Great.... Pimp up my ride....

Had it been my tax dollars I'd be on the phone to my legislator asking questions and forcing him/her to do the same in Washington.

If you ask me, I find it incredible that there are National Guard and Army sponsored cars in Nascar and Indy. The effect of Nascar on car sales is more than questionable and idea that it drags more volunteers to the Army must be questioned too.

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I'm actually kind of surprised that there are not more kids signing up for the armed forces. Why, when there is so much activity going on?

Because, 4 yrs in the military = 0 school college loans.
All the pissin and moanin going on around how the cost of college is going up, and no one can afford school loans to pay for kids to not work through college and they just gotta have an apartment (who wants to live in the dorm), armed services will pay for that college a lot quicker than 10 yr loans.


Marketing should be hitting on that when approaching these high schools!

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The U.S. armed forces, as well as waging war in general, are big business in this country and need marketing efforts similar in size and scale to anything from IBM or Ford. With some only signing up for 2 year enlistments, trying to fight 2 simultaneous wars and maintaining military bases in over 100 countries is going to take a lot of bodies and a big budget marketing /recruiting campaign. It's just a cost of doing business/war.

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"Marketing should be hitting on that when approaching these high schools!"

You're absolutely right but there are a couple problems with that angle right now:

1. People are getting their heads blown off in Iraq and Afghanistan, and guess where you're going if you enlist?

2. People started complaining about getting their heads blown off when all they wanted to do was earn some college money and people responded with "You knew what you were signing up for so shut it."

But in a time of peace, yea, that's a great marketing tool.

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@Polly

Clearly you haven't been deployed, the number of soldier's who actually experience some form of combat is no where near what the public thinks. There are huge options on support fields one could enlist in and never fire a single round except at the range.

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@TruthKid

I have been deployed a few times. We are in other sovereign countries conducting military operations for no reason other than to maintain our empire. War is a moneymaking endeavor. Like Smedley Butler said:


"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."


These wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not to 'protect' this country, they are solely to spread the power base of our government, and to make money for defense lobbyist. As a veteran of war, I hate it. I've never been so grateful of what I have after seeing what those around the world have to suffer through. I'm no hippie, but if I had one wish, it would be that man could coexist peacefully with each other. War is a terrible terrible thing, sometimes necessary (sounds hypocritical I know) and I wouldn't wish another war on this Earth. Life is too precious to waste.

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His teleprompter said it was okay.

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I don't understand what all this teleprompter crap is about. I am not American but it is common knowledge all your presidents have been reading off teleprompters for years. Pretty standard for politicians around the world. You might also be suprised to learn that they don't write their own material. So what? The idiot in the media you heard this from was likely reading from one too.

What an amazing waste of resources these vehicles are. The money the USA blows on "defence" is mind boggling. Seems to me the world would be a better place if you folks just stopped giving weapons to shady countries overseas (Pakistan comes to mind these days). Foreign aid should be wheat and wells not weapons.

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Agreed.

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