there, every soldier injured or killed, is inexcusable.

Just to be clear (I know y'all have heard this before but I feel the need to vent) with the money that we've pissed away into the sands of Iraq & Afghanistan, we could've:

• Rebuilt all the crumbling bridges and highways
  
• Put every American to work
  
• Given every teacher in America a raise
  
• Installed high-speed internet to every home
  
• Made great strides in curing cancer
  
• Provided free college education for every high school graduate
  
• and lots of other worthwhile projects

All simultaneously, all with permanent benefit to the country, all with economic gain to the country.

Instead, Dick Cheney got a bonus from Halliburton.

NoCoPilot wrote:

_Howard wrote:

And I am sick of hearing every dead soldier being referred to as a hero.

They are (mostly) young kids serving honorably under (often) difficult conditions.  I respect their professionalism and focus on the mission.

I agree with you on that, NoCo. But it is very seldom that the term "hero" is applicable. It should be reserved for those very, very few that deserve it. Otherwise it is meaningless and its misuse deprives those very few of the special recognition they deserve.

Agree 100%.  Doing your job doesn't make you a hero.

Neither does driving over a roadside bomb.

Neither does choosing the military when you dropped out of high school and can't find another job.

-----------------------
That said, a little military discipline probably does wonders for many of these kids.

NoCoPilot wrote:

That said, a little military discipline probably does wonders for many of these kids.

Don't bet on that.

Well, Guantanemo excepted. But you disagree on the majority?

Military service does change people, but not always for the better.

If nothing else, it probably exposes a lot of Bubbas to their first black people.

I'm sure that's true now, but not when I was in the navy. There were no blacks, Asians, or Latinos in my boot camp company of 200. Nor do I recall seeing any in the avionics school I attended. In the fleet, minorities were nearly always assigned to scut work. There was one in my squadron, a black man who worked in the officers' mess. In the sixties, the navy was still almost completely segregated.

Today the low prestige arms of service -- infantry, sailors, support personnel -- are majority black. Officer corps and pilots are probably still white.

I haven't been able to find any data online that supports your statement, NoCo. Do you have anything?
And I am greatly offended that you define all sailors as "low prestige." There is at least as great a variance in the prestige of jobs held by sailors as by any of the other forces. (Unless you meant Coast Guard sailors.  )

Quote :

African-Americans make up roughly 17 percent of today’s military.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=50560

Quote :

About 20 percent of the U.S. military is black, compared to 13 percent of all Americans, according to recently released Defense Department statistics. Navy statistics from the fourth quarter of 2002 show that of 8,557 pilots (16 percent of the officer corps), just 185 are black — 2 percent.

And in the Air Force, of 12,639 pilots (also 16.1 percent of the officer corps), just 236 officers are black pilots, or 2.1 percent.

http://www.stripes.com/military-life/despite-recruitment-efforts-few-black-pilots-land-in-air-force-navy-cockpits-1.11138

Quote :

Because they often find the Army a fairer and better place to live than civilian society, blacks tend to stay enlisted longer: Though only 22% of today’s recruits are black, the Army itself is 30% black."

http://ashbrook.org/publications/oped-owens-02-combat/

In other words, not quite as bad as I stated.