Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

My War: Killing Time in Iraq

In My War: Killing Time in Iraq, I chose a link to a blog named Return to Sender-Iraq Veteran Gets the Call Again. This is about a person who voluntarily enlisted in the army and was initially worried about the fine print about being called back up to active duty once enlistment was over. The recruiter said this would only happen if WWIII broke out. Well what do you know, three years after he got out of the army he must go back because of that fine print in the contract. He states that “whenever someone asks me about enlisting, im tempted to encourage them I figure the more people that enlist the slimmer the chances that ill get called back up.” He seems to have a negative tone towards the war. He mentions that if he had a well paying job or something that he loved he probably wouldn’t have enlisted. The only people at the army’s disposal are the existing members. People are not enlisting. He is very negative towards the rich connected people that will always have the ability to evade the war. He makes a great point when he states that there would be riots in the streets if the government expected from the rich what the army expects from the veterans. Reading this blog didn’t really enlighten me all that much just because that’s what I expected. But he did sign the contract and he did read the fine print. Its not like he totally missed it altogether. It was poor judgment on his part. On the other hand, he should not be getting redeployed three years after his service in iraq. They let his guard down, he thought he would be fine but then he is called back for service. Is this right? The author was definitely a frustrated veteran, he wants to be treated better by the army and want what he should get, a leave from the horrors of the war.

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