Do you like the "A-ha!" experience?

According to U.S. Army Private Matt Guckenheimer, assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum:

"If there was anybody there, [during Operation Anaconda in Eastern Afghanistan] they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them." ...
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When he returned to the United States after spending a month either on missions or at the Bagram military base, Guckenheimer said, he remembered how alienated Americans are from each other. After living in a Third World country, where people he didn't know would smile or say hello to him on the streets, it was jarring to return home, where contact among strangers is mostly shunned. "These people who lived through life, they seemed to be more grounded," he said. Coming home was like walking back into a "clueless" society where over-consumption is commonly regarded as the route to happiness, he said. Fresh memories of war, By KANDEA MOSLEY, [The Ithaca] Journal Staff, Saturday, May 25, 2002 141_clip1

RICHARDSON, Texas The way [Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president] Robert McTeer sees it, there's nothing wrong with the economy that couldn't be fixed with a little more consumer spending. "If we all join hands together and buy a new SUV, everything will be OK," said the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas [Speaking to the Richardson chamber of commerce]. ... McTeer closed by telling the business leaders of a simpler plan to boost the economy: "Go out and buy something," he told them. -David Koenig, Dallas Fed President: Spend More, Associated Press, Friday, Feb. 2, 2001; 7:19 p.m. EST 141_clip2

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