[B4Ranch]

>There is a huge amount of evidence of people being set up over the years, and these incidents of recent time in Iraq are just the newest ones.<

There seems to be a trend appearing almost everywhere of personal advancement and politics before patriotism. Maybe I'm just getting old enough to recognize it easier and faster now.

[RaceBannon]

I think the issue is: What used to make us upset while we served, was the personal advancement of individual officers along with THEIR mess-ups being covered while ours were open, and how we forgot that, and instead centered our memories of our pride in service.

Now, to see these things pop up, I am reminded of those incidents where officers screw up and it got covered up.

We spent decades in pride of our service time, pride in what we did, in knowing officers who advanced were once OUR officers, we knew them as Lt's or Captains, and now they are Generals, and we were proud to know them.

And then this. Blinders which we voluntarily put on concerning the past, things best kept forgotten, are popping up again and it is affecting not just individual units or individuals in those units, but out national prestige as well; in order to absolve our guilt over an overblown frat-prank at Abu Grahib, we HANG our own troops to look like we are cleaning house of undesirables.

That is not ESprit d'Corps, that is not Honor, Duty, Country. It is the big, Green Weenie, at it's worst.

[Centurion2000]

There seems to be a trend appearing almost everywhere of personal advancement and politics before patriotism. Maybe I'm just getting old enough to recognize it easier and faster now.

It's called cynicism. I find more and more of it as well.