So, I'm up late with a VERY cranky Lil Man and BabyGirl. He received his first series of vaccines Weds afternoon, and she received her pre-kindergarten vaccines. Both, despite ample doses of kiddie Tylenol and oodles of hugs and kisses, do not feel very good at all and sleep is not an option. Crying, wimpering, and clinging to me is, apparantly, the only option for both. So, while doing my Mommy Nightengale duties, I am perusing thru online news on my laptop, and I come across this stunning piece of news via Army Times: "The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5% pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 thru 2012 that also are 0.5% point greater than private-sector pay raises. The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9% today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4% after the Jan. 2012, pay increase. Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5% raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.” Hmm... I wonder if this guy, a 20 yr old young man, who gave his face to Bush's unnecessary war while trapped for 20 mins in a fiery ammunition truck in Iraq, thinks that he deserves a 3.5% pay raise? First, the Prez sends our troops into this clusterfuck of choice for reasons based upon complete lies. Then he makes sure that he wings this clusterfuck of choice on the cheap in terms of piss poor armored equipment and inadequate troop numbers, plus inadequately training them for urban warfare, and not preparing them for dealing with a completely foreign culture. Next, we have Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and Bush's veto that would have brought the troops home. What more proof does America need that Bush and his party have never supported the troops? They send them to die for a policy that was doomed at Neo-Con conception. They won't treat their injuries when they return. They won't support their families when they die. And now they refuse to give them a pay raise for their service. Yet the Prez and the GOP are supposedly the only ones who possess patriotism and support our troops. I guess all of that love and support comes from a place called the Department of Irony, huh?