It shouldn't happen to a vet

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1117569,00.html

Feeling restless? Is 2004 looking just like 2003? Do you long to have your place in life very firmly defined by others and to wear a range of interesting hats? Do you have low financial expectations, a vigorous desire to travel and a functioning index finger? Then the US military could be for you.

Not a US citizen? Don't fret - the Department of Defense Inc welcomes one and all. You can fight for a passport, fight for a green card, just fight for the Christian, God-fearing hell of it. And you'll be in good hands - Secretary of the Air Force James Roche is a former vice-president at Northrop Grumman; Secretary of the Navy Gordon England is a former executive at General Dynamics; and former Secretary of the Army Thomas E White came direct from those hard-fighting boys at Enron. You're only a few months of training from jury-rigging armour on your combat-unready vehicle, eating out of filthy, Halliburton-run kitchens, sewing patches on your Vietnam-issue flak jacket and tying plastic strips round the wrists of numberless fascinating strangers, often in their own homes. Brits also have local access to a subsidiary enterprise, run to the same exacting standards. French nationals need not apply.

Or perhaps you've just finished a tour for Uncle Sam. Maybe you're one of last year's lucky amputees, or you've suffered a recent "mystery illness" or "mental breakdown". Well, give yourself a shake, shine up those new prosthetics and re-enlist today. In other wars you'd have been left idle, but no matter what levels of physical and mental trauma you've endured, this time the Department of Defense Inc still needs you. And with veterans making up 9% of the US population but 23% of the homeless - and Veterans Affairs taking care of 40,000 out of 500,000 - what better options have you got? You have a 50% chance of substance abuse and a 45% chance of mental illness - and let's not even talk about Gulf war syndrome and depleted uranium. In fact, let's not talk about that, ever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. my, my, I do miss a good biting press

[izzie]

2. Well that guy Will not get a green card to work at the NY times

n/t