special photo from camp casey

cassandra and friends at camp casey today

thanks alaska gyrl

one of these 4 is quoted in this guardian uk article right here

camp casey pictures

you can see alaska gyrl's pics from Camp Casey here

cindy sheehan on Real Time with Bill Maher

In case you missed it, are cable-deprived, are in a field in Texas protesting...

Here's Cindy Sheehan on Real Time, via Crooks and Liars

protest warriors attacked by their own kind- hilarious

From Cindy Sheehan's blog: a friend of hers went to the pro-war rally in Crawford yesterday and saw those asshole Protest Warriors get attacked by their own kind:

"My friend said that the rally was really the scariest thing he had ever seen. Except for one funny part when some people were walking through the crowd with a "Say No to War---except when a Democrat is President" (whatever that means???) sign. I guess the people at the rally only read the "Say No to War" part and they were ripping up the signs and chasing the gentlemen out. The unfortunate sign holders were trying to tell the counter-protesters that they were on Bush's killing side, but the crowd wouldn't hear them. "

From the NY Times (registration is free:)

"At the pro-Bush rally, there were some heated moments when two members of Protest Warrior, a group that frequently holds counter protests to anti-war rallies, walked in with a sign that read ''Say No to War -- Unless a Democrat is President.''

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs. When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side and tried to explain Protest Warrior's mission, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized."

See, Protest Warriors, people on your side don't do well with irony, or nuance. Or spelling, usually. Your whole schtick is to go to anti-war protests and try to make us look stupid, not go to the Pro-War Death Celebrations and make you and the rest of the stupid look stupider. Will Marean. C'mon, man, remember the mission.

Hope you enjoyed feeling their hate. Anybody punch you in the face for Jesus?

Idiots.

Now go enlist, Will Marean, you sorry sad fucker.















(photo and more from tbogg)

UPDATE: fun with freepers via atrios.

a freeper censored by freepers cuz his freepy sign too creepy - they're ugly and cruel, but not that ugly and cruel...

live radio from crawford today

found this link for live radio from crawford

www.bradblog.com

rhandi rhodes just started talking with brad, 5:20pm local time

got a phone message from cassandra- i think she dialed by mistake- someone was talking about this news about 1,000 prisoners being released from Abu Ghraib

laura flanders is broadcasting from the peace house tonight on air america

cassandra said she would call me right back- she sounded busy

i wonder how the Pro-War Rally is going over at the football field?

skewed views of camp casey from outside

cassandra is apparently going to ask me what I see of Camp Casey from the outside

one thing I found googling last night was some bloggery about Camp Casey having been taken over by COINTELPRO. It's a conspiracy theory critcial of the organizers at Campy Casey and the Crawford Peace House. This kind of indignant nit-picking of how the movement is run (while not doing any of the heavy lifting) makes progressives look like a bunch of fucking morons

Benfrank's COINTELPRO article reads like a a brilliant piece of COINTELPRO reverse-psychology propaganda, by the way.

cassandra mentioned on the phone that every day they have a volunteer circle ("who's going to clean the toilets today?") and the bloggers never volunteer ("their contribution to the cause is their blogging")

Jesus Christ, are they all Howard Zinns? I'm having a a hard time finding these blogs from Camp Casey, frankly.

Reminds me of a sign in the collective (and I do mean that kind of collective) kitchen at the San Francisco Mime Troupe, posted over the sink: "the revolution can't start until you do your own dishes")

it dismays me that people are criticizing the "leaders" of Camp Casey for not making Joan Baez's folksy nightly jams into a Lollapalooza to bring in the left-leaning kiddies.

it is a vigil. what do you want to celebrate? it's not a party.

i know cassandra is working really fucking hard there and that she just walked up and asked "what needs to be done" without ego (and because she feels for all the losses of this war everyday, and we do not have "skin in the game" either- but every day we are living lives during wartime and she needed to go and do whatever needs to be done) - and i can imagine that to some lazy blogger sitting at their laptop imagining they're creating the "Crisis Papers" of our time, feeling a little guilty watching the worker bees scurry about, that our cassandra may have become one of the more visible ones, one of the "bosses", and you are directing your lazy venom towards her

get off your ass and do it better or shut up. you're fucking up a movement that is so essential to soul of our nation

remember- this could be a turning point

not in our name's blogger Jeff Patterson's Campy Casey pages with photos. i hope he's picking up after himself.

camp casey service

when i got here and saw that there was wifi i dreamt that i would be able to keep up with folks around the country who had sent in donations to help me get to camp casey. those hopes were soon dashed when i saw how much work was needed.

i've averaged about two hours of sleep a night and only a few minutes of phone time with dutchman each day. i'm going to call him in a few hours and just ask him to blog what he knows.

hopefully when i get back i'll be able to reconstruct some of the amazing experiences i've had. i'm priviledged to be in the trenches with some hard workers serving a cause i believe in.

have to go... i'm needed..

