THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Bob Herbert for one, who deplores the shabby treatment we give to those who volunteered to protect the US and keep getting sent, over and over again to fight in George W Bush's private wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can get fired up about Lady Gaga and the Tea Party crackpots. We’re into fantasy football, the baseball playoffs and our obsessively narcissistic tweets. But American soldiers fighting and dying in a foreign land? That is such a yawn.

I would bring back the draft in a heartbeat. Then you wouldn’t have these wars that last a lifetime. And you wouldn’t get mind-bending tragedies like the death of Sgt. First Class Lance Vogeler, a 29-year-old who was killed a few weeks ago while serving in the Army in his 12th combat tour. That’s right, his 12th — four in Iraq and eight in Afghanistan.

Twelve tours may be unusual, but multiple tours — three, four, five — are absolutely normal. We don’t have enough volunteers to fight these endless wars. Americans are big on bumper stickers, and they like to go to sports events and demonstrate their patriotism by chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A!” But actually putting on a uniform and going into harm’s way? No thanks.

Sergeant Vogeler was married and the father of two children, and his wife was expecting their third.

Well you may say that the Democrats have done something for the veterans after the Republicans totally ignored their needs and that is so. Sadly, however, both parties continue to piss away $Billions and send our men and women back to that useless carnage.

The war in Afghanistan, the longest in our history, began on Oct. 7, 2001. It’s now in its 10th year. After all this time and all the blood shed and lives lost, it’s still not clear what we’re doing. Osama bin Laden hasn’t been found. The Afghan Army can’t stand on its own. Our ally in Pakistan can’t be trusted, and our man in Kabul is, at best, flaky. A good and humane society would not keep sending its young people into that caldron.

Shakespeare tells us to “be not afraid of greatness.” At the moment, we are acting like we’re terrified.