[Dan_ref]

Originally posted by JRutledge

I've been wondering for a few days. He changed it right after the debate. Maybe something was said in the debate about it. I don't know.

President Bush mentioned Poland in the debate as if this was an accomplishment to have them apart of the coalition of the bribed and minipulated. I just found it funny, considering that Poland's history and playing a part in this "war on terror."

It would be like a lottery winner to brag about how much money that have as compared to the Rockefellers. It is kind of a dumb and stupid comment if you ask me.

Peace [/B][/QUOTE]

Polish troops have died.

You find this "funny"?

If so then you'll find this f'ing hilareous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/na...rint&position=

October 4, 2004
2 Clean Uniforms, Owners' Fates Unknown
By CHARLIE LeDUFF

OCEANSIDE, Calif. - There are two unclaimed military uniforms hanging in Jerry Alexander's dry cleaning shop on Tremont Street.

They are on the rack, side by side, in slots numbered 1781 and 1783. The first is tall and stout. The second is short and thin. Like Steinbeck's Lenny and George. Like a pair of cousins.

Number 1781 arrived at the shop, Dorothy's laundry, in December 2002. Number 1783 came in October 2002, just a few months before the men and women of the First Marine Expeditionary Force stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton shipped out for the Persian Gulf.

The uniforms have gone unclaimed since then, nearly two years, hanging like bones in an anatomy lecture. They will remain, Mr. Alexander said, until the Iraq conflict is over and all the marines come home.

"Even if it takes five years," he promised. "Even if it takes 10."

Mr. Alexander does not know what happened to the men to whom the uniforms belong. Perhaps they abandoned the clothing. That sometimes happens, though rarely. Perhaps they forgot to get their laundry before they shipped out, but what were the odds? Two uniforms in a row, with an empty space between. Numbers 1781 and 1783.

There is a third, more malignant possibility: a dead man cannot claim a clean shirt.

There are names on the yellowing tickets affixed to the plastic that covers the camouflage fatigues, but Mr. Alexander has not read them or checked them against the list of the killed or wounded. His curiosity does not work that way, he said. Nor will he divulge the names to a stranger; that would be a dereliction of decency.

The First Marine Expeditionary Force left in January 2003 and fought its way to Baghdad. When the Marines triumphantly returned, Mr. Alexander hung a banner on his shop: "Welcome Home, Job Well Done."

No one came, though, to claim numbers 1781 and 1783.

Last March, the Marines shipped out for a second tour. The body count began to rise - the number of dead Americans has passed 1,000 - and Mr. Alexander took the sign down.

In peaceful times, there are 35,000 marines stationed at Camp Pendleton. But more than half are now in Iraq and Kuwait. [As of Oct. 3, the Pentagon had confirmed the deaths of 149 of them.]

This community to the south of the base, with movie houses and taverns and dry cleaners, is all but empty, a ghost town, the Santa Ana winds blowing scraps and plastic bags through the alleys, the sounds of the pressing machine and the smell of solvents seeping out of the dry cleaning shop.

Mr. Alexander is a self-deprecating man. A self-described nobody. He is no armchair pundit, just a guy with a mustache and a small business in a military town. No one pays him for his opinion, but he has one. Take it or leave it.

"You can't say you support the troops but you don't support the mission," Mr. Alexander said in his cluttered office. "I don't think that it's possible. That just hurts the troops, what they're trying to do."

It is a false sentiment, he believes, created by people ashamed that in their youth they called soldiers serving in Vietnam "baby killers." Mr. Alexander remembers; he was cleaning uniforms back then.

But the uniforms hanging in his shop today, and the empty streets and the headlines and the casualty reports and the recollections of Vietnam, have had an effect. "I have doubts, everybody has doubts now," he said about the situation in Iraq. "It's gone on so long now. There's been a lot of casualties from Pendleton. We feel it here."

And so Mr. Alexander peruses the list of the dead in the local paper, hoping not to find the name of a friend who is a gunnery sergeant. He looks forward to the day his friend returns so they can go to a Padres game. He will buy the sergeant a beer and pat him on the shoulder and tell him thanks for the service.

And he hopes that two men will walk through his front door, one thick, one thin, each with $7 in hand and a claim receipt, for 1781 or 1783. Though the tickets say that all articles left over 30 days may be sold for charges, the uniforms will be waiting. He will tell the men thanks for the service. And no charge for the storage.

[Edited by Dan_ref on Oct 4th, 2004 at 07:48 PM]