The clouds are getting darker all of the time.

I am sure that anyone that has read anything I have ever written realizes that I am totally pro military. I am an Army vet and support these man and woman with the very fiber of me being. I have a few friends I have made in my personal life who are presently serving and I have many in my cyberspace life doing the same. One could say that I live and breathe supporting what they do.

I must confess, that contrary to the news reports I have not heard anyone saying they would refuse to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan, even if it is their second, or third tour. Yes, I have heard many complaints, about as normal as mine were during my war. Now, refusing to serve and being totally ticked off having to go again, that is another story, in that we are burning our men and women out faster than the Pentagon ever thought.

My major concern to this burn out concept is the continuous buildup we are all witnessing. The troops have to come from somewhere, many are rotating back faster than they had anticipated, with the knowledge that once there they are extended and unable to depart the service at their normal designated time of contract. The military is calling it a stop-loss policy, some of the men and woman are calling it involuntary servitude, yes, they are starting to get ticked off and who would not in their shoes.

This is the side effect of an all volunteer military, not enough troop power; we burn them out at a faster rate. Yes, people enlist all of the time, but there is a training process for each and every one of them and that takes time, a lot of time. The military cannot just hand someone a weapon and tell them to fight, it is not that easy.

The current build-up in troop strength is another concern of mine, very reminiscent of the Viet Nam war. We incurred a massive build-up in strength with the goal of not containing, but actively hunting down and killing the enemy, nice concept at the time and suddenly the Gulf of Tonkin incident popped up from out of nowhere and the war was on and going to remain that way for awhile.

I am not going to get into a discussion if the incident occurred or not, yes, it was hard to imagine a few gun boats firing on our naval war ships, sort of like a fishing boat tossing a rock at the same, let’s just say it led to the war.

Now that Iran is quietly entering the picture, the Middle East is quickly turning into a smoldering powder keg with the major players all beginning to take sides. What began as a push to free the Iraqi people from the grasp of an evil dictator is quickly turning into another direction that concerns me greatly.

It is evident that Iran and Syria want Iraq and the only thing standing in their way is us. We are constantly saying we are not going to war with Iran, but think about that for a moment. All it would take is another Gulf of Tonkin and we are in a full scale war. Yes, this concerns me, the safety of the troops concerns me and it is concerning me more and more everyday.