Brandon Ferdig wants to give conditional, not unilateral, support for the troops. And he wonders if that’s okay.
I have a confession to make: I’m tired of the auto-response with which we’re conditioned to automatically assume an appreciation and respect for the “the brave men and women who keep our country safe”.
It’s not that I don’t respect and honor those who’ve fought and died for the cause of America. I make an effort this time of year to not take for granted this wonderful country we have. It’s that we lump together all the troops and all the missions spanning America’s history, creating a dissonance—between wars of defense and freedom vs. military action for power and corporate gain; between heroic soldiers and ones that kill for enjoyment—that is hard for me to sew together.
It’s a tricky line to walk: being respectful, a dissenter, a supporter, a Good Man.
Conversations about this have been going on for years, but it remains taboo to question the worthiness American soldiers are of our praise, and I don’t think it ought to be off limits.
In thinking about my conditional support, I discovered two reasons why unconditional is an erred notion:
1. Today’s soldiers aren’t our granddad’s soldiers
2. Today’s wars aren’t our granddad’s wars
1. I was in a bar while in college and a fellow from my German class and I were playing pool. He was a soldier and talked about a contest he and his fellow troops were having. It was to see who could sleep with the fattest girl and take a picture to prove it.
An acquaintance of mine recently lived with his girlfriend who is in the service. He found out just a few months back—by reading the sexting on her computer—that she had been cheating on him with other soldiers, and because of that, gave him chlamydia.
A friend from high school, now a real macho soldier who loves working out and drinking beer, was out with my brothers not too long ago when he had a couple too many. He started a verbal altercation with a Native American. In his racist rant, he had to be restrained by many others.
Examples like these began to chip away at the unquestioned gratitude with which I was suppose to address these men and women. Then of course, there are the examples of malfeasance, abuse, and murder detailing horrific cases of rape, torture, mass killings that have only been more public in recent years.
It all got me asking, “What kinds of people are we saluting?”
Me not being alive in the days of my granddad prohibit me to know the true nature of those soldiers. I’m sure things went on amongst them that would appall me, too, that the squeaky clean image we have of them is a residual effect of favorable media and legend. I also need to be careful not to commit the same error that I’m criticizing: lumping all soldiers together. So I know those mentioned above are bad apples or even good people doing bad things. But I maintain, from knowing my grandpa and those in his generation, and by seeing the footage of soldiers shooting civilians from the helicopter on Wikileaks, the photos from Abu Ghraib, and my own personal experience that acts like these didn’t occur then as they do now.
#2. I remember being in 3rd grade and talking about war with other boys in my class. “America has never lost a war”, one said. “Yeah, we’re undefeated”, said another. I went home and asked my father. He offered a slightly modified take, saying, “Well, except for Vietnam. Nobody won.”
Along with false lumping of the troops who defeated Germany with the troops who took Saddam, we mistakenly lump together the act of defeating Germany with the act of defeating Saddam. One was a declared war in America’s past against a clear enemy, the latter is an example of the constant military adventurism benefiting American corporate interests throughout our last 120 years.
Years after speaking with my father, I’d watch a powerful montage of American military adventurism in Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine that would make Smedley Butler turn over in his grave and had me staring in wonder as I realized the same men who we’ve armed and held up as allies and heroes: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, (and most recent, Muammar Gaddafi) are now ones we call villains.
I looked askance toward the script-shifting; and in mild disbelief that we’re fighting people we’ve armed.
Worse however, was the footage I saw of the innocent death along the way. From our coups in Central America throughout the 20th century, to our involvement in Iran overthrowing their democratically elected leader in the 1953′s, to today’s accidental drone targets blowing up schools and the children inside them.
“What are we doing?” I think to myself. “What are my tax dollars paying for?”
I know I’m just one person totally removed from the theater of war. I know an image and footage–and definitely a montage in a Michael Moore documentary–can sometimes be overly-influential to someone who hasn’t seen war with his own eyes.
