Remember Barry Winchell?

Since the 9/11 occurred, the GW Bush Administration and his cronies has drummed up the patriotism and support for the United States Armed Forces. They insisted and believed that by going into other countries is the answer to deal with terrorism. If that is the case, how come we did not even find 6'6 Osama Bin Laden?

When Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, the military went on to tell the world that he died fighting the Talibans. IN fact, he did not. He was shot by his own soldiers. *Imitating Dr. Frank-N-Furter*: "What a guy!"

By chasing the phantoms do not solve terrorism, we need to apply pressures to the nations that oppressed against the mass which drove them to do the acts of desperation, which the fundamentalists embraced. By doing that, deaths would be averted in the first place. But now, we are merely playing tic-tac-toe game with people who hated our way of life.

When I see the yellow ribbon that were tied on some posts, trees and yes, bumperstickers, I grinned. For a long time, according to the military's observations, yellow is a symbol for cowardice. But somehow, it evolved to the idea of courage. Whatever suits you is fine with me. But at least, each time I see one, I know the truth.

Not only that, we went to Iraq under a false pretense that Saddam Hussein has the Weapons of Mass Destruction. So far, more than 1,800 US soldiers were killed in Iraq. More than 14,000 were wounded.

You know, many of these casualties were done in very brutal fashion. Many people were plainly killed or maimed with either severe or light injury. Am I touched by their "heroic" performances? No, not necessary.

Why? Barry Winchell. Remember him? He was the Private First Class of 2nd battalion, 502nd regiment at Fort Campbell Kentucky. He was only 21 years old when he was savagely beaten down by Calvin Glover and Justin Fisher while he was sleeping. Why? Because Barry was seeing pre-op transexual. It was well known that Barry was harassed by Justin and Calvin for a while before Justin egged Calvin to take his Louisville slugger bat to whack Barry when he was sleeping. The beating was so brutal that his mother could only recognize him by his tattoos which reads: "I heart Mom".

Of course, the hateful, anti-gay, homophobic atmosphere at Fort Campbell was pretty hostile towards Barry. When Barry ran along with his battalion, there was a song ridiculing gays, "Faggots! Faggots!"

Is this supposed to be professionalism? Is this supposed to be the ones we should support in the War on Terrorism? Frankly, I do not care nor support a soldier that much, why should I?

Suffice to say, Barry was only 21 when he was killed. The officials at Fort Campbell was quick to deny that it was hate crime but only after the persistent coverage by the national media which the officials conceded that it was hate crime, after all. Why deny it in the first place? Why did not they do something to protect their own? They were supposed to be better than us. They often clamored to be the "one for all, all for one" -- in this case, they utterly failed PFC Barry Winchell.

Calvin Glover was sentenced to life in prison but he can get out after 15 years. Justin Fisher was sentenced to prison for 15 years but probably get out after 3.5 years. Was this justified punishment? Of course not.

If one wants to see a film about Barry Winchell, they can rent "Soldier's Girl" like I did recently tonight. I heard some about Barry Winchell but after seeing the film, I checked the backgrounds on Barry Winchell on the Internet -- let's say, it was travesty.

So each time, a soldier gets blown apart in Iraq, they probably deserved it. After all, what did they do when Barry needs their help? They turned their back on Barry.

So much for Sempfer Fi.

R-