Fight "Terror" - Die From "Burn Pit"?

Many of our men and women sent to fight the so called war on "terror" are returning home with a "thanks for service gift" from our intelligent and caring government leaders. The gift they received is called Lung Disease. 

Did they get Lung Disease from fighting real hard to save our  "freedoms"?  Nope!  They got it from being ordered to burn their garbage in large pits.  These large pits contained human waste, plastics, and even batteries.

Would you stand next to a giant pit of burning garbage containing plastics and batteries and human waste? 

Would you do it if you were "ordered to"? 

Would you even do it on a voluntary basis? 

Would you do it without PPE (personal protective equipment)?

I believe we as a country are becoming too disconnected from the wars our government deem necessary to fight. I suggest, in order to get us more in touch we round up a bunch of "civilians" (in the prime of their lives and preferably your children) and force them to push plastics, batteries, human waste etc into a pit.  Give them a few jugs of napalm a match and no PPE and tell them to take of it or else.

Wait wait you say!  Hey man, they signed up for  this kind of work, not me or my kids - no way nope I'm not cool with that. 

Any of you who have been following my writings knows I'm not OK with rounding folks up against their will. 

I write this piece in the hopes of engaging you in some thinking about things and facts not on your minds as you work a 40+ hour week, shoot up to Stop and Shop and grab a Starbucks for the ride home.

Ladies and gentlemen, when we send others to war, we and them engage in it knowing that we ask them to fight a good fight for those back home.  We know their lives may be lost doing that. We supply them with all the necessary gear to keep them in the fight - equipment to save and protect their lives so we can keep them fighting the battles.  But then we turn around and tell them to burn their garbage containing plastics and batteries and other human waste?  We develop missles that cruse hundreds of miles and can nearly hit a freaking mouse hole, but garbage disposal.... ah, we forgot about that one so ah, just dig a big pit and ah throw all your crap in there (plastics, batteries,etc)and ah burn it....  yea that's the ticket.

We test fireman, industrial workers and others before and after exposure factors.  We apply science and testing. We give them PPE developed from that science and testing to make sure their exposure during their duty or jobs doesn't cost them dearly down the road. 

Why does that level of necessary care and understand not extended to those we send to war?

Is it because, well, hell it is wartime so that's the cost, and you knew you were putting your life on the line?  So stop bitching about how we would  never get away with that back home and light it up.

What does that say about our leaders? 

What does that say about us as a nation and a people?

Veterans Day is Monday, will you fly a flag, attend a parade or something like that?  Sure lots of you will.

Will you stand up and publicly speak out and call your leader to the floor  to answer for this unnecessary slow death and suffering  our government causes  our boys and girls?  Likely not many.

You can't write this off as simply the horrors of war or the price of war or the price of doing business. Why? Because death is not death, or rather I say, how you get dead matters.

Are you confused by that above statement?  Let me enlighten you with the following analogy...

When our dogs grow old and death is immediately pending we carefully make them dead by extremely humane means.  We do not beat them into a slow and painful death by bludgeoning them to death about the body with a bat, or by poking them with a small knife until they bleed out.

I will close this Speak Out with a few quotes. I enjoyed doing that in my last one, and I hope you did too.  So here we go!

"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."
-Sloan Wilson

"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."
-George Bernard Shaw