Response to Response #1 of "Deficit begins with loopholes" Press-Telegram

"Arthur, you almost got it right, but you obviously never served in the military. If you had you would not be taking anything away from our veterans who for many years have prevented you from speaking German, Japanese, Korean, Farsi and any other foreign language and country with whom we have been to war with. When you have walked a few miles in our shoes I can only ask you to measure your words more carefully in so far as the veterans are concerned." -- Ike Oshana

First of all, if you wanted to make a quick buck or ensure long-term care for yourself, there are better ways to do than joining the military.

Second, does the state even provide adequate compensation and care for our veterans? There were scandalous reports out of Walter Reed Medical Center, where veterans were treated in the shabbiest of conditions, where colonoscopy apparatus were reused without cleaning on unknowing patients. Can we really say that our veterans are getting the care they deserve from our current Government Veteran's Administration?

What' worse, can we really say that we have done well by our veterans, only to see many of them struggling to get by on the street. They fought for this country, yet have they been trained to fight for themselves in the domestic coldness that defines daily life?

Third, much of the fighting that our veterans have engaged in: has it really been about preventing us from being overrun by military marauders across the world?

Our interventions in Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq II (2003)--have those armed excursions kept this country any safer? Can we really say that the men and women who fought for in those countries. . . fought for the well-being of this country?

As far as I can tell, with the escalation of the War on Terror, fewer people enjoy any privacy, it is harder to get on airplane, it is harder to travel period. If people speak out against the aggressive growth of the military-industrial complex, they are loudly condemned as anti-American pinkos are complicit with the terrorists themselves!

The first President of the United States made a concerted point that this nation would stay out of foreign entanglements. The third person slashed the military budget of this country, yet was not reticent about sending a navy flotilla to wipe out the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli.