I'm sorry, I'm a conservative and generally vote republican but being a guy who just got out of the military and who's spent 2 years in Iraq I think we've done enough. All that McCain said may happen and maybe the democrats don't have a plan to counter those issues should they arise but do you understand how the strain of these deployments affects our military readiness? We've just told soldiers that they will now do 15 month rotations instead of 12 months. The increase was to allow soldiers a full year at home but guess what? Soldiers who have just returned from Iraq no more than 6 months ago are being called up to go over again for another 15 month tour. Have you seen the toll a deployment takes on military families? Do you understand the danger these soldiers put themselves into for over a year? My first deployment I had 6 divorces from my platoon. 2nd deployment my company had nearly 10. Children don't recognize their parents and each and every time "mommy" or "daddy" comes home the divide within the family becomes greater. Why? Because 1. They're separated for a year and 2. Both sides change soooo much over that time period and its not like a normal relationship where you change and grow together, rather its 2 groups of people growing in different ways, normally apart from each other. Retention and moral sucks, and to compensate that the government throws money at the problem. You know how much in bonuses we have to spend to keep soldiers? Millions upon millions of dollars. And on top of all the emotional, physical, and family damage these deployments cause I haven't even begun to talk about the danger of not having enough military strength to effectively engage another enemy if the issue should arise. (God forbid) But do you understand that the equipment we have back at home "in reserves" is nothing? That's right all the armor and weapon systems are in Iraq and Afghanistan (for good reason). Most training for the war is done through simulators. Soldiers use computer games to train because there's not enough up armored HMMWVs, tanks, and bradleys to train with back home. So what would we use to fight another war with, computer games? Alright, sorry this soapbox thing got out of hand but this war is really going to cause alot of long term damage that we've not even begun to think about. You're going to see alot of screwed up families, physically handicapped soldiers, and a ton of emotionally messed up individuals who will probably be left out to dry.