"Republicans" Infiltrate Camp Casey

Yes, it's already happened. And it's not what you think.

What kind of republicans? The kind of republicans who only think of themselves, who don't believe that contributing to the greater good, who believe that all folks are equal -- only some are more equal than others.

See not everyone can drop everything and be here. Some have prior commitments. Some have jobs, commitments, children, parents, "loved ones" whom need to be cared for whom can't be left or brought along. In the case of those folks some of them have sent money, food, supplies. What they haven't sent is labor. So we have lots of donated goods. What we need is donated elbow grease.

But apparently the blog folks -- the writers, not the readers -- are more equal than others. Every morning when we have our camp meeting we sign up for volunteer duties like parking, security, cooking, cleaning, organizing, stocking ice chests, welcoming folks -- you name it, the duties are endless -- but the bloggers don't participate. They are asked for a couple of hours a day, they are fed and shaded in return. And mind you, these folks, while studiously ignoring the call, were asked directly to volunteer. They said they couldn't because they were blogging.

The question is. What exactly are you blogging about if you aren't participating?

And what kind of piggy pig pig liberals won't give up a limited amount of bandwidth to the volunteers who do work when they would like to sign on check their emails?

Just venting. Must get back to work now. Peace out....

Meanwhile in the People's Republic of Texas

Bush War supporter in Crawford- notice the sign- We Are Right (behind you Mister President)

What a cute acronym... WAR... We Are Right... and that's all that matters, that their "Rightness" not be challenged or questioned... that the righteous anger of a grieving mother be stifled, mocked, and shouted down.

1800 more have to die because 1800 have already died. I guess that's the NEW reason for our deadly debacle in Iraq... ?














A minivan dubbed the 'Cindy shuttle' stops at the only traffic light in Crawford, Texas, as it delivers Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., president of Gold Star Families for Peace, to her roadside anti-war outpost near President Bush's ranch, in Crawford, Texas, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2005. The encampment has steadily grown in population with Sheehan's supporters since she began her vigil Aug. 6, demanding to speak with Bush, whom she has accused of lying about the war in Iraq which claimed the life of her son. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)















Boots that belonged to Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, son of activist Cindy Sheehan, are seen at a news conference at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) offices in Philadelphia Monday Aug. 22, 2005. Casey Sheehan was killed in Iraq in 2004. The boots, which were a pair Casey Sheehan had in Iraq, are being returned to Cindy Sheehan after being part of the 'Eyes Wide Open' national travelling anti-war exhibit created by the AFSC, a branch of the pacifist Quaker church. (AP Photo/H. Rumph, Jr.)

random wifi in the middle of bumfuck

i pulled into the crawford peace house around 8pm tonight. i stopped off in waco for one last flushable toilet break and wondered what i might contribute to the cause that would really be appreciated. since the temps around here are definitely over 100 every day i decided on ice cream. i bought boxes of ice cream sandwiches and popsicles and fudge bars and thought, "what better way to welcome myself!"

there were only a few folks at the peace house since joan baez was singing down at the camp, but those folks appreciated the 'scream and then i followed the shuttle driver down to camp 2.

camp 2 is the one with the big tent, the same one used by george bush last week at his big fundraiser. it's a big circus tent thing and look! it has wifi! i'm connected.

but it's taken me quite a while to get set up and settled and scoped out and now it's 4am texas time, so i'm going to load up some pix and take off for the truck to sleep before the sun comes up and toasts me...

for now:

the inside of the big empty circus tent from where i am writing...

the inside of the jeep where i am longing to go to sleep...

the work station from where i am writing this..

the reason we are all here

more later...

peace.

Cassandra is in Crawford

Just got off the phone with our own Cassandra- she has checked in at the Crawford Peace House, bearing ice cream, and was still getting cell service as she followed the shuttle van to Camp Casey. Hopefully she'll get service there, and perhaps she will be able to blog soon...

second thoughts? what a pussy!

Well, I’m here. I’ve made it as far as the airport and I’m already terrified. I feel like I’m in the last throes of a full on anxiety attack... it may be the fact that I’ve averaged three hours of sleep for the last three nights. I’ve been packing, either physically or mentally for days, I managed to do an entire first rough video edit of a one hour play in one sitting yesterday only to not be able to export it due to clogged disk space, I tied up loose ends, did dutchman’s laundry, called the vet, you name it... I am superman!

so why am I panicked? I’m scared shitless. What the fuck am I doing? I should have just jumped in the car the minute that going to Camp Casey struck me. I know myself, if I have too much time to prepare for anything, I have too much time to get nervous. And now I’ve read various accounts on the internets about what’s happening there and then I’ve tortured myself with right wing radio enough to fear the extreme right and left. It sounds like a circus. And it doesn’t help that the tent that was donated for the cause to provide shade to the vigilent looks like a fucking circus tent.

I want to go to this thing to serve. I want to go to be a number, a body to show that there are a number of us who cannot stand idly by and let this country go to shit.

but now I fear that ... what? What am I afraid of? Am I a fucking chickenshit? Or have I just had too much coffee and too little sleep? It doesn’t help that a total stranger that I met at a party told me that I have to deliver a report. It doesn’t help that there’s supposed to be some big caravan of anti-anti-war protestors showing up next Saturday. It doesn’t help that I already miss dutchman and that I’m afraid that I’m too old and that I fear I’ll let somebody somewhere down... If I get there and it’s fascist hippie central what am I going to do? If I had any food in me, I think I’d throw it up.

The plan, as it stands right now, is to get to texas this afternoon. I have to visit with family tonight. My mother is trying to get me to hang as long as possible. She’s been great. She sounds as giddy about helping me with this as she did when she helped with our wedding. She’s been sewing peace patches on army hats and gathering mess kits and camping cots. She may try to sneak down to visit, but she doesn’t want to piss off my dad who’s a dittohead. That’s a whole ‘nother sad sad story... I will tear myself away from her as soon as possible tomorrow, Tuesday, and get there hopefully with enough daylight to find a place to camp.

the one thing that I’m freaky about is needing a little space of my own. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to be mine. As long as I can find that, I’ll be fine. Maybe that’s what I’m freaking out about... once I know that I have that, maybe I’ll be able to settle. In the meantime, it’s antacids and deep breaths.

Well, they just changed my gate so I better go find it. The airline desk folks looked a little shabby. That didn’t help my nerves either...

heading up and moooooving out

sorry i've been a bit quiet lately... i'm busier than hell trying to get packed up and caught up before leaving for crawford...

i'm hoping to stay in touch once i'm there. i leave tomorrow, monday. i'll probably stay at my parents' house monday night to get geared up. my mother is packing equipment right now -- she says she's packing me like an army wife, whatever that means... i just figure that all those years of girl scout camping are finally paying off.

the phone's been ringing off the hook, folks wanting to come by and drop stuff off. i can't decide whether to answer the door... i haven't been answering the phone... i'm afraid i won't get the video editing project done before i leave -- i'm trying to complete the first rough cut of a one-hour play i'm involved with... am i making sense?

more later..?

last night's vigil

dutchman and i headed up to hollywood and la brea for last night's candlelight vigil in support of cindy sheehan and her quest to get the truth out of herr president.

we didn't take our camera or anything, just ourselves. but cameras couldn't have caught the biggest impression of the evening.

i've been to so many marches and vigils in my busy neighborhood that i've lost count. but last night was the first one where the entire time there wasn't one single counter protester.

not only that, but not one single driver passing by expressed disapproval of our cause. to the contrary, we got tons of honking horns and peace signs. dutchman said that he was paying attention to it long enough to notice that every changing stoplight cycle at least one car honked approval. most of the time, it was many more.

it used to be quite different. we'd always get at least one misguided someone with a big flag shouting us down from across the street. and then there was the usual scary big suv full of meatheads who would circle the block yelling and swerving and flipping us off.

but this time, none of that. just peace signs and horn honks in approval.

the times, they are achanging.

i'm going to crawford!

i'm doing it. i have to. i can and i must.

so after sleepless nights i finally charged the tix on my credit card and then i went ahead and bit the bullet and sent out this lame-ass email:

Date: 8/17/2005 12:08:17 P.M. Pacific
Daylight Time
From: Cassandra Complex

Subject: i'm asking for money

so you don't need to read any further if you don't want to... i really won't hold it against you.

i'm not good at asking for money so this will not be pretty.

