Hey Art, I just finished these few posts between you and ER and found them to be quite honest and telling. You guys really laid it out there.
No wonder you are so passionate about your beliefs, you've put your own life on the line for them to some degree. Difficult choices, personal decisions that have affected not only your lifestyle but a long-standing conscience. I can see the internal struggle you had.

I've often wondered how we've all made it this far, what with the way things are run....the ignorance, the complicity, the waste. How the very top of our leaders can give out directives that are acted upon and re-enacted, so that the "grunts"; those 80% of the fighting force are left to face the very worst part of war. And not an honorable war.
A war against "evil", an illegal war that allows torture.

How an 18 or 19 yr. old from a small American town has to struggle with the beliefs instilled in him as a child in a safe country to forcing him to make life and death decisions every day under enormous pressure. The psychological fall-out from this is compounded by the knowledge that this IS seen worldwide as a failure and that injuries incurred during combat mission or the fallout from depleted uranium is NOT going to be taken care of back in the States when they come back.

I find this whole Iraq war as a blight on our country, and the world.
Thanks for sharing. Imagine what the vets coming back from Iraq will be going through.