Girgenti

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To Mr. Girgenti, First of all, if you’ve missed the extensive news coverage of the potential dangers that US soldiers could face in an Iraqi war, than maybe you should pick up any newspaper. Many have discussed the very real and horrible dangers that American troops will face from a defensive reaction by President Sadaam Hussein. Second of all, anyone who orders a videotape from a branch of the military knows and understands that the purpose of a military is to defend the United States. I don’t think anyone in the history of voluntary military service has ever been suprised by what thier country intends them to do, should it be necessecary. If you start using Timothy McViegh’s later, post-war philosophies as an example of the way that soldiers think, then you should understand that before he arrived in the middle-east, he didn’t consider the moral dilemma of killing enough of a deterrent, or else he would not have 1) volunteered for service and 2) volunteered to be a soldier (there are plenty of non-fighting positions available in the military). Later he hated what he had done, but as you say, only after he didn’t qualify for a prestigious position that was never promised to him. Using Timothy McViegh as an example of the problem of marketing military careers is sick because Timothy McViegh’s life was sickening. He was a killer, a zealot, and a coward. He was a nationalistic psychotic, but you quote his opinions on the sacredness of life.