Apr 24, 2007
We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Bossy For A Really Stupid Question.
Nine more U.S. troops were killed in Iraq yesterday. 20 others troops injured. We are still there.
The tally of U.S. troops sacrificed in this pointless war is now 3,323 — and that’s not counting the troops who sacrifice marriages, occupations, houses, parenting, and livelihood to be there in the first place because that number would include all the troops. But that isn’t the question.
The question is this: Isn’t a troop more than one person? Isn’t that kind of the whole idea of a troop? How can there be a troop of one?
Can someone please explain this to Bossy before her head explodes?
Bush? Yeah, it’s called denial.
While not to overlook the devastation of the Virginia Tech incident, you raise a very valid point at how a lot of Americans and the current administration have become detached from the war in Iraq, and all the troops and their families/friends who have been affected. I think Bush will go down in history as the worst President ever. He burns my toast.
Troops are what the new managers of the condo association sent to the Middle East to insure that the condo has an ample supply of expensive oil. The new condo management says that Halliburton and KBR and Conoco are good for the condo, therefore establishing the need for sending the young to go “troop” around in the desert.
Plus, I don’t like having young people “in” the condo anyway. Let them go out into the world first, THEN they can come back and retire here (if they make it back).
I once pondered this very same thing until my head swelled dangerously near the point of exploding. At the time, I queried my husband and he confirmed that a troop is just one.
o_0 Wha?!
I put it out of my mind and instead focused on other things, like the notion of infinity and the universe. Now? More head swelling and there is an ominous fault line on my cranium.
Websters and Wikipedia both say that a troop is a group. It rhymes, so you know it must be true. Which makes all journalists everywhere AND the president (thought we already knew it) wrong.
p.s. I’m sorry about your head. I will miss your blog if it explodes.
though. I meant though! doh.
Much discussion on the “troop” issue:
http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000596.php
It drives me crazy, too.
I wonder which circle of hell Bush will end up in? Not like I want to be around to find out but my curiosity is perked.
I am confused by that as well.
Things I am also curious about: how Bush was elected in the first place.
Yes, more than one. The same is true for plantoon.
OK, now we’ve lost more than in NY on 09/11. Can we stop the senseless, young killings?
Bushit and Co. really need to get a reality check. Iraq is the new Vietnam which is also the new black.
The use of “troop” bugs me in the same way they keep talking about the war on terror. Shouldn’t it be the war on terrorISM (if they have to give this unjust war a name at all)?
If you can, find Frank Rich’s column from the April 22 NY Times. I believe that addresses your last question!
You know I was wondering about not only the troops, and thank you sincerely for bringing them up, but also all the civilians that have died (countless I am sure) and who is honoring them? I aches me…. to my core.
Peace.
Thank you. Troops = large group of young men and women fighting for no reason. Troops killed = senseless & sad. I cringe every time I hear troops killed. Makes me think of hundreds / thousands of people killed. Yipe.
[Raises power fist in solidarity with BOSSY.]
But then, a “cohort” is a group of peers, not just the guy in the next cubicle. So what’s that all about?
Or as Dubya asked when told that four Brazilian soldiers had been killed in an ambush, “Gee, how many is a brazillion?”
I think Get-off has hit the nail on the head. Grr!
Good question.
One is too many.
troops = less personal than saying “soldier,” “man,” “woman” or “yet another American who died in a pointless war.”
okay, I went away and thought about it and sure enough by the time I got back Global Chameleon had already said it (I have a slow brain). It’s a euphemism for soldier. It’s easier/vaguer to say 30,000 troops than 30,000 soldiers. It’s supposed to sound better. It doesn’t really.
it is an army of one.
therefore, we can suspend all rules of grammar, common sense and human decency while discussing the milatari
Troop: an assemblage of persons or things; company; band; a great number or multitude; Military. an armored cavalry or cavalry unit consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group
Bush: ignoramous who does not know, nor will ever know, what a troop, or even a soldier, sacrifices for his stupid right to stand up and tell us that this war is still for the good of the nation… POOEY..