I'm a fairly conservative Republican that enjoys reading political discussions on the internet, and happened upon a link to this site. After browsing around a bit, this seemed a fairly interesting and lively little place to discuss all things political, so I thought I'd join and see what I could contribute to the conversation.

Obviously, I'll probably see things from a different perspective than a lot of you, but we all gain through discussion and debate, right? I saw some concerns about "board invasion" in another introduction...rest assured I have no desire to be disrespectful or disruptive here. Just want to get a better understanding of alternative perspectives on political matters.

As for my background, I come from an interesting family, with my mother a Protestant Democrat heavily involved in theater and unions, while my father was a Catholic Republican who was the manager of our city's events center/arena. Went to college on the goverment's bill through ROTC, and am now leaving the military as an Army Captain after almost five years of service. As for what the future holds....well, that's still up in the air.

How come you get to get out? I thought there was a stop loss in effect?

oh, and obtw, welcome to the fray...

Welcome.....

PS: you should of listened to mom....LOL I bet you had some interesting dinner table discussions...

There is stop-loss, but it isn't Army-wide....just by unit. I had to stick around for an extra 8 months while my battalion was deployed. Now that the Battalion's back, people are free to go.

Since I haven't been anywhere to get a 'Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry' button, I am still wearing my Kerry/Edwards one. It gets lots of comments!

Ran into a couple of friendly Republicans a couple of weeks ago. Big smile, the man said, "I have been a Republican all my life, but I voted for your guy this time". He then went on to say he didn't understand how 'that nutcase' got back into the White House.

I asked if he had heard about the Ohio vote. "Oh yeah, cheating. That's how he got back in--in fact that is how he got in in the first place."

The second gentleman said he can't even talk about Bush because his blood pressure goes too high.

There are indeed very friendly Republicans in our country.

Welcome.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what exactly a Neo Con is and how you tell them apart from the "normal" extreme right.

One last thing, with all this talk of going to Iran in the air, do you think it's even a possibility. As I understand it, there aren't even enough troops to cover "Iraqi Freedom" let alone take Iran with its bigger better funded battalions.

love to hear your thoughts on Iran, and what you think of the UK's involvment in all the mess over in Iraq.

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