I had an interesting thought yesterday. What would happen should the US declare war on Iraq? Now, granted, most of you know that me, as a person, don't particularly care one way or another for politics, and war itself is not high up on my list of things to do. But, I was on a charter yesterday and this topic was brought up; I watched a movie in History on Thursday about the Gulf War, and it focused mainly on all the symptoms that had manifested itself several years after they came home- some, not even years.

• Loss of muscle control- includes bladder...
  
• Palsies
  
• immune system deficiencies
  
• cancers
  
• Birth defects in their children- tumors, inner and outer showing, heart defects (on right side of chest rather than left, half of a heart, etc.), limb disfigurement (we're talking about everything from no arms and legs, jsut little fingers and toes sprouting from shoulders and hips, to other such things), and much, much more.
  
  All this and much more- the symptoms of the Gulf War Syndrome. Called syndrome because the symptoms are not consistent in any of the victims, but the effects on each person who were in specific areas was devastational. Forced to take pills that would supposedly neutralize the effects of the nerve gas used in the war, these perople were used as Guinea pigs for chemicals that not only did not neutralize the nerve gas, but worsened the effects by several fold!!
  
  Not only that, but people were exposed to radiation, a constant bombardment of burnt oil particles into their bodies through lungs and everything else; they were exposed to NBC- Nuclear, Biological, Chemical- warfare, when the US bombed Iraqi factories and due to poor planning, the wind blew the airborne particules over US troops.
  
  But, it's a good thing that all horror stories have a happy ending, right? Well, this one doesn't, and won't. Those people will constantly be plagued by physical deformities or limitations, and their children are worse off than them! And, jsut to make sure that they constantly remember why they fought for their country, the government has declared that all of these little "quirks" had nothing to do with the nerve gas pills, though most of the cases happened only when soldiers forced to take the nerve gas pills had been exposed to nerve gas, or anything else, for that matter, and would have shown up in time, anyway!
  
  Anyway, after all this, I'm rethinking the original career path that I'd thought about taking- going into the military so I can get money for college. With this war on Iraq coming up, and the current War on Terrorism, I do not think I really want to get involved in the military. They screwed those people in the way of options! At the same time, I knew that this happened and yet, I'm still surprised that it did. Anyway, there's more stuff that could be told, but I'm sufficiently depressed enough at the moment. You can always add more later.