The letter came to the house while my son was actually here on a lovely surprise visit.  He'd had a couple days free and had decided to make the 400-mile drive to enjoy his boyhood home--exploring the pastures again with the dogs, hanging out with us, watching movies.  We marveled at the freedom--that he could just up and come visit--after four years of combat deployments, combat training, and infrequent leaves home punctuated by either pre-or post-deployment tensions.

I drove up to the mailbox (a mile and a half from the house), and in amongst the magazines and bills and political pleas for money was a simple cream-colored envelope with no return address, postmarked Connecticut, addressed to our son Dustin.

He didn't know anyone in Connecticut, but it obviously wasn't a credit card come-on or a bill or anything else familiar, so he carelessly ripped into it, then stood stunned at the simple red flag insignia at the top.

For those of you unschooled in military matters, when an officer makes general, his stationary is uniform across the services--a simple red flag at the top-center of the page, containing however many stars the general has, and the service insignia in the middle.

This flag had four stars and a Marine Corps insignia.

It said:

"Dear Fellow Marine
     Once a Marine, always a Marine is more than just a slogan--it is deeply ingrained in the fiber of all who have earned the title.  Our Nation is at war--our Corps is at war--fighting a determined enemy bent on terror and domination.  Your Corps is still in the fight and your fellow Marines need your help..."

It went on to tell my son that he was an "elite warrior" and that the job he had started "is not yet finished." 

Acknowledging that he has transitioned into the Individual Ready Reserve, "I ask you to consider returning to our Corps to help us defeat this enemy and see us through this crises."

Mentioning the sacrifices he and his family had made, the letter referred to "a new Broken Service Selective Reenlistment Bonus."

No mention was made as to how much this bonus might be, or how it might be paid out.  My son was urged to call an 800 number or speak to his recruiter to find out.

The letter went on to highlight the young "new generation of Marines" that were going to need experienced Marines such as Dustin to help them in this fight.

It was signed, "Semper Fi Marine!" with what appeared to be the personal signature (but was probably machine-done) of James T. Conway, the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

My son read the letter, then said quietly, "And so the guilt-tripping begins."

He was disgusted by the sly 800-number.  "If I even call that number just to find out how much the bonus is, my name and information will be entered into a data base that indicates to the Marine Corps that I am considering returning to the service, and I will be marked, most likely, for recall to a combat deployment."

For my son and my nephew and thousands like them who stepped up, volunteered to serve their country in time of war, fought bravely through numerous combat deployments, and managed to survive and move on to civilian life at long last--their greatest fear is that they might be recalled and sent back to war yet again.

I repeat:  They do not want to go back.

Every time I see someone like John McCain bragging about how many soldiers have reenlisted even while already in Iraq, I want to vomit.

Most people have no CLUE the high--pressue tactics put on these young men and women to stay in.  The bribes, for one thing, have skyrocketed.  My twin nephews, both active-duty army captains, were offered tens of thousands of dollars to reenlist but were given a strict deadline to sign or lose the bonuses.  One nephew was already deployed when the deadline loomed.  Fearful that if they didn't sign, they'd get recalled anyway and sent back to combat without the bonus, they both reenlisted.  But they were pretty much career army anyway.

But thousands of captains and other junior officers are not, and the military is bleeding out of young talent because of this godforsaken war, the multiple deployments, the unbelievable stresses on families.

Being offered huge chunks of money is only part of it.  For enlisted men and women, especially, the pressure to reenlist is intense and often dirty.  For my son and nephew both, each of whom had done multiple combat deployments--when they made it clear they were not reenlisting, their last few months of service were spent in enlisted-man hell. 

My nephew, who was at the time completing his third Marine Corps combat deployment to Iraq as a  lance corporal, was yanked out of his unit and sent to a large army base near Baghdad where one of his duties included picking up trash on the grounds.

Let me repeat that.  A decorated combat Marine, on his third deployment to Iraq, had to spend his last couple months picking up trash on an army base because he refused to sign up for four more years and more combat deployments.

Once a service man or woman makes it clear they want out, then even the simplest requests get ignored, often to great personal detriment.  One of my son's buddies was due to muster out in a month.  The Marine Corps requires that a Marine needs 30 days to complete the process, getting paperwork straightened out, turning in equipment, getting physicals, and the like.

