58,000 killed fighting the enemy, and over 60,000 either killed, or allowed to die, by their countrymen after the fighting was over.
Nobody volunteers to defend his/her country expecting to be driven to suicide post war.
Now Mitt Romney campaigns (at a Memorial Day service, for Christ's sake) on a platform of making that even worse.
""Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, meantime, promised to maintain a dominant American military "with no comparable power anywhere in the world."
"We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs," Romney said. "The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world."""
NEWS FLASH for MITT the MUTT: China has the USA outnumbered, in manpower alone, by almost five to one, not to mention the resources of those who would be her allies in any conflict.
So, making allowances for the fact that he is too stupid to know that China has massive military potential, he plans to divert more billions into Defence (so-called), and allow the the poor and disadvantaged to go without medical treatment while starving to death.
Of course that might be a very good way to coax more gullible people to join the US Military as cannon fodder, in order to get decent medical treatment and three squares a day.
Until, that is, the Military has no further need of their services, after which they can go off somewhere quiet and eat a bullet.
More and more I find myself rejoicing in UK citizenship.