Luck

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was
given a very unique opportunity. She belongs
to the Missouri National Guard and her unit is
getting deployed to Iraq. Since her unit has
been activated for a majority of the year
providing security at the airport, she was
given the choice of whether she wanted to
deploy or not. Now, anyone that knows me,
would know that I wouldn't have thought twice
about that decision. I was activated and sent
to Iraq with only 2 weeks left on an Active
Reserve contract. If someone had given me
a choice on whether or not I wanted to go, I
would have imediatly said "Hell no, thanks for
asking." Well, I guess my friend is a better
American than I am. She actually had to take
time and think about what her answer would
be. She ended up calling me, to get my
opinion, since she knew that I had been to
Iraq. Well, after hearing her situation, I told
her that I thought she should not go. After
bluntly stating my opinion, I had to try and find
out why she was even considdering the
option of going to Iraq, and convince her that
I was right. Here's how that went.
I asked why she thought she should go.
Her main reason ended up to be guilt. She
thought that mabye if she went, some guy
with a wife and kids wouldn't have to go.
Well, we all know this is BS. Uncle Sam,
being the cruel, sadistic, being that he is, will
send the poor guy with the wife and kids
anyways.
Was that all? Yeah, the seemed to be the
only real reason she thought she should go.
Guilt.
Well, I can downplay and ignore guilt. Just
ask my wife. We moved on the the reasons
she should stay. That we got narrowed down
to two fairly good ones.
1) She has her own business as a fitness
instructor. It has been going for a year, and is
doing quite well. If she were to be deployed
to Iraq for a year and a half, it would destroy
her business.
2) Do you believe in the "cause" that we are
there for? Luckily for me and my arguement,
she didn't. If she had believed in the "cause"
then I don't think that I could have convinced
her to stay.
Well, my friend made a wise decision. She
will not be making the journey to that hellish
desert. Unfortunatly, there are thousands of
others who will not be so lucky. I think whats
going on over there is futile. We can't fight an
enemy that won't fight us. They attack with
IED's and suicide bombers. How do you find
the enemy when the local population won't
help? Bottom line, I think the war is BS. I do
support the men and women of our Nation's
Armed Services, they just do what they're
told. Thats enough of this. Ranting makes me
hungry.
There is no instance of a nation
benefitting from prolonged warfare.
Sun Tzu