Now, though, soldiers are better protected by body-armor and technology that incorporates skill into warfighting again. I wonder if Iraq and Afghanistan vets will be a little more open about their service once they start running for office.
Body armor helps, but industrial war is unlike pre-industrial war.
Afghanistan and Iraq are also a different kind of war, other than the inital invasion where you did have some military on military engagements, most battles have been smaller affairs. (This takes nothing away from those involved in them) Neither of these wars have involved the scope or size of what was going on in the two world wars.
Lets face it, entire death toll for all of Iraq is as of this week 4369, that’s less than 14 days worth of average losses in WWII.
The United Stats lost 292,000 men (rounded) through roughly 2.5 years that was our active official involvement in WWII, that’s a daily average loss of 320.
I respect any soldier who’s served, but if you come back waiving a bloody shirt as proof of your bravery as part of a political stump speach, I simply view that as disrespect to those who did not return alive.
I also can’t believe folks returning from some of these actions are going to be exactly thrilled to talk about what they had to do. We are fighting a people who have no qualms strapping bombs to mentally disabled people to use them as bombs.. and sending children onto the battlefield. I fortunately can’t imagine what it would be like to knowingly kill a child because that same child would kill you if you didn’t, but I know if I had been involved in that sort of thing, I surely wouldn’t be jumping up and down to talk about it.