Pentagon abandons active-duty time limit.

Oh holy hell.

This is awful.

Before, soldiers could only serve 24 months in either the Afghan or Iraq war - cumulatively.

That's been lifted.

Now, they can serve 2 years, come home, then go back and serve 2 more!

Holy shit.

The ramifications of this are mind boggling.

God.

I don't like where this is heading, it makes me so nervous and so angry that it fucking came to this. Oh, it was done in response to Bush's 'surge' plan, which will be a cakewalk and the 20,000+ new soldiers will be greeted with flowers and skittles.

What the hell are we doing?

The article also says that "Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra pay". Oh, good. Except it sounds like a new development, and people from my uncle's National Guard unit are preparing to go over this year. And they just went three years ago.

My Uncle joined the military in '87, somewhere in the last 20 years, he switched to the Army National Guard, which meant nothing until the invasion of Iraq. Oh, while Uncle Danny also went to the first Gulf War.

This is not good, this is not good.

We're going to need more troops - more young people volunteering. I'm still reeling over the news of my friend enlisting after graduation. While considering my health and our family finances, I briefly entertained the idea. My mom (served for 8 years in the Navy as a corpsman) quickly vetoed that. My dad's older brother has promised me physical harm if I join. Most of my family has been in the military.

Only the more delusional ones believe their children should join.

And that's before you factor in this war, which will lead to conscription of some kind - who is going to volunteer for this catastrofuck(thank you, Daily Show)?

The military is a pain in the ass, when it comes to daily life. My mom left the military when she was pregnant with me, because she saw how hard it was for working mothers to take care of their kids - even more so with all the red tape of the navy.

She joined out of desperation, she had nothing else to do.

And don't get me started on the insurance! Oh so low copays (12 bucks a doctor visit, uniform prescription prices at all pharmacies - free on the base, but the hours suck - , but not many doctors take it off the bases. I lost a great doctor after the war in Iraq started, and we know why. They don't pay their bills.

Anyways, we are so screwed.

No money for college could ever get me to join now.

I'm worried my cousin (Uncle Danny's son) may join, but if he does, he'll be declared physically unfit on the grounds of being a whiney weenie that I pushed in the lake. Please.

Sorry for rambling.