VMC SURVEY BOARD

[Jim_WI]

Deathtotaxes

I haven't read through the whole text, and I don't know for certain how it was before, but it sounds like an improvement for the country if they can pull it off.

re: "waste"... I don't know if I'm willing to go there. Would I have chosen to go into Iraq if I was the president? ... No. But I'm not going to go so far as to tell the injured or widowed that their sacrifices were a waste.

<disclaimer> I grew up in a military family so my perspective might be a little different from others. Especially with an all volunteer armed force, the men and women who serve understand that their contribution is to follow the orders they're given. Most enlist out of commitment and patriotism to the US and what it stands for as a whole. It is not a waste to be well trained fighting men and women, following orders in support of our government, even a government they might not agree with all the time.

Of course I disagree with some (sometimes most) of what our leaders are doing, but in total I feel the US stands for something bigger than me. The vast majority of us simply don't have enough information regarding most issues to even have an intelligently informed opinion. (Yet we often voice them, 'eh?) Again, based on my very limited knowledge of the bigger picture, I would not have chosen to invade.

My Dad lost many comrades in arms in a war he was not happy to be in and felt should have been run differently. But he did his job and followed orders because that's what he signed up for and swore an oath to do. In his case, 100% out of patriotism. Had he been unlucky enough to have been shot down and killed I would be greatly offended to be told his death was a waste.

Did the US save lives by going in? I don't know but will guess that history will prove that we did. Should we have gone into Rwanda? Many wish we would have and possibly saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Why there and not Iraq? "acceptable anticipated casualties"? Would 50 casualties have been acceptable if we could have zoomed in, removed Saddam and left? Many who don't like us there now would say "only" 50 lives would have been acceptable. I'd guess the family of number 49 might have a different opinion.

If you take the entire defense spending of all the world governments combined, the US represents 46% of that spending. Is that good or bad? I don't have enough information to bet my life on one side or another, but in a time of huge national debt and deficit spending, it seems like kind of a lot.

If I ran the zoo, I'd like to think I'd be an advocate for improvement, but our current system would certainly get in the way of fast action. Of course that's the same system that makes a coup impossible so it's not 100% bad.

Hell, I can't even decide what stock to buy, when to sell the ones I own or why my daughter should or shouldn't be able to have green hair even though she has a 4.0 GPA. I can only imagine the magnitude of some of the decisions our leaders have to deal with.

All that being said, I love listening to both sides of a spirited discussion as long as all the players remember that their homes might be just as glass as the next guy and to keep it civil. I find it fascinating that two caring and intelligent people with the identical set of facts will draw such diametrically opposing conclusions.

GLTA.

Jim