Now I'm going to do something I *try* not to do very often, and that is get exceptionally long winded and preachy. 'Scuse me whilst I pull out my soapbox.

The first Bush sent me to Somalia. A country at the time I believed we had no business being in with a military presence. In fact, I thought it was a kow-towing concession to the U.N. Clinton --10 months later-- pulled me out. A decision I also thought was wrong when it occurred. His withdrawl before a clearly defined victory was met made the time I spent, the tears I cried, and the blood I sacrificed completely worthless. I zipped the body bag on my assistant gunner/room mate/friend over there. That's an experience that I hope no one reading this board ever has to endure. I lived in mortal terror of my life. I took shrapnel to the face, head, shoulders, and hands. I went days without sleeping. I ate nothing but the four pork MRE's for weeks at a time. I stepped over dead bodies in the streets and alley-ways.

My whole life changed because of Somalia. My soul withered, my rosy outlook on life clouded. When I think of the past I think of it in two distinct phases. Before and After.

I hated it there, and I wanted nothing more than to come home in one piece. But when the order to leave came, I was angry. Furious in fact. So angry that I left Special Operations and went to a mechanized regular Army unit for the next six years. All that sacrifice and suffering was completely inconsequential, because we didn't finish what we came to do.

A little over two years later Clinton sent me to Bosnia to clear land mines. Once again, another country I didn't feel we had a need to be in with a military presence. It is my personal belief that the military is for the defense of her nations citizens, not to act as a world police force.

We're still in Bosnia today. Despite President Clinton's proclamation immediately after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord that U.S. troops would be there no longer than one year. I cried bovine waste effluent the second he said that, I can even remember what I was wearing and what I was eating as I watched that speech on AFN. Unfortunately I was proved right.

Why are we in Bosnia right now? Can anyone tell me? Where are the non-warmongering peacenik protests on that?

Though Bosnia was a completely different experience than Somalia, in many ways it was more psychologically brutal. The enemy there (for the most part) was not other human beings, but land mines. Something that could take your legs and your jewels off without an opportunity to fight back. Horrible, horrible thing to clear land mines.

Now we're in Iraq. A war that I personally believe we shouldn't have started. But start it we did.

Dear God, please let us finish it.

If we pull out now Iraq will be in worse shape than it was under Sadaam. The 1000+ personnel that have died, the 7000+ that have been wounded to date will have made that sacrifice for nothing. I myself lost a dear friend and respected mentor in that dung-hole of a country not quite a year ago. Just five short months after the C in C decleared an end to major conflict. Dead is dead, whether it high intensity conflict or not. For all the families of those who have sacrificed their loved ones over there, for all the Iraqi civillians that have suffered to date and will suffer far worse should the militants sieze control of their country, we owe it to them to insure that a free, democratic, and peaceful government is in place before we pull our troops out of there.

Were we 'in the right' to invade with the intent of toppling Sadam? I don't think so. But we did it. We need to finish what we started. Anyone remember what happened to the Kurds and Sunnis in 91 after we encouraged them to stage a coup and then didn't back them? Anyone remember the Bay of Pigs? We're in for a penny, in for a pound on this one, regardless of the administration. Any other option would bear witness to worse human tragedy than our present course of action ever could.