This War Makes Me Nauseous Part 2
A good chunk of my friends who have graduated high school within the past two years enlisted in some branch of the military. I am incredibly proud to say that I know these people. I, like so many other Americans, also live in daily fear of them getting that call to go to Iraq. These soldiers are eighteen and nineteen years old and are taking the places of the twenty-four and twenty-five year old soldiers being killed.
While I have sympathy for the soldiers who enlisted to help pay for college, and are now fighting for their country and their lives in the Middle East, I have to say, that is what the army does and it is to be expected, especially in such globally turbulent times. Most of the people I know who joined the military did so for just that, college. Some joined because they didn’t see themselves in college and wanted a way out a life working in the Ford factories.
The twenty-something brother of a friend of mine was sent to Iraq on Monday. His deployment made me so sick. He did enlist for college tuition and to do something for his country. But in post-9/11 circumstances, he knew he did not want to go to war. He enlisted in the National Guard. He led tanks into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and now he’s being led into a war zone by a self-righteous President.
The National Guard was formed so that the American people had protection while the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force were in fighting in foreign lands. They are supposed to be here if anything happens to us back home. It disgusts me that they are being sent overseas to war. I don’t support the President’s call for more troops, but if he must send more, send only who is supposed to be sent. Who is protecting us if every member of our military is overseas? Maybe it’s just me, but the National Guard should stay within the nation it is guarding.
Cait Phipps, 1st Vice Pres
