You know, even in Vietnam the troops only had to do one six-month tour. That on its own was enough to fuck a lot of them up pretty badly.
Stop-loss means a lot of soldiers stay quite a bit longer than six months. Not surprisingly, the surge has led to an increase in soldiers detained in Iraq. Some of these guys are going to end up spending years in the middle of a warzone, and when they get back they're going to have trouble adjusting.
Well, there's always Blackwater, if civilian life just doesn't work out for them. Or organized crime (assuming there's any difference). Historically, the lineage of organized crime groups always has it's roots in the end of a large war. The longer the war, the worse the banditry afterwards (and let's not forget, the corporatocracy is promising us a hundred year war.)
And let's not forget, Caeser kept his legions in Gaul for 10 years ... and when he came back, he used them to conquer Rome.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Stop-Loss and Regime Change
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2 comments:
The tour of duty in Vietnam was one year. In addition to that, career soldiers often did more than a single tour.
Also I would like to take exception to your statement that soldiers came home and turned to crime. That is unless you consider my one speeding ticket a crime.
One year? Huh, I thought it was six months.
Anyhow, there's a big difference between choosing to stay for more, and being ordered to.
And I didn't mean to say that all soldiers turn to crime. Just that some inevitably do.
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