Army Urges Dead Soldiers to Re-Enlist

This just in...!

Just when even the most jaded partisan – me, for instance – thinks the Bush administration has hit absolute moral bottom in their execution of the Iraq War, a new sub-basement is discovered. In this case, full of dead bodies.

Now they’re not just lowering standards for live recruits, but they’re actively pursuing already-deceased ones.

According to the Associated Press, “The [re-enlistment] letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action. The 75 represent more than one-third of all Army officers who have died in Iraq since the war began.”

Ahhh, it makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it? Leave it to the geniuses and the bureaucrats running the Iraq War to send the message to bereaved families, “We’ve taken your loved ones lives, and now that the holidays are behind us, we’d really like to do it again!” Talk about being expected to give more than 100%. Wow.

It just needs a little more boiling down to fit on a recruitment poster.

I have an alternative solution to the recruiting shortfall. Instead of offering sweeeet packages to entice dead guys back to front line military duty – I mean, if we’re so hard up we’re recruiting the recently deceased, these are clearly desperate times – why not call back up children of privilege from previous wars who failed to fulfill their obligation at the time?

As I recall, Dick Cheney famously had “other things to do” during Viet Nam – couple years from now, his schedule is really gonna open up. And I reckon by then the U.S. military is still going to be looking for a few good men to fill bodybags in Iraq; Dick Cheney is certain to be at least half the soldier of the dead men currently being courted by his administration. Heck, I say let’s give him a try. America is the land of second chances!

Same goes for W, who skipped the end of his hitch in the Texas National Guard to go campaign for his Daddy’s pals out of state at the time. By January, 2009, when he has indicated he expects his successor to be wrestling with resolving America’s involvement in Iraq, I don’t think his campaign dance card is going to be anywhere near as full. Although he may be no genius, I’ll bet he can be taught to steer a Humvee down the road from Baghdad airport to The Green Zone.

And we already know how well how well he fills out an aviator’s suit. I’ll bet his swagger is sexy as hell in ground combat desert fatigues. Purrrrrr!

For that matter, I’d love to see the Bush twins suited up in Navy SEAL wetgear, but I digress…

Obviously, the call for dead soldiers to re-enlist was a clerical error, some kind of behind-the-scenes SNAFU, but isn’t the whole Iraq War itself? Why not beseech dead men to re-join a battle that was sold to them originally as a hunt for WMDs that never existed? There’s a kind of sickening symmetry to the whole thing.

Maybe I’m just revealing my own naiveté when I respectfully submit that the Bush administration should let our honored dead rest in peace, and get up off their collective draft-dodging asses and do something to staunch the bleeding among of those members of our armed services not yet sacrificed on the altar of W’s Messiah Complex.