There's a lot of things on my mind tonight. Watched an episode of Boston Legal tonight, and if people out there haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's one of those shows that's not afraid to speak it's mind. That and James Spader is the man. I've liked him since Stargate. Going back on topic, tonight they dealt with two cases. The first was light hearted enough, it was a dispute over showing witches in a public school pageant and how both a Christian family and a Wiccan family disagreed about their portrayal of the now common conception of an old green lady with a wart on the end of her nose who cackles maniacally at the thought of eating little children. They lost, as they should. People these days take things too seriously and I believe that in an effort to become more P.C. this country has instead swerved to a point where we're continuously afraid to say what comes to mind. Kevin Smith had to pay off some official Gay/Lesbian committee because he used the line "gay" in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. No offense at all intended to the homosexual community, but that's friggin ridiculous. The press is first to announce how "freedom of speech" is a constitutional right, but apparently it's only a right if it's not offending anybody else. We feel that we must continuously be on guard with everything we say. Of course I don't and the reap the repercussions of my actions. Most aren't pretty.
The second case hit very close to home. A sister of a soldier who died in Iraq (yes, they went there) tried sueing the Army because they lied to her brother after he joined the National Guard. After receiving no training in dealing with explosives, he was killed by an explosive that his motorcade ran over. Before all you people start criticizing with the "well, he was a soldier" bit, his MOS (his official training for you non-military people) dealt with cannons. I had a patient come to the window the other day. He was 39 years old, had already done his 20 years in the service (which is how long it takes for you to retire), and the army called him back in. Because he was under the age of 40 by 4 months. The man had been out for 2 years after serving a full term in the military and was told that in 2 weeks he had to be fit to go back in to be sent to the desert. I myself was in for 2 years as a 91Q. According to my contract I have five years left in which I could be recalled to active duty. My fear is not in going back into the army. It's not getting sent to Iraq, it's not even dieing there. My fear is that I will end up as just a statistic. A number that some General gives his boss to let him know how many soldiers wound up either killed in action or MIA. I don't want to be a number. I would want people to know about who I was before all that, and what happened afterwards. But, as James Spader's character stated we're "more interested in the relationship between Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt than we are about our soldier in Iraq". He's right. If you turn on the evening news, you'll hear very little if anything about what's going on over there. CNN, MSNBC, even Fox News treat it like yesterday's trash. The last time I remember hearing about a soldier's death was when that football player died after enlisting. It made headlines. Funny, that it's the death of an NFL player in Iraq that brings news. Not the death of the kindergarden teacher or the doctor or the local Prom King. Nobody seems to care anymore, and the apathy of the situation is starting to get to me. Deserved attention should be payed to our soldiers on the front. Not the wrong kind of attention, however. The lady who keeps protesting over her son's death.....something's just not right about that. It feels more like she's just trying to get attention than trying to do something about her son. I don't feel comfortable even seeing her on the news. I'm not anti-Bush, I'm not anti-war. I just want people to remember that we ARE still over there. To remember those who have fallen. Is that too much to ask?

--"When I get home people 'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?" Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is. "--