2 March 06

Greetings,

After reading about the wedding and funeral image experience in MK 14 a friend in Chengdu shared a Chinese saying, "Marriage is the tomb of love."

As we reported from the Mesapotamia front lines way back when, the number of military veterans (19%) seeking mental help is growing faster than you can say, "Kill them all! Fire first and aim later for God's sake! You'll never take me alive! I'll be damned if I'm going to perish in this wasteland."

Therapists and divorce lawyers have noted a sharp uptake on their intake road load.

Shirley You Must Be Joking, a registered stress professional said, "Yes. It's true I'm afraid. I'm afraid we are witnessing a vast conspiracy to hide the reality. Denial is a way of life here. They come in screaming, 'Not Me!' and "Why Me?" and we give them drugs or, if you prefer the politically correct word, Happy Pills. I am constantly living in fear and it's a scary thing, let me tell you."

"This fear based perception has been developing over time," said Robert Robot, an enlistee from Big City, and a refugee from Nigeria where petrochemical conglomerates screw the local people to make huge profits.

"Let's not beat around the Bush. I'm afraid the light at the end of the tunnel is made of transparent ideology imported from Crawl Daddy," he whispered to a naked truth lying in shadows.

As he spoke, 22,000 men, women and children suffering from post-tramatic stress syndrome lined up for their weekly injection of peace and harmony in the key of C.

This statistic does not include more than 400,000 Iraqi citizens suffering from nightmares, flashbacks and delusional thinking, "Is today the last day I will see my husband, wife, children, relatives and friends?"

Love is in the air. Run for cover.