As a disclaimer, I'm feeling a little calloused.  It is how I feel and it is well based, but it's almost certainly not what anyone wants to hear.

Few of you know it's been five years and two months since I left for the Navy. I joined JUST before the start of the Iraq war.

The job market was bad, I was recently presented with the dilemma of unwed fatherhood, I was scared.

I was one of those emotional cripples that felt "coming of age" needed to happen and the Navy was just the dad to grant it. I pictured us sitting down for a talk about girls, playing catch in the backyard. Needlessly aiding in the murder of thousands of people. Not Terrorists, people.

The reason doesn't matter, the point is, I made a stupid decision to grant myself over to the Dubyuh and His Daddy Complex.

That was over five years ago. I'm no longer in the military, for good reason. It turns out, that "sense of adventure" comes with the small print "and imminent death."

Why am I writing all this? Because an enlistment is for four years. There are now 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead. That's a bad sign for anyone looking to be overly patriotic.

I'm no longer for the soldiers.

Perhaps a harsh comment from a veteran, but an honest one. Each of us is made by our every decision, and anyone left over there couldn't help but know what they were getting themselves into. It's as though thousands of American Jews decided to move to Germany AFTER the concentration camps were known. For what? For a guaranteed meal? For a guaranteed place to live? For a life experience?

For the glory of The Nation?

Bullshit.

I realized today that I can't support the soldier without supporting the war, and I DO NOT promote the idea of senseless death, no matter how the bible tells me so.

So no more care packages. No more capitalist-fodder yellow car magnets. No more lip-service, segregating the All Important Troops from the Abomination of War. They're the same exact thing, five plus years after the war started.

Sorry troops. You want my support? Get the hell out of the military. You don't have a duty to die. You don't have a duty to kill. Surely you've realized that by now.  Surely, you're old enough to be held accountable for your decisions.

You DO have a duty to friends and family, to society, to the world to get your stupid asses back home.

And if you don't, well . . .  you're going to die.

Good luck.

It's not like you weren't warned.