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Ground Troops

This is a comment on the United States’ decision to put more ground troops in Iraq. Actually, it is a comment on the objectives to the decision especially those who have lost sons, daughters, husbands or wives in the combat.

Our armed forces are made up of volunteers only. We have no military draft as we had in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam.

During the 1 ½ years of World War I we lost 116,516.
During the 3 ½ years of World War II we lost 405,399.
During the 3 years of Korea we lost 54,246.
During the first 6 years of Viet Nam we lost 51,000 men, 43,000 in combat.
During the 4 years of Iraq we lost 3,200.

My wife Bessie lost two brothers in WWII.

I spent eleven years in the Navy, three of them in the Korean War. My first ship hit a mine; we lost 16 men and 40 wounded. Five of those killed were in my battle station. My second ship we lost one man to gunfire and seven wounded.

My class from the Naval Academy, 1950, served in Korea, Viet Nam, the Cold War and some of us in WWII and we are now older than the average U.S. citizen. We are now 79 years-old and 60% of us are still alive. 71% in our Marine class are still alive, 62% of Navy and only 53% of Air Force Officers.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States says Congress has the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

“To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.”

None of the Wars we have been in were based on the number of fatalities we expected to sustain.

Remember, all of these people in Iraq are volunteers.

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