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When supporting our troops is more than just a catchphrase:

PROLOGUE: About a week ago, after my physical therapy appointment at our local VA clinic, I was in the grocery store shopping. I walk with the aid of a cane these days, and wear a ball cap that says USAF Veteran on it; I am proud of my nine and a half years of military service. Any way, some good Christian folk who were apparently roving around through the store looking for people they could pray for, coming upon me offered their services. I politely declined, explaining my non-theist stance with respect to religious observance, and then noting the dejected expression on their faces said: "But their is something you can do for me." The twinkle came back to their eyes as anticipation of what I was about to say welled up within them. I continued, "what you could do for me and all my veteran comrades, and all those men and women in uniform today representing our country around the world, is to make sure you vote for the candidate for president this fall who is going to bring our troops home so you won't have more of them to pray for in the future." They agreed, and we talked for a while;.they seemed like very kind hearted folks.

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It goes without saying, that I would be one of the first to volunteer in the defense of our country and its people, but the war in Iraq has hardly been about that, nor about terrorism either. The latest scuttlebutt, coming from tell all books written by Bush Administration rats that have jumped ship, is that the plan to attack Iraq was on the table long before 9/11. Since Halliburton and the oil companies seem to have made out like bandits from this fiasco, my money would be on oil as the real impetus for this war; and of the egregious waste of American and Iraqi lives it has perpetrated. Let's not waste any more lives, bring our solders home, and let the Iraqis figure out how to get along with each other.

I don't think you can drive around in your automobile these days, that is if you can afford to, without noticing the little "I support our troops" stickers that a lot of people have pasted on their cars. I'm sure that these folks are well intentioned, and perhaps just trying to demonstrate their patriotism, but in reality those little stickers don't really do a whole lot as far as actually supporting the troops. In fact, it would not come as a surprise to me, if some printer in China was not getting rich off the sale of these stickers, and the taxes he pays on his profits being

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