But I still have my reason and morals, and I have a right—perhaps an obligation—to speak out if I see something wrong. I have a reaction to seeing a Vietnamese girl running naked burned by napalm. I react to the execution of an American citizen and his 16 year old son without a trial.
Regarding the Saddam and Gaddafi, maybe the support-one-day, killing-them-the-next process is just part of the game necessary to play in our imperfect world. Maybe I shouldn’t expect more from our leaders. Maybe I’m being quixotic in thinking that the U.S. wouldn’t and shouldn’t flex its muscles—cause it’s certainly not as though they couldn’t. And as I learn more about history, the deaths of innocents was so regular an occurrence, maybe one can even applaud the U.S. for limiting collateral deaths via economic warfare and drone strikes.
But I can’t. I don’t believe our country or the world would be worse off today if we hadn’t intervened in the countless regions as we’ve done so repeatedly. And the disingenuous nature with which these missions are wrapped as deeds of freedom, righteousness, and good! Tell us you’re bombing Gaddafi because his attempted hold of power threatened Europe’s oil interests. Tell us you’re going to sabotage the rise of a leader in Central America because it’s bad for U.S. business.
I think the lesson to take away is to honor responsibly. I will continue to stand in awe when I hear and see depicted the kinds of conditions endured, the courage mustered, the lives saved, and the honor exhibited by these men and women throughout America’s past. I was recently taken in, watching a documentary, by the significance, intrigue, and conditions surrounding the oft forgotten War of 1812.
It is extremely unfortunate that the institution that all the historic and honorable men and women have fought for has been tainted by the orders of those who would seek power and profits over people; and that the soldier’s reputation has been tainted by the actions by those among them.
To much of America, a soldier is a soldier is a soldier and a war is a war is a war. This false association keeps us in blind support for men and women who don’t always deserve it either because of their character or because of their missions. This unflinching support doesn’t allow for the malleability that life is—that America isn’t always the good guy, that sometimes there never is a good guy, that as my father said about Vietnam, sometimes nobody wins. Under the weight of this support, we keep supporting a military budget of a size practically incomprehensible and almost certainly unsustainable.
We shouldn’t break the rule that respect is something to be earned, and the degree to which people dismiss what troops have done to truly earn their respect—positively or negatively—indicates the degree to which we’ve lost touch with who and what our troops and military are all about.
Photo—soundfromwayout/Flickr
About Brandon Ferdig
Maybe we shouldn’t respect professional killers because they are, after all, professional killers whose profession is killing.
Ya think?
Nah, of course not. I know it’s a bridge too far.
At the end of the day, soldiers are tools to be used by their masters to pursue their masters’ ends. In democracies, the master is somehow all of us. So, for all the U.S. wars (good or bad) you have no one to look at but yourself, or those Americans alive at the time in question. Are you doing your democratic duty to ensure that when your soldiers are unleashed, it is in a reasonably just cause (or at least one that you don’t consider to be grossly unjust)? I have my doubts that enough Americans have been paying enough attention, but I could be wrong.
For my country’s part, I’m reasonably satisfied that our men and women in uniform died and killed in reasonably just causes. But then we fight and have fought a whole lot less wars than the U.S. so it’s a lot easier to have clean hands (or at lease less bloody hands) when you fight few wars.
I’ll get off my high horse now, before I get shot off of it by some war lover.
The Wet One
Wet One.
A) Most people in the military are not “professional killers”. The number of actual combat ready infantrymen in the entire US military is only 70,000 out of 3 million personnel. Most sailors and airmen never even touch a weapon after basic training. That is not to say that they are not subjected to danger or hardship, because they are. Combat soldiers have a hell of a lot more to do in the course of their service than merely killing people, but they are trained to do that if they are ordered to. They are also not “unleashed”. The civilian leadership of this country gives them a mission, and they do their best to carry it out. And being the best armed forces in the history of the world, they usually do.
B) I served a number of years honorably in our nations forces. No one was ever my “master”, Dude. I took an oath and tried to live up to it. Slaves don’t take oaths.
Mr. McMahon,
I agree that most soldiers are not at the very pointy of the stick that goes into the designated foes’ guts, but all soldiers work towards this end in some fashion and if necessary, every one of them are duty bound the pull the trigger (unless I misunderstood something about how armies work). This applies to airmen and sailors as well, even if it’s not their day to day “job” in the forces.
As well, it seems to me that the giving of a mission is unleashing the hell that the military is designed to bring. All democratic militaries do nothing without their political bosses (if master is too harsh) say so. I know that in my country, by law, military personnel are servants of the Crown, who serve at the pleasure of Her Majesty. They are not employees.
Were you not duty bound to obey your orders? Was your life not your own to do as you please? I accept that you accepted your duty voluntarily, but you did not decide which wars to fight or who to kill. That decision was made by another person and you carried out your orders. I am aware that there are grounds for you to refuse orders, perhaps even legally, but if Wikileaks and the Bush years did not call into question in your own mind whether your actions, or the action of your fellow servicemen in Iraq were justified, well, have another look at my fourth paragraph and consider its meaning in light of record of the war in Iraq. Heck, don’t even take my word for it, consider these words from a fellow serviceman:
http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/west-point-debates-war/
I note that the good colonel says: “But I’m a soldier, and I go where I’m told to go, and I do my duty as best I can.”
That’s honourable enough so far as it goes, but where you’re sent and for what reasons sorta matters too. I’m still not convinced that too much love should be heaped upon our professional killers and their supporters (i.e. the rest of the military machine behind those at the pointy end of the stick). There is a danger there that a country places the military in a position of privilege which it ought not have. Of course, I say this as one whose country keeps its military on a very short leash (perhaps so short we’re asphyxiating our military, but that’s another discussion). All militaries, in a democracy, must be kept on a short leash. A position of too great a prominence forthe military may lead a democracy astray.
The Wet One
As well Mr. McMahon, I neglected to say this and for that I apologize, I thank you for your devoted service. You did not serve my country, but the strength of the alliance which preserves my safety and well being, is very much dependent on the strength of the U.S. and its military, and thus by extenstion yourself.
Again, my thanks.
The Wet One
“At the end of the day, soldiers are tools to be used by their masters to pursue their masters’ ends.”
So in other words soldiers are bad people because they’re not the fortunate sons? This type of denigrating remark is what gives pacifists a bad name. You know who is a tool? Civilians who take on an air of false superiority. Civilians usually support war in greater numbers than the military does.
Interesting comment dungone.
I stand by my comments about what soldiers are and what they do. Like the good colonel said, “But I’m a soldier, and I go where I’m told to go, and I do my duty as best I can.”
As I noted, there is a certain honour in that.
I’m glad you note that civies support wars more than the military does. I hope you can link that back to my comments about who is ultimately responsible when I spoke about a democracy above.
As for me making out soldiers to be bad people, I don’t know where you got that one from. I did say that soldiers are professional killers. As Mr. McMahon noted above, only a very view are the fully trained and maximally skilled killers, but as I noted, unless I’m mistaken, every serviceperson is required to kill when their orders are to kill this one or that one. Ultimately, those orders, in a democracy, come from the demos, or the people.
I suggest the people pay a whole hell of a lot more attention to whom they are ordering their soldiers to go out and kill on their behalf.
As well, for the record, I’m not a pacifist. When the time for death and destruction is called for, I’m more than ready to send forth the armies of my country and give them the order to unleash Hell upon the enemy and lay waste to them. The military is merly another tool of politics. Use it wisely.
The Wet One
Im a 28 year old artist that has seen friends and family join the army, and they do not sign up to be “professional killers” and actually loathe the idea of hurting people. But they are trained to not feel emotion when targeting an enemy.
Most every one in this world want to reach their potential and the army makes big promises to people without many opportunities otherwise.
But thats where PTSD comes into play, when i think of a veteran I think of someone who has experienced the horrors of humanity…something of which i cant agree is necessary but it does exist.
Brandon, I’m not sure what you mean by “supporting the troops”. If you don’t want to buy a uniformed service member a drink in a bar, don’t. They make their own money. If you don’t like a conflict our government has involved them in, by all means protest it. They are willing to lay down their lives so that you can do that. If you are paying your taxes, then you are certainly giving them all support they expect from you. As far as troops of your grandfather’s generation being somehow better than the the ones today, they weren’t. Read more history, or even good novels written by veterans about their experiences on the battlefield. Our soldiers today have to missions that involve community outreach, civil engineering, and humanitarian development work that would have been accomplished through carpet bombing fifty years ago. They are much better educated, trained, and way more physically fit than troops of the past. In your essay, you seem to be confused about the difference between the civilian leadership that assigns the missions to the military, and the military itself. The national leadership changes at least every eight years by the way. It’s in the Constitution. That might explain why we as a country sometimes change our views on other world leaders, although I don’t understand the business about Khadaffi because we trying to blow that knucklehead up back in 1986. Finally, I have a feeling you may have written this because you are wondering if your balls are as big as those proudly carried by our men and women in uniform. They are are most certainly not, but there is one way that you can find out if they are.
Jim,
I’m sure you’re right about finding out more about older generations and I believe every word you say about the humanitarian missions that are conducted today and the like. But still, there just seems a clear divide in the character of the soldier today vs yesteryear. Maybe I’m missing something; I’m open to be convinced otherwise, and as you suggest I’ll keep my ears open for other viewpoints on this.
But now I have to come down on you for this: “…by all means protest it. They are willing to lay down their lives so that you can do that.” Look, I get that the Revolutionary War was a struggle for freedom. A big reason why I wrote this piece, though, was because people lump all our military conflicts into this epic battle for freedom. As I said in the article, I simply don’t believe our country is any better off because we disposed of the president of Iran in 1953 or because we toppled Saddam. My claim was that soldiers don’t lay down their lives today for anything resembling our First Amendment.
Lastly, our civilian leadership hasn’t changed our military action significantly since JFK. The reason why opinions on foreign leaders change is dependent on them either aiding our cause or hindering it. Obama was shaking hands and recognizing Gaddafi as an ally 12 months prior to his calling for his downfall.
Brandon, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. First of all, the military had nothing to do with installing the Shah during the 1953 coup. That was a CIA and British MI-5 operation. Secondly, Obama shaking Khadaffi’s hand hardly makes him a US “ally”. International affairs aren’t middle school. Eisenhower shook Kruschev’s hand too. Saddam invaded two neighboring countries and threatened to invade others, caused millions of dead in his war with Iran, dropped poison gas on his own people, repeatedly broke the treaty that he signed with us and the UN after the first Gulf War, and over all was a sinister and evil person. Now he is dead thanks to our armed forces. Of course we can debate that one all day. I noticed you didn’t mention our military intervention in the Balkans, where we still actually have troops. Talk about having no effect on the USA! All we did was stop genocide. Other countries attempted to stop the killing under the aegis of the UN, and the Serbs basically laughed at them. It is very hard to laugh at the US Army and Air Force though. Overall, the US military has been a force for good in the history of the world, and is one of the best things about our country. Ask a woman in Afghanistan who actually had the opportunity to learn how to read about that.
“But still, there just seems a clear divide in the character of the soldier today vs yesteryear.”
This is a misconception. Hindsight is rose-colored and there are plenty of people who have a vested inteerst, and you identify them, in seeing that this mythology is maintained.
“But still, there just seems a clear divide in the character of the soldier today vs yesteryear. Maybe I’m missing something”
Brandon, how do you know what the character of a modern soldier is if you’ve never served in combat besides them? Can you articulate the basis of your opinion better? Today’s troops, myself included, have logged more combat hours and have done longer deployments than any American military men in our nation’s history; no time in our nation’s past has so much been asked of from so few, and all of them volunteers.
What possible character defect do you see in today’s military? I know older Marines, guys who were in the Beirut Barracks back when it got bombed, who told me that the military in the 80′s was a nightmare, with gangs, racial violence, drugs, etc. Vietnam veterans I know have told me stories of having to serve with some pretty terrible people and, at times, troops resorting to fratricide in the heat of combat. Today’s military is open to gays and women while the men work harder, train harder, hold themselves to higher standards – even as our nation’s civilian leadership grinds them down to the brink of collapse. You have civilian leadership sending out mercenaries like Blackwater into combat zones – people who did not take an oath to uphold our nation or our Constitution, who are there only for the money – who have created immense setbacks for our military missions overseas – and yet you are telling us that there’s something wrong with the character of our troops?
Let me say that I am very grateful that you, dungone, and J P McMahon, as those who serve, having replied to this discussion. Indeed, even in your comments, I have grown.
I particularly like J P McMahon’s defense of military as a humanitarian vehicle when the U.N. or whichever else effort fails. My struggle is that I find it hard to cheer on these so-called humanitarian missions, because as I stated in my piece, they are used as wrapping paper to cloak some other, more economic goal. i.e. sudden humanitarian concern over Libyans at the time European oil was being threatened by Arab spring. The two-faced nature of Sarkozy and the side-switching by Obama makes my skin crawl–especially as they use people dying to help them with their military ends. But maybe it doesn’t matter whether or not the government is holding back the truth, as long as good comes from the mission, i.e. girls in Afghanistan reading. Perhaps I need to drop my need to be talked straight to in favor of the benefit that may come from it. That’s actually a pretty profound thought.
And dungone, I like your breakdown of my over-simplification of today’s soldiers being less honorable than yesteryears. The struggle, of course, is that reality is infinitely complex while writing to make a point needs to be clear and direct: / In short, I agree with you that there are examples where things in the military are better now than they have been–womens and gay rights, less racism.
But you asked, “What possible character defect do you see in today’s military?” Well, I have the examples I gave in my article–both personal and from the news.
“Along with false lumping of the troops who defeated Germany with the troops who took Saddam, we mistakenly lump together the act of defeating Germany with the act of defeating Saddam. ”
Brandon, much of what you hear about WW2 is a lionized myth, just as you mentioned. But why do you need a wikileaks video of one helicopter when we fought that war by carpet bombing entire cities full of civilians and dropping atomic bombs? And forget Hitler or Saddam, we were allied with Stalin, a genocidal maniac who killed at least 6 million people. And then we threw some of our own allies into his clutches after the war. And we didn’t have recruiting posters like this: http://kdgeorge.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/kdgeorgeww2usathisistheenemy.png You can read more about some of the bad things that happened then, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#United_States
Iraq was a war that many of the soldiers who fought in it were against, including me. And bad things happened in that war, too. But so did good. Instead of indiscriminately killing civilians to achieve military goals, for us it had been more of a learning process about the best way to avoid doing that. From the very beginning of my time in the Marines, we took the principle of escalation of force to heart, learning as much about restraining holds as we had about killing blows, things like that. My unit took spike strips with us on patrols not to kill people with, but to hopefully save ourselves from having to shoot a distracted driver. I don’t know
Needed to be said. Blind patriotism keeps us from being able to distinguish between the necessary and the unnecessary; to ask the hard questions. But then, ordinary citizens and young soldiers asking questions has never been what the military aligns itself with anyway, has it? Bravo.
Sadly I find this article as naive as the people who blindly support wars based off the need to inflict their culture and values on the world.
Armies have always been a place for terrible people to go to because frankly it’s easier to train people kill the enemy if they are already lacking in empathy. Likewise wars have always been fought over and triggered by greed, stupidity, etc. To claim that these aren’t your granddad’s wars/soldiers/etc is to ignore the undesirables your granddad had to deal with (but didn’t mention to you because of the culture of his day) and that granddad’s wars riddled with greed, bigotry, etc
To say you don’t want to support the troops is the cheap way out. Sit in the corner, fold your arms and say you don’t approve of x thing y person did, so all people who wear the same uniform as y must be the same.
If you actually care about the concepts of honour, peace, etc. Then the appropriate thing to do is to support the people who want to push those aspects in military institutions (very few people ever express any support of MPs, officers conducting military inquiries etc, rather they just damn the whole organisation for the findings). Not suck your thumb and cry that it’s not fair, reality it’s like the storybook granddad read you.
Hey Kim, thanks for writing.
From the way you spell, “honour”, can I assume you’re not from America? I bring this up because I want you to better understand where I’m coming from. Over here, there’s this strong automatic demand that we thank every serviceman or woman for suiting up. My point was that we should challenge this social norm by questioning the people we’re lauding and especially the missions their conducting.
I disagree that challenging the status quo as being the same as sitting in the corner and sucking my thumb. I know people like that, though, and I agree with you 100% that that solves nothing either. I also agree that that thing to do is get people in power to do what’s right. I’ve been a big Ron Paul supporter on account of this.
This post wasn’t intended to spur action, though, as much as it was to just bring this issue to light.
Here’s something worth adding to the dicussion IMHO:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/are-all-fallen-american-soldiers-heroes/257809/
Of course this just confirms that we’re a bunch of liberal progressivists over here (because I won’t be completely flamed and utterly slagged for what I’ve posted), but I’m putting it up anyways.
The Wet One
Full disclosure: I’ve never enlisted, or been drafted. Back when I got out of high school, the Cal State system was still well funded, and the choice between a college dorm and a barracks was an easy one. My college life was austere, with plenty of ramen. No foxholes, sure. Otoh it was the late Eighties and my military tour would not have featured much in the way of shots fired in anger. And yes, I do place peacetime soldiers in a different bracket than soldiers who have been shot at. One tends to actually by more belligerent than the one who has seen blood. George W. Bush and his plum Stateside assignment comes to mind.
“Support the troops” is brilliant marketing. The so-called Vietnam Syndrome needed to be cleared up if the Pentagon, the munitions industry, and their civilian government enablers were going to get back into the military adventure business. The Beirut bombing didn’t do it, but the Grenada juggernaut a little while later was a stirring warm-up act. Movies like Top Gun glamorized the life of the pilot (note: most military people are pretty decent, but the true assholes I’ve met have been Navy pilots). Movies like Rambo and Red Dawn perpetuated the (largely mythical) idea of the vet scorned by hippies and the commie menace. So by the time of the First Gulf War, America was ready. You don’t like our war? Why do you hate the troops?
Granted, there are some great people in the military. Talk to some of them for any length of time and they’ll tell you that some people can’t function anywhere outside the military. A lot of it has to do with being young and full of testosterone. Somebody has to go out and fight or deal with humanitarian crises. A form of national service would do a lot of people good.
Nice observations, Pedro. I wasn’t trying to come off as being anti-military, and I like how you make points for either side and offer an objective take.
I agree with a lot of what you say. Thanks!
” I wasn’t trying to come off as being anti-military, ”
You really don’t come of at all as anti-miltary, and you had to do more than avoid trying to sound that way, you had to make an effort, and I thank you for it, not to sound anti-military, because the vocabulary available to you for an article like this slants that way.
I don’t think being branded as “anti-military” is something to avoid no matter what. If criticizing some military policies and some military operations is anti-military, then so be it. I tend to think that modern-day military organizations are good at some things and bad at others. I tend to think they’re necessary for some things, unnecessary for some things, and disastrous for some things.
I am also cautious about making broad sweeping just-so statements about “war” as this thing that is universally one way and never any other way. There’s no such thing as “War” with a capital W that is always x, y, and z and never a, b, or c. Unless the argument is so general as to be useless, like “war is dangerous” or “in war, people tend to get hurt.” It’s ludicrous to try to lump together the use of a sharpened stick and the use of a Predator drone into the same “War” category. By the same token, in some ways present-day wars are not really like World War II.
