What the hell is going on?

Travis Greene, of Twin Falls, Idaho, center, competes in the 300-meter high hurdles at the 1999 state track meet

A high school track star who earned a track scholarship to Boise State University has lost his legs in an explosion in Iraq. Marine Cpl. Travis Greene, a 1999 Twin Falls High School graduate, is recovering at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., after losing both legs above the knee. The 24-year-old, in his third tour of duty in Iraq, was part of a team of Marines evacuating other Marines who had been injured in an earlier explosion. During the early December operation, a second explosion occurred. Three other Marines and one Navy corpsman also lost one or both of their legs in the blast. Two were badly burned.

Wednesday night, the night before the election in Iraq, I was watching the news on television and it was showing a group of American soldiers clearing the streets for potential bombs, or IED's as they like to call them. It showed where they had spotted a bomb and they used a robot to explode it. But right at the end of the segment you see a young American soldier pick up this huge shell that was at least two feet long and he quickly scurries over to what looked like one of those reinforced metal trailors that bomb disposal teams use to put unexploded ordnance in to. I immediately thought to myself, why in the hell are our young American men picking up and disposing these huge unspent shells so that the Iraqis can vote the next day? How much training do these Iraqi cowards have to have to pick up bombs and unspent shells? Why are our troops doing that type of work when it can easily be done by Iraqis? How would you like to have a son or daughter over in Iraq knowing that they have to do that type of bullshit because the goddamn Iraqis don't have the balls or the will, to do it? Bring our men and women home! They shouldn't be dying needlessly just because the people we're trying to 'free' don't have the courage to fight for their own freedom! We've done enough for the Iraqis.