Get Your Draft On

I try not to post links to stories without some kind of comment. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet this morning, or maybe my brain just can't wrap itself around this gem. Go read this entire article. Now.

Strains Felt By Guard Unit on Eve Of War Duty:

FORT DIX, N.J. -- The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart Sunday for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the past two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion's Alpha and Charlie batteries -- the term artillery units use instead of 'companies' -- that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene...

And in other moronic news for this morning...
Allawi Says Rebels Growing Desperate...

...which I suppose explains this:

2 Soldiers Among 21 Killed in Iraq Blasts