Shell Shock

Just recently we had an incident where a group of Marines might have lost their cool and went on a rampage killing innocent Iraqi civilians in Hidatha. If this turns out to be true, this is absolutely horrid. However, you need to keep a few things in mind.

-These Marines were on their THIRD TOUR OF DUTY. (This is allowed to happen because we don't have enough troops to properly fight this war.) Soldiers are often pressured to "re-up". The Pentagon has issued what's known as a "stop/loss" order. Under stop/loss, soldiers are forced to remain in the military beyond their specified enlistment or risk losing all the benefits they have worked for.

-Army soldiers and Marines are subjected to daily battle stress. I have assembled a number of POV video examples of a small taste of what these soldiers go through on a daily basis. I think you will begin to see why some of them will begin to crack.

I have only chosen video clips shot by US forces. If I were to have used footage shot by insurgents some of you would have trouble sleeping at night. Some of their footage is sniper footage of soldiers shot one after the next in the streets of Iraq. Invisible shooters pick them off one by one, and the feeling of helplessness you are left with is hard to ignore.











Now some of you will say, "Peter this is uncool to show this footage." I must admit I went back and forth about this for quite a while. What I think is most important is that you understand the stress that is placed on these kids. I say kids because many of them are teenagers.

Some of you will say aren't you afraid to put these on your blog because you could be investigated by the FBI. Well, there are a few things I have to say to that:

-Last time I checked this was a free country. Freedom of expression is still a right provided by The Constitution of the United States of America

-Perhaps the FBI should look into who is posting these videos on YouTube.com in the first place.

-Better yet ... perhaps they should take a look at the comments below these videos. Almost 1 in 3 is some nut cake praising the violence in them. Some are harmless idiot kids who have played too many games of Doom. Some like "Maya0" praise Allah and post comments like "Long live the insurgency", "Allah Agbar" and "God kill the invaders". Perhaps if we spent less time looking for Jimmy Hoffa in a barn foundation we could spend more time on our "War on Terror"

I am drained watching these videos. I watched dozens to come up with these as examples. Having a member of my family there in Iraq makes me sick with worry. I really wish this would all stop. In fact, I wish it had never begun. I would feel much better if all 150,000 of our troops were in Afghanistan right now with Bin Laden's head on a pole.