Michael, It is interesting that you picked up on my disdain for cowardice, but not my respect for principled pacifism. Hmmmm.

Big Mick, thanks for the third party "officiating." While passionate, I did not think my response to Michael involved a foul, but I will stick my nose in the corner for the requisite time period. Sorry you had to get caught in Michael's crosshairs (I used the word cowardice, not you).

And Diana, you have so completely misjudged me I do not know where to start. I really do not care that "some" overseas think I am brainwashed. Some people who KNOW me think I am brainwashed, and it does not affect how I view life or how I make my decisions. The men and women who are dying overseas are not dying for big corporations. They are all volunteers who joined the military for a thousand different reasons, but if you speak to their families at the root of all of them there is a basic love of country, a desire to serve, and a feeling of duty to defend what they or their families have been given.

And to everyone: My uncle served in a B-17 in WWII. Back in 1994 or '95, he and his group were invited back to England for a reunion. One night a special dinner was held, and the fliers were all bussed to the location. It was raining, but as the pilots, navigators, gunners and bombadiers and their wives got of the busses they noticed two lines of older English gentlemen and ladies standing patiently along the path to the entry hall. Slowly, as the Americans walked toward the hall the Enlish men and women extended their hands and said "Thank you, yank." "Thank you, yank." "Thank you, yank." The English, who had suffered so much and had lost so much to the hands of the German air force, were there getting soaking wet just to shake some hands and to pass along a sense of gratitude to the Americans who fought as young men 50 years earlier.

That, my friends, is the meaning of the "Band of Brothers" to me.

So you can take your polital tripe and accusations of brainwashing and your other insinuations about my mental health and just.....sorry, Big Mick. I won't err again.

Freightdawg.