"Nunez swallowed his beer, let out a stream of profanity before landing on a sentence that he repeats a lot these days. “It’s worthless, and it’s never going to end.”" Washpost
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The title of this post is something that survivors of the Vietnam War remember well. The immortal riflemen of that war were often heard to mutter this as they passed in their weary ranks. It expressed well the nihilism of the "blooded" combat soldier.
PFC Nunez is a lot like a soldier of those long gone days, weeks, months, years, etc. He joined the US Army to know what war was. Now he knows. He has "seen the elephant." He can go home now, if he can manage the trip.
War scars more than the body. Doors are opened that can never be closed. Paths are walked that can never be forgotten. How trite such statements are, but...
It is remarkable that discharged combat veterans cause so little trouble in civilian society among people for whom they have little remaining sense of kinship. Whatever damage they do is usually limited to destructive things they do to themselves.
Armies are necessary because humans are not angels and cannot be trusted to behave well. War is, and will be.
Policy? Obama's policy? Bush's policy? PFC Nunez has learned well the irrelevance of policy to those who must live with the results of any leader's war policy. For people like Nunez, policy, any policy is a sick joke no matter how well intentioned it may be. pl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/obamas-afghanistan-plan-gets-mixed-reviews-from-grunts-at-fort-campbell/2011/06/25/AGZyaWmH_story.html?hpid=z1
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