Historical Parallels

That's a lovely story Korg.

I definitely support our troops and don't expect a badge for doing so.

That particular question of whether or not Tito wanted me to write them was in direct response to corresponding with his two cousins.

He never responded, so I assume that he didn't want me to write them.

Good point in any context. Selective logic is an amazing thing.
As for coincidences, it used to fascinate me when I'd read an in-depth biography of someone when I'd find what seemed to be eerie paralells between their life and my own. Then it occurred to me- a biography has hundreds of facts, places, names, events...etc. With so much info there's bound to be a matches which, in isolation, seem amazing.

ok seeing as how chicago is the murder capital of the US we can almost consider it a war zone. If we are going to compare cities with troops that is what I'll do:
the population of chicago in 2003 was 2,896,016
the popluation of us forces in Iraq was 130,000 (november 2003 est.)
homicides in Chicago 2003 599 (for the 365 day year this would be around 1.64 per
day)
military related deaths in Iraq 2003 (US only) 482 (including coalition forces: 575)
this is approximately 1.52 US deaths per day with 317 days in the period between march and december

The numbers for Chicago and Iraq are very close. But we can put this in the blender and draw several conclusions. We could say that the war has caused less US deaths per day than the number of homicides in the capital of murder. Which may lead one to believe the war is a success. Though the population of US troops is significantly less than the population of Chicago. This obviously meaning that the number of US deaths per capita are much higher.

Or it could display something different. For one it stands to say that some of our cities in the US should be considered war zones. To me it also says that we have real, tangible problems in the US, which makes me think that we would be better off sweeping our own front porch before running off to other countries pretending to be any better. Putting a spin on statistics requires little more than a couple of classes at a community college.
Even the numbers I provided leave out a ton of vital details.

And to look at the past as an excuse for current poor decision making is a misuse of history. Especially when we choose to leave out important peices of that history to make a point. We should learn from it not repeat it only to say "Well he did it first."

Neehai detailed the rest of the facts I was about to post regarding the wars against both Japan and Nazi forces.

Oddly, so does retraining to replace your high tech job. At least that's what I hear.

lol...so true...touche moi