Back to my old ways............

It wasn't too long ago that I declared my blog a news free, politics free zone. I've tried....really I've tried. You don't know how I've struggled with keeping my mouth shut. To tell you the truth, I think it's helped my disposition and improved my already sunny outlook on life. So I'm reaffirming my goal of staying a politics free blog. I won't be bashing Little George anymore and I'm going to avoid delving into the relationship between Dick Cheney and Barrack Obama (although it really is hard to stay away from comments about the ultra-conservative poster boy Dickie and his gay daughter and black relatives.....I mean so much good material there.) The news, on the other hand.....I just have to pass along two items.
The first is the activation of an additional eight National Guard Units for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. This involves approximately 25,000 citizen soldiers. The good news is Robert Gates commitment to keep deployments of National Guard soldiers to twelve months. The interesting part of this story was the data that as of this summer approximately 185,000 National Guard Soldiers have served in Afghanistan or Iraq. About 28,000 of those soldiers have served more than one deployment (they're talking about Seth.) With that many soldiers being deployed it really is past time for our leaders to look at compensation differences between regular army and National Guard, including educational benefits.
The second item is the news that an independent study questions billions spent on bomb-resistant vehicles for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington wonders if the military is buying too many in a rush to correct earlier shortfalls. I wonder if any of these people who work at this center and conducted this research has children driving around Iraq? Who could seriously question the value of these vehicles when they have cut casualties by 80%. I say send these people to Iraq and have them drive around in soft vehicles for a couple of weeks and see if they still think we're spending too much money protecting our soldiers! All you need to do is compare the picture at the top of this post - Seth as a gunner in Afghanistan - and the picture of the ASV a little further down on my posts and you will see the huge difference in vehicles. Easy to see why our soldiers are safer. And that's a good thing! Apparently the world is full of idiots and the only work they can find is conducting useless research.