here's the deal: i'm going to crawford. i have to join cindy sheehan in her vigil. i have to be a body in this demonstration, get the body count up... let people know that there are folks who really fucking care about this enough to drop everything and do whatever it takes to end this war...

the thing is, i don't have kids, my job is flexible, i don't have commitments that tie me down so i can go. many of my friends who care as just as much can't go -- so i feel obliged to go.

i'm going to pack my rubber gloves and my work gloves and do whatever dirty work i can find to do there. there are so many folks there who have suffered loss and who have family in this war that i feel hardly worthy of showing up, so i'm going to be support.

i decided to fly. if i drove i would have ended up spending more time on the road than at camp casey. and with gas prices it looks like it will be about the same cost. the cost of the flight and car rental (i'll be camping in the car) is $613.08. it looks like i'll spend another $50 on gas... as far as i can tell the crawford peace house is feeding folks and i'll load up on bugspray and sunscreen at my mom's house in fort worth on the way.

so here's where the "ask" comes in...

if you... can you... would you... this is not easy for me!!

can you send me ten bucks? i'll keep five and spend five on any supplies needed at the camp. the last i heard they needed things like disinfectant lotion, candles, big garbage bags, etc but they may not need that anymore... i'll know more when i get there...

if i get too many contributions of ten bucks i'll send it back! if you don't want me to do that, let me know and i'll just donate it to crawford peace house.

send any donations by check made out --. that way dutchman can cash them and deposit them if they get here after i've left and i can get the funds from texas...

i'm leaving monday the 22nd and returning tuesday the 30th. hopefully i'll be able to blog while i'm there...

i will blog about this later, but right now i've got some packing and lots of work to catch up on before i leave...

sorry this is such a mess, i told you i suck at this...

peace,

CC

but as lame as that email was, here are the responses i'm getting -- and they're making me cry my eyes out!

Go get 'em. I put a check for $50 in today's mail. -- Love, Michael
A.

Hey, I'll send you some money. (check in mail tomorrow) Your OLD friend. Hey and just a couple of other things. One, thanks for doing this. Thank you for going. I can't go and it makes me feel like I'm helping. Two, if you want to write a story about your experience I'll run it in the FFW. Mucho Gusto. -- SP

Count me in,... Good for you and may the peace go with you. This reminds me of the old days. Cheers. -- L

Whew! I'm so proud of you! Sending $20 in the mail tomorrow. Do what you will with it all. Sending love and prayers with you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. -- hugs, C

You are so WONDERFULLY humble about this request. OF COURSE I will support it. I should just hop on a plane and JOIN YOU (but, alas, I am not able to do so). I'm sending you a check for $30 ... it will go out in tomorrow's mail. Wish it could be more. Keep whatever you don't need and give it to The Crawford Peace fund or to your favorite "stop this f*cking war" organization. BE SURE to take earplugs. The new crowd control devices being used by our lovely government are SONIC and bring folks to their knees in pain (anyone with hearing impairments could become deaf or worse). take care while you are taking care! -- f

Wow. You do suck at that. It's in the mail. -- michael s.

you can count on me for $100.00 Spend it however you wish. Thanks for doing what we should all be doing every day. I sometimes wonder how we as a nation are not all screaming at the top of our lungs while running down the street; STOP HIM, OH PLEASE SOME CREATOR SOMEWHERE! STOP HIM! The check will come from a bill pay account to your address. all the best Peace -- DK (this is an artist whom i've never personally met but whom i've adored from afar!)

Hell Yeah, I'll send you $10.00!!!!I wish I could go, too. But, I'm needed here in the Department of Education, so that I can encourage people to be free thinkers. Good luck and take care - there are a lot of wackos out there, who would love an irrational rationalization to hurt someone. -- MP

this is cool. good luck. i'll collect some cash from the roommies and send it to you this weekend. kick something over for us. xoxo -- j

I think you are incredible for going Will put a check in the mail -- STC X

Hi, I'll give you twenty bucks to help protest against that asshole and his war of choice. Though I don't know if you are going to get it in time if you are leaving next week. If I give you another five bucks will you come visit us in San Francisco? Hope you and [dutchman] are well -- your friend du

Count me in!! I'm glad to be represented there through my donation. You're the best. Lots of love, B