This young man's CO scoffed at that, and only gave him FOUR DAYS to complete the process, something almost guaranteed to cause him to make a costly mistake.

Other service members sign up for another hitch because they are PROMISED that if they do, they will not be redeployed.

PROMISED.  They even get it in writing.

Time and time again, those promises are broken, and the first thing that happens to them is that they get redeployed.

Pressure tactics such as this letter--harmless enough, considering--may not work on my 30-year old, college-graduate son, who's been around long enough to recognize what's going on.  But take a kid who went into the service right out of high school; he's maybe 21 or22 years old, and he or she becomes ten times more vulnerable to bribes and "guilt-tripping."

On this visit home, my son and I sat outside one cool evening and watched one of those spectacular West Texas sunsets we sometimes take for granted.  As the sky purpled and the stars twinkled forth, Dustin shared with me some more details of his harrowing last deployment, how every single day a vehicle in his unit got blown up, how during one three-day period, five men had to be medivacced out and two privates sent back to the States from the sheer stress.

"We were so scared," he said.  "Every day you think...who's it gonna be?  The rig in front of me?  The one behind?  My own?"

And of course, his vehicle did get blown up, as they say, but he was one of the lucky ones, able to stagger away under his own legs before his knees crumpled and the chopper arrived. 

In a soft voice, he told me about how, with each deployment, some of his buddies suffered worse and worse post-traumatic stress back in the States--something that has been borne out by the military's own studies.

Daily, I read reports of the toll this war is taking on military families in every aspect measurable.  Divorce, child abuse, spousal abuse, homicides, suicides, nervous breakdowns, hidden brain injuries from IEDs, alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, brawling, depression, and long-term health issues.

I hear talk about building up the military with more troops--the money's in the budget--but most civilians are getting wise to the fact that signing up means going to war over and over again, and more and more are turning away.  The army's had to let in recruits with criminal records and high school drop-outs, and they're just flat running out of DEPLOYABLE troops. 

What that means is that, when a unit deploys, they're running short of bodies to send to war, so they're dragging guys out of rehab from war-related injuries and redeploying them.  They're deploying troops who have committed violent crimes but have not yet been prosecuted.  They're deploying trooops who've attempted suicide.  They're sending troops with non-combat designations into combat roles, minus the intense training needed.

I have to make it clear that there ARE soldiers and Marines and airmen who WANT to reenlist.  They are intending to make the military a career, or maybe they really are gung-ho on the war (a greatly diminishing bunch), or they have desk jobs that don't expose them to a great deal of danger on their deployments.  And there are a very rare few who are adrenalin junkies and get off on war--a very small number, but a few.

There are some who ARE drifting after having gotten out, and sort of float back into the service because they find they need that discipline and like the security.

But a great many of those reenlisting are not doing it for patriotic reasons.  They're being bullied, manipulated, threatened, bribed and cajoled back into the service so we can keep fighting two wars after five straight years with a military made up of less than one percent of the population.

"Support the troops" is a platitude that REALLY means, "Support Bush's War."

We'll be seeing a lot of it in the run-up to November, especially since John McCain has staked his entire campaign--and Bush his entire legacy--on that premise.

But the truth is that the United States military cannot go on like this much longer. 

Remember that memorable scene in Gone With the Wind, after the fall of Atlanta, when Scarlett loaded up Melanie and her new baby and Prissy into a rickety old wagon drawn by an aging and worn-out horse, and headed home to Tara?

Remember how, when they were almost there, the horse simply stopped moving.  No matter how hard Scarlett whipped that horse, it would not move.

And then, it collapsed.

Dead in its traces from sheer exhaustion.

Our military won't die in its traces, but the enforced extensions pushed on it and whipped into a frenzy by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have exhausted it almost to the point of no return.  Some 40 percent of its equipment is now ruined by war and in urgent need of repair.  Traumatic Brain Injuries and post traumatic stress combined with serious marital and personal problems have ground down the collective consciousness of our fighting men and women to the breaking point.

And yet, the war in Iraq, they say, has moved on down the list of voter concerns.

No matter what "commanders on the ground" may say (they have their own legacies to protect)--we ignore the stresses this war has brought on our troops at our own peril.