Military Man Blogs About His Own Death

[RageCash-Ben]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I stopped thinking it was sad when I read all of those quotes from Babylon 5. I know some of my fellow Americans won't like me saying this about a fallen soldier (oh well), but the guy seems like a douche in his blog.

wow thats really harsh

[Useless]

Originally Posted by RageCash-Ben

wow thats really harsh

I realize that it seems harsh to many, whether it's because it's a dead soldier or simply some dead person. Hell, some people won't even joke about Anna Nicole Smith, but I was giggling when she was still warm and covered in vomit. But I digress.

I served four years in the active U.S. Army. (88-92) My friend lost his nephew on Easter day during the first year of the war and I attended his funeral at the local National Cemetery. The family had me gather all of the videos he made while in Iraq off of his laptop and burn them to cd. He made his first good-bye video while sitting in a plane somewhere in the UK while he and his unit were first en route to Iraq. He made another somewhere in Samarra, where he was later killed. Mostly, he was bidding farewell to his fiance if anything were to happen to him. I believe he said, "if the inevitable happens to me" in one of them. It was simply poor word choice when he was alive, but somewhat ghostly to watch two weeks after he had perished.

I'm certainly not anti-military or even anti-war. I don't agree with this war and that probably has a lot to do with my opinion on that guy's blog posts. Also, as a former soldier, I feel he was stepping way over the line with his political commentary. But mostly I really disliked those damn Babylon 5 quotes. If I had time to leave a good-bye to my family, I doubt that I'd be geeky enough to quote a science fiction show. Austin Powers possibly. But not science fiction.

I'm not sure what the grace period is after a military person dies before it's politically correct to speak about them honestly, as you would any other deceased person, but I'm not sure that I even care. I just can't see why him getting killed means that I can no longer voice my opinion from this distance. If he had a friend or family member on this board, I wouldn't have said anything.

BTW, I was much more concerned about the war and the troops during the first few years due primarily to the fact that there were a tens of thousands of military personnel over there without a choice. This war was thrust upon them and they shouldered the burden proudly and courageously. If you are sitting in sunny downtown Baghdad today, you had time to make a choice.