Another day, another soldier quietly passes away in the forgotten war

[Alexander's Horse]

These days the death notices are down farther and farther back in the paper, except maybe in their hometown. This one caught my eye for no other reason that he looked like a nice kid, full of promise.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_22861427/hayward-marine-dies-afghanistan?source=most_viewed

Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Died of wounds especially gets ignored. RIP

[regexcellent]

This isn't entirely on point but I hate how everyone calls mines IEDs now. It's infuriating. They are command detonated mines. When we drill stuff like "react to a mine attack" it's called "react to IED" now. What if it's not ****ing improvised? What does it matter that it's improvised? A mine is a mine is a mine, it doesn't matter if it's a cell phone hooked up to a 105mm shell or a TM-46, they do approximately the same thing.

[Alexander's Horse]

there's a condolence book

[MichaeltheGreat]

This isn't entirely on point but I hate how everyone calls mines IEDs now. It's infuriating. They are command detonated mines. When we drill stuff like "react to a mine attack" it's called "react to IED" now. What if it's not ****ing improvised? What does it matter that it's improvised? A mine is a mine is a mine, it doesn't matter if it's a cell phone hooked up to a 105mm shell or a TM-46, they do approximately the same thing.

Gotta change the acronyms so you have a reason to have contractors make new counter devices or systems.

[regexcellent]

Someone should go on a violent, Columbine-like rampage through the Pentagon and shoot anyone who ever came up with an acronym.

[Tupac Shakur]

**** acronyms. They need to hunt down whoever decided that "combat" should be replaced with "kinetic".

[Hauldren Collider]

Or shell shock with PTSD etc

[Aeson]

Poor guy is forgotten by post 3 of his own thread ... avoidable wars and pointless deaths of our soldiers

[Alexander's Horse]

yep

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

[DinoDoc]

Poor guy is forgotten by post 3 of his own thread ... avoidable wars and pointless deaths of our soldiers

He didn't die in Iraq. The Afghanistan war wasn't one of choice unless you're referring to the current quixotic quest to build a nation there when speaking of pointless deaths.

[Aeson]

He didn't die in Iraq. The Afghanistan war wasn't one of choice unless you're referring to the current quixotic quest to build a nation there when speaking of pointless deaths.

Thank you for taking care of refuting your opening insinuation for me

Though I intentionally worded my statement to encompass more than just this guy's death, as all avoidable wars and pointless deaths of our soldiers are bad things.

(And technically speaking, Afghanistan was a war of choice on our part. Even if we had a perfectly good reason to choose it initially.)

[Alexander's Horse]

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Hey Rufus - you made it out

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Bumped over the 2005 threads.