How many Tours in Iraq are Enough for a Soldier?

[Guest Gandalf Grey]

How many Tours in Iraq are Enough for a Soldier?

 

By Timothy Gatto

Created Jul 12 2007 - 2:37pm

 

I just read about the story of a young Army Sergeant by the name of Erik

Botta. Botta is 26 years old and hails from Port St. Lucie. Erik is like

most 1st generation Americans, he wants to work hard and make something of

himself and he feels lucky to be in the United States and to have the

ability to advance himself.

 

But young Sergeant Botta, an Army reservist, has a slight problem. It seems

as if every time that he gets comfortable and gets moving on all eight

cylinders, he gets sent to Iraq. Sure, many guys have been sent to Iraq.

They have to make due, right? Well this would be true for most, but Botta is

getting tired of it, after all he has served in Afghanistan and Iraq on four

other tours, this will be his fifth!

 

Come on, enough is enough! How many times can a guy kiss his wife and kids

goodbye and go to a foreign land and kill people? What's that done for his

marriage? What's that done to his head? Would you feel comfortable being

around a guy that spent five tours in a combat zone in less than six years?

I'm a retired Army Sergeant myself, and I'll tell you point blank, I

wouldn't.

He could flashback and make a grab at someone's throat at the slightest

provocation! Of course I'm exaggerating here, and I don't believe that Erik

would do any such thing, but really, what's it done to his head? Enough is

enough. You can't tell someone to do five hardship tours back to back. Think

of this also, this guy is a Reservist! He's not even on active duty!

 

Erik has done his share of the fighting. If Bush wants to send this guy on

another tour, then he should go with him. This is too much. According to

those around him, he could lose his home, and his job at Sikorsky, where he

works on the Black Hawk military helicopter. Even that could be on the line.

He's halfway to his electrical engineering degree, planning a career in

defense work, but his professors say he'll suffer a significant setback if

he is deployed. He doesn't mention the danger another deployment would

bring, but his wife and parents do.

 

So Erik is suing the Army. Good for him. This is craziness. We need a plan

to get rid of Bush and Cheney. They have had too much time in office

already. Their track record warrants their removal. These so-called

legislators we have sitting in the capitol building with their thumbs up

their ass need to do something before this country erupts into violence.

Erik, I'm with you my boy. Sue the hell out of them.

 

_______

Timothy V. Gatto

 

 

 

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson