by Unstoppable Force

Created on: May 18, 2008

I want you sit back and close your eyes. You may feel free to join in this little experiment if you wish. I want you to close your eyes and picture yourself as a young man or woman conducting operations in uniform where unknown portions of the populace are prone to acts of violence against anyone wearing an American flag on their shoulder. A place where any time you step outside the wire you have to make sure you're carrying your M-40 protective mask, your body armor, your combat load of ammunition and last but not least your trusty M-16A2 semi automatic rifle. You must keep your head on a swivel and watch your buddy's six because any step around the corner of a building could be your last. You're already jumpy and a little paranoid because every pile of rocks, old tire or abandoned car could be hiding a bomb. Yes i know, its a little hard to put yourself in that position sitting in the comfort of your own living room or bedroom depending on where your computer sits; its difficult to imagine this type of existence sitting here safely in the good old U.S. of A.

I think its pretty common knowledge by now, unless you've lived under a rock for the past almost 8 years, war is not pretty. It isn't an old television western where the good guys wear white and the bad guys wear black. We are talking about places where the average 12 year old has more experience firing a weapon and killing with deadly accuracy than an 18 year old American soldier does. This little fact is difficult to imagine in a place where the hardest choice on any given day is whether or not you want fries with your double cheese burger. Soldiers are faced with much more difficult choices in war zones, when you live and work some where that a kid could have a bomb strapped to their chest and is just waiting for a patrol to walk by so he can run head long into the middle of that patrol and detonate that bomb and take some American soldiers with him... you have 2 choices. You can either pay the kid no mind or you can maintain a suspicious state of alertness and shoot the kid thereby saving the entire squad. It isn't easy to make these types of choices but the act of war isn't an easy proposition to begin with.

I don't believe anyone, even the most cold hearted killing machine wants to see civilians die at their hands. The U.S. takes great pains to eliminate collateral damage as much as possible. It is not only corrosive to the population we are trying to liberate, but also the soldiers charged with

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