We would be proud to help you with some money. I wanted to ask you something else. We met a very nice guy last night at a candlelight vigil for Cindy. He is riding down to Crawford in a friend's van sometime next week, this very cool hippie woman, he says. We asked him if they might have room for one more, and he said he'd check into it. I just thought I'd ask for you. Would you be interested, if he said they wouldn't mind taking along another passenger, in heading down there with a couple of friends of the cause? I would think he'd let me know in the next couple days or so. Maybe you've already bought your plane ticket. Take care, and all our best to Dutchman. -- All our love and support, D&A

more later, i've got work to finish!

cassandra's fears realized

the absolute second i heard that a man was shot in the london subway on july 22nd and that witnesses said "he looked terrified," i said to dutchman, "he wasn't a terrorist."

i somehow knew that he was shot because he was brown.

and even though reports came out that he jumped turnstyles, wore a bulky coat and carried a backpack i still knew knew knew that he was shot because he was brown.

dutchman and i have debated whether it was racism or not. i maintain that most likely it was fear, but if the cosmos align to create a thuggish, racist outcome, then what's the difference.

we live in pathetic times.

extra! extra! read all about it here.

Tom DeLay is Not a Hypocrite!

I personally find no contradiction in Delay's position on abortion and his forcing workers to have abortions in Saipan, the capital of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.

Afterall, he's anti-choice, right?

Forcing women to have abortion to keep their jobs is not pro-choice. Delay believes women should not have the ability to choose what to do with their own bodies and lives. That's pretty consistent to me...

Us and Them

I've written about trying to avoid this "us and them" stance before, but sometimes it seems unavoidable.

Unfortunately, it's sometimes our side that falls prey to this particular mindset and when we do it must be called out.

Because ultimately, "we" are trying to do the right thing. "They" are trying to win.

Anything less than trying to do the right thing cannot be tolerated.

I was reminded of how easy it is to get stuck in the mire last Friday. I've been following what's been going on at Camp Casey in Crawford, TX pretty closely. Friday afternoon I was listening to the Randi Rhodes show on Air America and she was talking about the right wing smear machine. One of the names that someone called Cindy Sheehan was "ignorant cow." It was in a greater context, something like "anti-war mom, ignorant cow," something artful like that.

I really couldn't believe that we were already so low so I googled the phrase and found it here.

What I read caused such a visceral response. My stomach churned in a way it hasn't in I don't know how long. I would say since the photos came out of Lynndie Englund but those cause more pain and tears. This was... bile? I'm still trying to find the right words...

What's more is they were written by a talent I used to like, Phil Hendrie. And it's a little interesting, my remote history with him and Randi Rhodes. I used to love Phil Hendrie, listened a lot. I listen to a lot of radio and love comedy radio. However, after 9/11 he and Howard Stern went off the deep end with their vitriol and racism. They were spouting all sorts of screeds about bombing all the towel heads and supporting Bush and the war in Iraq. I felt so alone and abandoned and eventually just went back to more serious fare.

Fast forward to years later, Howard has come to his senses and now Air America is on the air and every once in a while I hear this sound clip on Randi's show from a character that Phil Hendrie does. She even mentioned early on when she first went national that she loves him. I actually did a search to see if he also came to his senses (he wasn't on the air anymore in LA at the time). As far as I could tell he hadn't changed his tune and Randi didn't say much more so I forgot about it.

And then Friday she finds this piece of shit piece that Hendrie wrote for the Free Republic site. It is so nauseating and vile. And to cap it off, it ends with this petty little paranoid grandiose snippet about rights to use the piece being limited since other radio personalities are jealous of his career -- or something, it was hard to keep up with by the time I got to the end of the raving lunacy.

So Randi mentions a couple of times that she can't believe that Phil has gone crazy on this one issue, blah blah blah -- obviously she hadn't gotten the memo, and why should she, he's not worth following anymore.

But here's where everything went wrong. She's been really supporting Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, talking to her daily on the radio, sending folks down there, sponsoring shuttle busses to get folks back and forth from the camp to the Crawford Peace House, really doing her share. And when she talked with Cindy on the phone that day SHE READ CINDY THE LETTER. Randi, come on! What the fuck were you thinking? That woman is talking to the press all day long, she's exhausted, probably in shock, under extreme pressure and amazingly still keeping her cool and you read that to her live on the air?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the injustice of those assholes that we lose sight of what is right. Cindy is right. Phil is not. Don't give him that kind of power, Randi. Especially don't deliver his hate to her. She didn't deserve that.

And quite frankly, it kind of sounded like you felt you could do whatever you wanted to after you had done so much - quid pro quo shit. And I really don't think that when you calm down in the silence of your tiny New York home with your dog and your thoughts, you want to be like that.

So check yourself girlfriend. Do the right thing.

Latest from Camp Casey

Still trying to decide whether to make the pilgrimage to Texas... I keep flip flopping... more about that later...

Meanwhile this excerpt from an interview with Charles Gibson really moved me. I've quoted Cindy Sheehan before. I'm humbled by her ability to remain calm and speak so clearly about what she believes, what she knows is true. But then again, being honest is always the easier route. That must be why the Bushes and Roves and Rumsfelds et. al. never make a lick of sense...

Anyway, here, read it yourself:

CHARLES GIBSON (Off Camera) I want to play for you a brief soundbite from a man named Jim Boskovitch who was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday and whose son just did die as well in Iraq. I want you to listen to what he had to say.

JIM BOSKOVITCH, SON KILLED IN IRAQ I firmly believe, and I would echo my son's feelings on this, that it is very, very important for our country to remain steadfast and complete the mission that they set out to accomplish.

CHARLES GIBSON (Off Camera) There are a lot of parents who feel that way, who've lost children over there. What, what do you say to them? Does what you're doing in any way disrespect their loss?

CINDY SHEEHAN No. I don't believe so. I believe that the only way we can honor our children's memory is -by bringing the rest of
them home alive. But I'd like to say to these people is, number one, I wish they could tell me what the mission is 'cause the mission changes all the time and the mission is very ill-defined. And, number two, I would never, ever question how a parent has to grieve their loss because his son came home the same way my son came home, and I honor the way he feels, and I, and I also honor that this is America and there's - differing viewpoints and we all have the right to express our viewpoints. And I reach out to every single family who, who has lost loved ones in this war because we're all going through the same pain. And I just want to say that our children are being honored, and, and a lot of them died saving their buddies and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to save their buddies.

More Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan links below:

Cindy Sheehan Video

Blogs from Code Pink Campers

Bush HAS Asked for Sacrifices!

Mea Culpa Mr. Bush!

All this time we libs of modest means have offered to make whatever sacrifices we can that will shorten this war - or at the very least, better safeguard our troops. Meanwhile, Herr President has helped the war profiteers by making tax cuts permanent and armored vehicles haven't been produced simply because the Bush administration hasn't asked for them.

But little did we know that the Liar in Chief did ask for sacrifices. Remember way back in one of those crapola, hard-to-listen-to State of the Union addresses he made when out of the blue he started going on about steroids in baseball? I remember thinking, "we're at war, motherfucker, what the fuck are you jabbering about?"

Well, sure enough, that was his call for sacrifice!

Because Georgie-porgie, drugged up loser that he is, is saving up his love -- I mean steroids -- for the troops! He does support the troops, dammit. In fact, he supports the troops more than you do!

Have no idea what I'm talking about? Well get your hiney right over to this site. There you can listen to a segment of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. In it, she interviews John Crawford who has ... well let me just let them tell it:

John Crawford: The Accidental Soldier

With two credits to go before college graduation, John Crawford was called to active duty and sent to the front lines in Iraq. Crawford had joined the Florida National Guard in order to pay his tuition -- and didn't expect to go to war. His new memoir is The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq. It was written partly while on active duty and partly back in the United States after he returned.

See, where the sacrifice comes in is here: Crawford goes on at length about steroids. His company was known for steroid use. Everybody knew about it. Crawford himself shot up some of his buddies. Those guys didn't like needles. They went on to not like a lot of things when they were 'roid raging. Just what we need, huh? Representatives of our country, guys acting in our name, an Amuricun occupying force on patrol with really bad tempers. Way to go Bush, you cocksucker!

Now, Crawford didn't go the 'roid route. He went the valium route. Where the 'roids were technically illegal -- but widespread and tacitly approved -- valium was cheap, plentiful and available without prescription. Crawford said that he got them in the PX for about two bucks -- oh, yeah, that's about a thousand for two bucks. He was popping up to seven a day. He said it was quite an ordeal to kick when he came back because he really never figured out how addictive they were...

But I'm sure the VA is going to help these guys decompress when they get back, right... oh, right... nevermind..

So, yeah, the baseball players are making some sacrifices. At least that's something, right?

We can't send those guys body armor, armored vehicles or give them medical care or counseling when they get back but we can drug 'em up reeeeeal good while they're there. Is this the American way? It sure sounds like the George W. Bush way.

UPDATE: Please read comments below for some discussion and corrections.