PHOTOS: 19. 23. 24. 21. Behold, America, as your future is sacrificed.

[Bluebear]

Their whole life was ahead of them. :(



U.S. Marines prepare to roll in the casket of Marine Lance Cpl. Adam Emul, 19, who was killed in action in Anbar province Iraq on Jan. 29 while on foot patrol, on the island of Saipan, Northern Marianas, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Gemma Q. Casas)


In this undated photo released by U.S. Army, Sgt. Robert B. Thrasher is shown. Thrasher, 23, of Folsom, Calif, died Feb. 11, 2007, in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his combat patrol came under small arms fire. Thrasher was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, at Fort Bliss, Texas.


An Army honor guard carries the casket of Sgt. Mickel D. Garrigus during funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Monday, Feb. 12, 2007. Garrigus, 24, of Elma, Wash., was killed Jan. 27 in Taji when his vehicle struck an explosive.


An honor guard carries the casket of U.S. Army Sgt. Alexander Fuller outside St. Francis Xavier Parish, in Hyannis, Mass., following the soldier's funeral Mass in the church, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007. Fuller's wife, Anastacia Fuller, 19, of Centerville, Mass., background left, departs the church. According to the Department of Defense, Fuller, 21, of Centerville, Mass., died Thursday, Jan. 25, when the Humvee he was riding in struck an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.


"Those WMD's must be here somewhere! Heh, heh, heh! Heh, heh, heh!"

[nonconformist]

1. .

:cry:

[tblue]

2. 19 years old. 19 YEARS OLD, two of them!

[Kurovski]

7. That always hurts the deepest.

K&R.

[ninkasi]

3. Incredible

Here in Texas, a nineteen year old cannot legally buy alcohol. If it's a male under 25, he pays higher insurance premiums. The reasoning for the laws is that nineteen year old men are too immature to drink liquor, and are prone to reckless driving, due to their age.

Apparently, though, the Bush administration finds it perfectly ok to send the same kids into combat, dooming many of them to a lifelong disability, which will not be treated due to his slashing the funding for the VA, or dooming them to death.

Ok, they can't legally drink, and they pay higher insurance premiums, but nevertheless, they are sent to be slaughtered, or wounded, in Iraq or Afghanistan. What a truly screwed up country we live in.

[calimary]

4. No kidding. HORRIBLE!

:cry:

[MindPilot]

19. Those laws really need to be changed for military people

I returned from Vietnam and as soon as I stepped off the base, I became a child again. I was trusted with lives, millions of dollars worth of equipment, and deadly machinery, but back in the world I'm too immature to have a beer, too stupid to buy a house and too reckless to be trusted with a car.

At least I could vote. An election cycle earlier I wouldn't have been man enough for that either.

[Pharaoh]

5. Bush is an Evil Bastard!

:grr:

[malaise]

14. George Bush is a war criminal

Time to lock him up.

[Solly Mack]

6. what to say?

It's a shame?

Goes well beyond that

It's a disgrace?

Goes well beyond that

It's criminal?

It is so beyond criminal there needs to be a new word for it

I'm sorry?

Yes...I am sorry...but that doesn't mean very much...being sorry doesn't stop it.

All the words that could be said, have been said...and yet those words are so incredibly inadequate.

Maybe...

Historic prison sentences for a presidential administration?

and while that would be justice...and needs to happen...it still wouldn't be enough.

[Bluebear]

8. I am beyond words.

I saw the photos of the Baghdad people yesterday, another market blown up, another 20? 80? 120? people killed? The horror, just the horror of it, you are so correct, no current word will do.

[Solly Mack]

9. Exactly! I see the news, I see the threads on DU and I feel

like I should respond to the carnage...but I am beyond words.

Thank you, Bluebear!

[Binka]

11. Ben Is Going Back In 6 Weeks

I can't help but thinking this time he is coming back to me in a box. :cry:

[Bluebear]

12. Don't go there, Binka, you can't...

GodDAMN this war, goddamn this President.

[Solly Mack]

13. Oh Binka!! I wish I could tell you not to worry but I know how impossible that is

It's an all too real thing and people like us with family in the military deal with that potential reality - and those thoughts - all the time. It's just all too real for us. Even when we don't voice it, it is always there...just bubbling beneath the surface. Stark fear.

((((Binka))))

Warm thoughts and a lot of love coming your way and Ben's.

[Chulanowa]

10. I like this picture:

I can picture me and a friend... one giving a boot to his ass, the other to his head. It's just such a perfect position.

[tblue]

22. Which one gets to yank that dangly thing between his legs?

[Chulanowa]

25. You presume he has anything dangling there

n/t

[many a good man]

15. What kind of god would allow this?

[marions ghost]

16. "God is in the White House"

those fundies got what they wanted. Their God is in the White House. That picture says it all.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

17. Sadness and rage

At this tragic, pointless waste of life.

:cry: :grr: :cry:

[opihimoimoi]

18. Bush is SATAN......sent here to DESTROY us........He is EVIL...look at t he DAMAGE...

[In Truth We Trust]

20. IMPEACH!!!

[Tin Man]

21. You know the worst thing about that last pic??? They all laughed !!!

As most of us recognize, that last pic is a screen grab from the "gag" video presentation for the 2004 White House Correspondents Dinner.

The worst part is, all the WH correspondents laughed. Not polite laughter, or awkwardly embarrassed laughter, but honest hi-yuk-yuk laughter.

That's our CorpMedia, the fourth estate of our Democracy, pulling back the curtain and - sharing a big laugh with Dubya that the Iraq War was predicated of false premises. It's hilarious!!!

[havocmom]

23. Glendive, MT was bitter cold yesterday

as the community said farewell to an 18 year old lad, Pvt. Matthew Thomas Zeimer.

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/02/12/news/state/25-bye.txt

Bitter cold and stormy. Matthew should have had scores of springs ahead of him.

Bitter cold and stormy, like my feelings for the criminals who arranged for so many deaths for their own profits.

[Jonathan50]

24. A tribute to Brothers In Arms from a former Marine

I plan on having this played at my funeral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day youll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And youll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
Ive watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

Theres so many different worlds
So many differents suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the suns gone to hell
And the moons riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But its written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms