Glad you made this post. riding a chopper to almost certain death the realization is that if you survive the patrol it only proves you were lucky. If you get killed, it's got nothing to do with your courage or bravery, only that you were unlucky. You realize your courage isn't special. YOU are playing roulette with YOUR life. The sense of moral superiority is underpinned by a level of military strength that entitles us to do _______ without ever giving the real possibility of defeat a second thought. You are looking out the door and there 6 guys 5 of which are nervous scared to death and know once we start to go into the LZ all bets are off. Death is on the menu. You look over at your team member on your right and the guy is over there chewing gum ready to go out the door like he's riding the subway to work. He hasn't figured it out yet but he soon will. And you are going to be repeating this for months on end.

The adrenaline rush from risking your life.... is your life worth losing for a majority that would otherwise see you dead beyond the money and other benefits you are pouring into their country?

Can't explain it other than you don't want to find yourself there. If you are picking up what I'm putting down that's what all this glorified "freedom" fighting really looks like riding along staring down at a little piece of tape you put over the end of your gun barrel...

We don't know how to NOT "F" it up. That's our biggest problem and all the reason needed to NOT engage.

No government employees were harmed in the making of this mess.