Don't get me wrong, I apprecaite their support. As a soldier, it is always nice to be reminded that there are in fact individual citizens who are willing to take time away from their personal lives to give back to the military in a personal way. While I'm not actually hungry or thirsty, I'm glad they're here with their bottles of water and bags of cookies. It is refreshing to see people who see soldiers as more then a never ending source of political capital that can be sacrificed for whatever seems most convenient at the time. And it's worth noting that the majority of these men, and many of the women, have served in the military themselves. There are very few people that can understand what it is like to leave your friends and family for a period of uncertainty that is markedly more dangerous them someone who has already done it. What bothers me is the particular kind of support that they give us.

The men and women I met today were all two things. First, they were good natured and kind. Second, they were generally very ignorant, and willfuly so. They would often ask individual soldiers about how we really thought things were going "over there." Of course, they were not looking for truth. What they wanted to here was this: "Well, things are going alright. It's hard to be over there, but I really feel like we're making progress." To be honest, I just didn't say anything. It wasn't worth trying to tell them that, in reality things aren't going alright. It is excruciating to be over there, and I don't think we've done a lick of good since we invaded. But that's not what they want to here.

They don't want to here that at least 65,000 iraqi's have died; they'd prefer to hear you laughingly comment that more Americans die in car accidents every year then Iraq. (Apparently, our lives our more important.) They don't want to hear about the disgusting amounts of money companies like Haliburton and KBR make every day while the average Iraqi can't afford air conditioning; they'd prefer to hear about that time you handed out candy to the Iraqi children. (Children who's parents probably can't afford to by them new clothes, let alone candy of their own.) Frankly, I'm tired of having their ignorance lobbed at me like a glob of spit.

If you ask around, you can hear all sorts of anecdotes about soldiers being spit on when they returned from Vietnam (you probably need to ask someone who didn't actually, you know, go to Vietnam, but you can hear them.) At least that spit was honest. That spit was a reaction to a tragically bad policy. That spit didn't cause innocent men and women to lose their lives. That spit didn't keep a currupt president in charge and allow him free reign to consume the constitution. That spit was informed. I'd almost rather have that spit then the fake spit I just recieved.

I suppose that it would be heartening for me if next time their was a "support your troops" thing I saw someone with an anti-Bush pin. I don't mind though because I'm pretty sure that the person who would be wearing that pen is using his or her time to be involved in a real way and make this country better. I suppose it would be nice if more "liberal" books were in the boxes we get from volunteer groups. Again, it doesn't bother me though because I'm pretty sure that instead of sending me boxes, liberals throughout America are sending letters to their congressmen and women encouraging them to bring home the troops and prevent a war in Iran.

If you aren't, you should be. I don't mean to pass the buck, but it isn't the job of servicemembers to interact with politics. We certainly have rights that should be excercised and some responsibilities, but it isn't on us to mold opinion and make policy. If you want to see what happens when the military becomes enmeshed in the running of a nation that way, there are several military juntas you could look at. Anyway, that's my little soapbox.