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Do you mind my adding your comment to the homecoming tips thread? A Veteran / Freeper in Iraq wrote it, and others are adding to the list.

Your comments would be welcome.

I'll just add two observations. Do not be particularly surprised if they happen to watch the network evening TV news, on CNN or Fox, and see reports about operations they're REAL familiar with, or of places they know well, and are absolutely floored about how wrong, confused, mixed up, skewed, slanted, erronious, off-kilter or screwed up some of those reports may be. And they may have some particularly colourfully descriptive terms both for the reports and for those making them. If you ever had any suspicions about the inaccuracies in some reporting, you may get them confirmed, quite suddenly.

Not to worry: you have a tool not everyone else has: right here. If somebody winds up steamed about press lies, let them spill the beans here, where there are other veterans who'll know immediately what they're talking about and hopefully, what to do about it...but in any event, it'll be a way they can let off some of the understandable steam they build up about that little problem. And those inclined to chip in here will get more than a few welcomes; a few already have. Every cloud has a silver lining, and one from this war is going to be an intake of some real fine soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who've done their jobs as well as they could, and can find some of the thanks they deserve here. We'll be getting some super new FReepers, and I think most will appreciate the welcome they'll find here.

One word of warning, however: there will also be a higher number of female veterans among those coming home, and they'll be facing a few particular problems that I won't even pretend to understand or be able to know about in the slightest; those who feel qualified to make any relevant observations are invited to do so. I suspect a lot of them will hook up with each other for support and there's nothing new or unusual about that; it's what most vets do. But they may find a few similarities with their fellow female vets from other periods, or with some of the guys with whom they served. Or they may look to someone sufficiently different and seperate from what they've undergone, or may care to deal with such matters in their own personal ways. Sad to say, I've lost count of the number of women troops killed so far; at least a half dozen, I believe, maybe more. That's nothing new either, but it's new to them, and in a lot of cases, they'll need some help in dealing with it, just like a lot of the guys will.

And oh yeah, this won't be the last one, either. Five years from now, or ten, fifteen or twenty, a new batch of Americans can expect to find themselves in some global armpit with people working out different and better ways of killing them. There'll be some bitterness when that comes around, too, for some of 'em, anyway.

-archy-/-