Out of Iraq

Nine years later our forces have left Iraq. Thank you to everyone who served there. A volunteer force makes it all the more impressive. Regardless of the politics, the cost and the eventual success or failure, thanks again to all who we're there.

While there is news coverage, it's almost as an after thought. Which is surprising and more than a little disappointing.

Regardless, welcome home. Enjoy the Holidays. Enjoy your family. Enjoy being home.

 

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Relevant: 54 Iraqis Die In Not Our Problem Anymore

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Seems like nobody on Ye Olde TFP has been to Iraq in years anyway.

/TFPer politics

 

Just noticed this tread.
I watched as the last few service men and women passed through into Kuwait. Of course the tears came...Now for Afghanistan.

 

of course the wars taper off right before i graduate... what's a testosterone soaked hemingway wannabe like me to do? fly UAVs?

 

Guy is a dangerous-type PTSD war junkie, but it's kind of relevant if you like that sort of thing:

From Esquire - "I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War." [Romanticizing Conflict]

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Not to be a dick, but why would anybody cry over that? I mean, they should have been crying the whole time we were there given the straight-up lies that landed us in said country in the first place. They should have been crying in March 2003 when we invaded (but everybody was too busy rolling up their sleeves, trusting their leaders, thinking this would be over in 12 days). They should have been crying later that month when some M240B gunner standing up in the back of a Humvee got his head nearly taken off by a steel cable stretched at the right height under an overpass. They should have been crying when we started finding IEDs perfectly hidden in curbs and street lights. They should have been crying when the first kid got a "Daily Double" and lost both of his legs in the same incident. They should have been crying like two years in to that retarded campaign when it was pretty goddamn clear that nothing worth staying there for and, that regardless of our noble intentions, you can't pack an Arab gunshot wound with American money. They should have been crying when they lost interest four years in and decided that celebrity gossip was bigger news. That's when they should have really been crying and should have demanded that everybody come home because they've got better things to do than patrol streets looking for half-retarded Iraqi high school kids making homemade bombs and rocket launchers with parts from Iran that'll be used against their brothers in the corrupt Iraqi army and Iraqi police just as much as they'll be used against the remaining US government installations that blow gobs and gobs of money on a zero return venture (and the exorbitant cost of securing it with PMCs) instead of the education of our children at home.

So fuck you, America. And fuck your crocodile tears. You had plenty of time to cry.

We've been doing this fucked up crusader bullshit for a goddamn decade.

Where the fuck have you been?

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'03: "I AIN'T GOT NO TIME TO CRY. I GOTTA GET MY WAR ON!"​

 

Screw the "like" option. We need a Fuck Yeah!

 

Iguess I should have explain why the tears. My son is IN AFGHANISTAN and HE IS A GUNNER (RECON)and I JUST WANT HIM HOME!! ok. I just want him home...

 

Thanks for making smile. Hey you can always find your way out to a gun range, that's where I blow off a lot of, oh wait I don't have testosterone. But I'm a dead shot.
--- merged: Feb 8, 2012 2:34 AM ---
To Plan9
Just wanted you to know I don't think your a dick. I like it when a person is passionate about their feelings on disturbing subjects.
Just think how I felt when my boy came home after obtaining his BA and a great job and decided to be a marine. What the fuck?

 

Meh, I am a dick. I've been to the places. I've seen the things. I've carried the rifle. I've poked the desert. It's not romantic. It's not heroic.

It's stupid. It sucks. But, hey, at least I had a job and was pulling myself up by my bootstraps by running myself through the institutional gauntlet.

Really, it's a little like two squirts of diarrhea and one fold of toilet paper... y'know, you make the best of it. And enjoy the meager tax-free paycheck.

 

i don't think many people are still deluding themselves into thinking that there's anything romantic or heroic about war anymore... maybe i'm wrong but i hope not

 

Relevant:
http://www.economist.com/node/21546016

Wish more politicians had it in them to take the hard right over the easy wrong.

 

Ever since the Vietnam War was brought our living rooms nightly courtesy of TV network news. Far different than reading newspaper accounts in previous wars. Seeing war nearly live broke that delusion.

 

Out of Iraq, next up Iran.

Because in America, we don't like learning from our mistakes.

 

And I am a Mom that just wants her boy back.

 

Maybe. Or maybe we just need decisive leaders that we can trust to put America first.

I was in favor of the "bomb them into Hamburger Helper, get the fuck out" plan, myself.

Pfft, so what if we had to go back in ten years? Shit, we're still there ten years later anyway!

Don't get me wrong, now... I was all for the Afghan campaign. It had an actual purpose.

So what's the hard right? Turning A-stan into the next Korea-style duty station because the nuclear hate triangle can't play nice?

Fuck that. And fuck the Afghanis. They can laugh at us all they want. It's like a toothless retard laughing when an Olympic athlete falls.

If India and Pakistan want to play King Shit of Nuke Mountain, I'd imagine China has more to lose than we do. Let them play janitor.

Hey, that's great. You and 180,000 other parents. Just remember: your kid volunteered for a reason.

Are you kidding? You're kidding. Just listen to yourself. Think about the things you've posted on TFP, even.

Hah. Pop culture has made the GWoT into the ultimate survival adventure camp for 18-30 year old men. Movies, video games, Internet forums, etc. Couple that with the fact that I can throw a beer bottle out of my bedroom window and hit at least two guys who've deployed in the last decade and you've got a love affair with uniforms and killing savages similar to what must have been going down when we first tamed this country with muskets and tricorner hats. So much 1984-esque "We're the good guys because we're white Christians, they're the bad guys because they're brown Muslims" that I'm surprised that those racist "Gunfighter / Crusader" fucks running tactical gear websites can keep those tacky Infidel t-shirts in stock.

SEE: Generation Kill (HBO Series)

SEE: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Video Game)

SEE: Act of Valor (Movie)

SEE: Pork Eating Crusader Patch (for your cool guy hat)

Tired of hating on women and blacks, America? No problem, there's always dirty brown foreigners with strange customs and wacky religions.

 

Did you read the article?

 

I did. Please--since I obviously missed the point of that six paragraph masterpiece--give me the Cliff's Notes version of how I'm supposed to respond.

I don't agree with the sentiment that we've failed anything other than failing to leave when it became clear that we'd offed enough mandresses.