On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:56:34 -0800, "jps" wrote:

"JohnH" wrote in message
.. .

What position am I so hypocritical about. Do you not find the idea of
televising
funerals very tasteful?

You're the one making a mountain out of a molehill. The White House is so
stupid and mistrusting of Americans, it doesn't want us to know kids are
getting killed and will do whatever it can to make certain it's not covered.

No one knows because the incidents aren't reported, or what?


No one suggested televising funerals. Just don't ban the press from access
to the body bags coming off the planes.

Why not televise funerals. If privacy and dignity are not a concern, which
apparently they are not (to you anyway), then why not get permission from the
families and show everything on the tube. It would get your message across,
wouldn't it?


Give the kids who're wounded proper medical attention in a timely fashion.
Don't charge kids wounded in Iraq $8.25 a day for hospital meals. Don't
**** with their benefits, don't cut off their combat pay, give them all
bullet proof vests, not just two thirds of them.

They get as good medical attention as we can offer. Wounded do not "pay" for
their meals in a hospital. Many soldiers receive a basic allowance for
subsistence (BAS), which is given to them monthly in lieu of meals. The military
has already paid for them to provide their own food (at the soldier's choice).
When the soldier eats military food, he reimburses the money he has received.
This has been the rule since I was a private (1965). Combat pay is stopped when
the soldier is no longer in a combat zone. Are you suggesting it continue for as
long as the soldier is a soldier? (That would have meant a hell of a lot of
money for me!) Lastly, soldiers had flak vests. All of them. Some of the vests
were of the newer design with ceramic inserts. All soldiers had not been
equipped with these when we started the war. The items had not been produced
yet. As they are getting produced, the vests are being upgraded. Maybe you
should complain that the soldiers in Vietnam didn't have these either. Hell, we
didn't even have Kevlar!

Seems like this'd be a no-brainer for Republicans, who'da thunk the White
House would act so much in bad faith with the very people they're asking to
put their lives on the line.

The bad faith is in your (et al) imagination. I know it must be infuriating to
want to **** and moan so much, and have it mean so little. But that's life in
the big city. Eventually you'll find someone who believes everything you say
simply because it was on the internet.

This seems to once again come down to the old Republican adage, "We'll make
sure you get born, you do the rest." In other words, even in the perilous
service of your country, you need to look out for yourself, 'cause GW Bush
and his cabinet sure aren't going to.

I wish to hell we had had the "looking out for" that today's soldiers have. I
would have loved to be able to call home once in a while, or send an email
almost every day, or even have my own web site.

jps, your arguments are trash. ****ing in the wind will get you wet.

John
On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD