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Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 11/09/2010 11:35:54

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,792nd day in Iraq and our 3,320th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualties from our ongoing wars, courtesy of antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4427
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4288
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3568
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 199
Since Operation New Dawn: 9

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,371
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 825
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq : 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 104, 857, 675, 000 .00



Turning to the news at hand, while the left is licking their wounds from the election, so is the veteran community. The good news is 9 vets won their election and will be taking their seats in the new congress. The bad news is they are all Republicans. One of the comments to the story below notes that GOP vets tend to vote for the defense industry, while Democratic vets vote for Veteran's issues. Only time will tell which way the freshmen go this time, so it's up to all of us to keep them in the hotseat.




WASHINGTON — The number of veterans in Congress with first-hand experience of the current wars will more than double next year, after voters backed a slate of new Republican veteran candidates Tuesday night.

In all, at least eight Republican veteran candidates won House seats, and Illinois Republican Mark Kirk — who served briefly in Iraq and Afghanistan — grabbed the Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama.

But Democratic veterans didn’t fare as well. Pennsylvania Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Army vet who was the first Iraq war veteran elected to Congress, failed in his re-election bid, as did Air Force reservist Ohio Rep. John Boccieri.

Murphy, first elected in 2006, was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war during his first term and led House efforts to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” law in recent months. On Wednesday morning, gay rights groups and liberal veterans organizations mourned his defeat, calling it a key loss for Democrats’ defense credentials.

His opponent, former congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, focused little on Murphy’s military track record and instead on job losses in southeast Pennsylvania. Nationally, 62 percent of voters in exit polls named the economy as their most important issue, while Afghanistan and national security was the top focus of only about 7 percent, according to The Associated Press.

Three other Democratic challengers with military experience in Iraq also lost their bids for Congress. But even with those losses, the Republicans’ success on Tuesday was more than enough to boost Congress’ military experience.



Perhaps the new Veteran congressmen will do well to remember their fallen comrades and their final resting places. You're all aware of what's happening at Arlington, and there was news last week that another criminal investigation has been launched. They are staying mum about this one, we only know an investigation is underway; not what it's for or who it involves. I fear for what they might find this time, but you can hardly get any worse than abuse of the dead.


The Army's Criminal Investigation Command has launched another investigation into Arlington National Cemetery, a spokesman confirmed Thursday.

The spokesman, Christopher Grey, would not discuss the focus of the probe but said it was prompted after Kathryn Condon, executive director of the Army Cemeteries Program, "recently became aware of questionable practices that took place" at Arlington. This would be at least the third criminal investigation into the cemetery in recent years; none has yet resulted in criminal charges.

In June, the Army released a report from its inspector general that found widespread problems at the cemetery, including 211 graves that were unmarked or mislabeled on cemetery maps and at least four urns that had been unearthed and dumped in landfill piles. The probe also found that cemetery officials with limited expertise in federal contracting regulations and little outside supervision improperly paid millions of dollars to companies that failed to create a digital database of the cemetery's records.

Grey has said previously that the criminal investigators would work closely with auditors as they pored over the Army's books.

In July, when asked at a Senate hearing about the millions spent on information technology contracts, Thurman Higginbotham, the former deputy superintendent of the cemetery who was in charge of overseeing contracts, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

His attorney, Robert Mance, said Thursday that neither he nor Higginbotham has been contacted by investigators and that he knew nothing about the probe. Higginbotham, who was forced out in June, has since retired with full benefits.

Cemetery officials declined to comment on the investigation.



Finally this morning, in perhaps the most disturbing story about the war I've read in a long time, there is starting to be a generational shift in Afghanistan. Many of the new soldiers being shipped overseas were in grade school on September 11. As our older crop of soldiers fulfill their enlistments and head home, those who were mere children when this all began are now starting to be deployed. "We are at war with Eastasia; we have always been at war with Eastasia" is coming to pass.


MARJAH, Afghanistan — Lance Cpl. Jacob Adams was in 5th grade math class when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. His parents took him out of school early that day.

Adams, 20, is now serving in a Marine battalion battling Taliban gunmen, many of whom were also just kids on Sept. 11, 2001. He's part of a new generation of U.S. troops inheriting the wars spawned by the terror attacks.

Many of the men and women who took part in the initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have since left the military and moved on with their lives. The changing of the guard is a graphic and personal reminder that the fighting has dragged on longer than anyone ever imagined.

"It's kind of weird having watched it all on the news those first days," said Adams. "And then 10 years later, here I am, and here we are still fighting it."


And now with the GOP controlling half the Congress, the hope we'll ever get out of there is very dim indeed. The Soviet Union was in Afghanistan for nine years...they somehow managed to last another three after they pulled out. It's our ninth year there too....how much longer does America have?



 

39 comments (Latest Comment: 11/09/2010 20:07:50 by Raine)
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