I'm offended by the tombstone labels for a different reason

[jmowreader]

When you die in a war, they inscribe your monument with the name of the war that killed you. So all this freaking out about "Operation Iraqi Freedom" being put on the headstones is a bit strange; this is how they've always done it.

I am offended by the way they name wars now.

This "operation such-and-such" crap is something the Bush family started. George H.W. Bush, who was the first president since FDR to serve more than two terms, started the practice of naming wars the benign-sounding "operation" when we invaded Grenada. We called it Operation Urgent Fury.

We called the Panama invasion Operation Just Cause.

And so on. The first Gulf War was Desert Shield which became Desert Storm when the shooting started.

Now to the present. We're in two wars--Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq). The name "operation" seems to imply a quick, surgical function, not a bloody prolonged war that has killed 1900 of our own people.

If we called it "Iraq War" the American people would be 90 percent against it.

The headstones are fine. The "war" is not.

[Kire]

1. "the first president since FDR to serve more than two terms"?

huh?

[LynneSin]

2. Well who do you think is running the country today

Not that braindead offspring of his

:crazy:

[jmowreader]

11. Dick Cheney is running the country today

Dick might have GHWB's help, but he's capable of running the nation all by himself. He doesn't need Shrub except for the fact that he'd still be running Halliburton on a full-time basis if he didn't have Shrub.

[RaulGroom]

3. I think he is referring to the widely held opinion

That Reagan was basically incapable of shopping off a grocery list for much of his presidency, much less running the country.

[Billy Ruffian]

6. Eisenhower ?

two terms.

[REP]

5. Reagan Was a Vegetable Figurehead

GHW Bush was the man behind the curtains.

[jmowreader]

10. Ronald Reagan was even more of a figurehead than Shrub is

At least Ronnie was a nice guy who could string coherent sentences together and made sense most of the time. Bush is a grade-A asshole who can't speak four sentences without butchering the English language at least five times.

Between 1981 and 1989, Reagan was the purported "president" but Bush 41 was really running the show. You know, kind of like it is now except that GHWB didn't have that snarl perfected the way Cheney does.

Then between 1989 and 1993, Bush was the man in the Oval Office.

Therefore, three terms--two as the man behind the curtain, one as full-blown president.

[China_cat]

4. How quickly people forget

that the original name for 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was Operation Iraqi Liberation. Which was truth in labeling.

[mark11727]

7. Kind of like "Desert Shield" became "Desert Storm"

We know it as "Gulf War One"

[Inland]

8. "Operation" and "Freedom" mislabeling, and now it's with them forever

The use "operation" for a seven year occupation, and "freedom", well...

Now the tombstones will mock the dead forever, a Madison Avenue bit of false advertising put over the reality of death.

[izzie]

9. Maybe Bush War? My mother's brother has WW2

He is not in a federal Cem. if that has any thing to do with it. I think any one who was in the service can have a standard free stone. I know I am thinking of doing it for a man in my family that has no stone and was in the Civil war. I am told I can do it but looks like work and I may just try and get the Civil War buffs to do it.They have all the records as this man has been hard to find and that is where I found out a little on him and his grave. His name was on the Civil war stone in the middle of the town.

[walldude]

12. Um.. thats the way it's been done as long as the family

agrees to it. The family has to sign off on the tombstone. They have 5 days after the funeral to submit any changes. The headstones are not "fine" if the family did not approve it. Believe me.. I know.