Brainwashed?
You like to think WE'RE brainwashed?
How about you?

I realize that you wanted to make a "difference" after 9/11, and that you enlisted shortly afterwards so you could be of use to your country. Thing is, your country uses YOU, even for unpopular reasons. Half of us over here at HZ think Iraq was none of our business. Murderous dictators abound on the planet, but why did we set our sights on Hussein and taking over Baghdad?
Reforming desert savages into democrats?
Giving them western-style Texas religion?
Or was it for oil, revenge and pricey contracts?

Bush and his neophytes have outreached themselves and it shows.
YOUR "government resources" combed through hundreds of papers looking for favorable articles about the US in Iraqi newspapers to serve them up to you on a platter with the US Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval attached to them. They HAVE to.....that's their job. And it's a paid lip service, that's all. Keep reading, keep buying it. One day you might learn.
Then again, you might not.

>"you people who scour the headlines for anything negative to smear your country with. It makes me sick."

Well Justin, right now you're a young IDEALIST.
We all start out like that. Some of us have changed our attitudes by what we've personally encountered. But politics will season you, eventually. Give it another five or ten years.
You can be career military until the budget cuts edge you out, or until someone you care about dies, or maybe years of devotion leave you feeling unappreciated. I'm not saying you are not on the right track, or what you are doing is not NOBLE, because it IS......I'm just saying you have your right to your opinion, but right now it is an INEXPERIENCED one.

>"It just confirms how brainwashed you people are...... I understand, looking back, I did the very same thing with Clinton.......Do it to yourselves all you want, but leave the rest of us out of it."

DID YOU READ WHAT YOU WROTE??
BIG slip of the tongue here Justin.
I think you're a little bit homesick, if not heartsick already.
Perhaps you will do better back on American soil doing something that you like.
And I wish you could find something to make you happy.
Best wishes.......