That’s because, in fact, WWII is an incredibly STRANGE war in terms of military history. It’s the most extreme example to use to say what “War” is or should be like, and probably the LEAST representative war when it comes to America’s historical experience with war. At the same time, the parts that many people think make WWII unique were actually not true or vastly exaggerated. PTSD, drug use, civilian atrocities, mistreating prisoners, rampant STD’s in-country, veterans unable to readjust to civilian society – WWII vets had that, too.
Thanks.
I would add that as a rule of thumb it’s a good for lefty-liberal types (of which I am one) to simply talk to vets and people that are currently enlisted and get a feel for what the military is/was like. Is it an opportunity? Were they drafted? Reserve call-up? Boring? Terrifying? If you happen to meet a CO, see if you can get their story. (It takes guts to be a CO.) Also, read a book or two of military history – it’s easy to condemn the atomic bombings, and they were terrible, but can we comprehend how the surrender felt to the GIs who were being shipped from Europe to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan?
I owe a lot to my late uncles who served in Europe in WWII. They were scarred, but they didn’t gloss things over when I talked to them as a war-fascinated little boy.. My grandmother, who I never met, was made into a nervous wreck by the war, having two sons overseas. And my dad, who without a doubt was one of those pranking, drinking, sonofaguns when he was in the Navy – he hated his time in the service to hear him tell it, but the GI Bill was a huge break for him and a lot of servicemen. Later, parlaying his technical education into a Sunbelt career in aerospace during the Cold War seemed like the inevitable thing to do. In my teens I thought I had some sort of moral advantage with regard to my old man selling out to the military industrial complex, but now it’s not so clear.
Also, I should mention that when Carter began the “Reagan” military buildup and reinstated draft registration, my Mom found me a book about my rights and the draft and urged me to follow my conscience. Since we have some pacifist non-conforming Mennonite ancestors I guess it all makes sense.
In terms of avoiding the draft or other forms of military service, there is a long but underestimated history of that in American society going back to the Revolution. Many men during the Civil War turned draft evasion into an art form. (I’m not sure how Americans compare historically with other societies, but people have found highly creative ways of escaping military service at least as far back as written language has existed….)
“It is extremely unfortunate that the institution that all the historic and honorable men and women have fought for has been tainted by the orders of those who would seek power and profits over people; and that the soldier’s reputation has been tainted by the actions by those among them.”
It has always been this way. You seem surprised at this, but this is what war is.
Power and profits over people – what else is the male disposability at the heart of who gets fed into wars? The civilians back home profit from this – they all profit from this. Women especially. Our entire defense policy is structured around protecting the flow of oli from the Middle East. Remember that the next time you see a soccer mom with a yellow ribbon decal on the bumper ofher gas-guzzling SUV full of kids. That’s not a bad thing, wars have almost always been over resources of one kind or another, at bottom, but let’s just be clear about it and own it.
And if you think atrocities and boorish behavior are a modern phenomenon, you need to open a book. This is what Kipling meant with “Tommie this and Tommie that…”I don’t know where you got your information about “our granddad’s soldiers”, but you need to do more than read Tom Brokaw and watch John Wayne movies if you want an accurate picture. And by “you” I don’t mean you personally; my comment is not aimed at you, but at the culture.
But to your larger question – you are asking the right question. Remember that pedestalization is a form of objectification. And often it is just a way to dodge an obligation. Compare all the sentimentality over Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day with how this country actually cares for veterans and re-integrates them. The suicide epidemic and the significantly higher unemployment rates are a good place ot start.
I as a veteran would take one of you with your sensible, serious questions over a hundred flag-waving hypocrites.
Thanks, Ginkgo,
You’re right–almost. America was founded on a war not for riches, but–from what I ascertain–for a higher calling: the inalienable right for freedom and equality.
Am I getting swept up in American fairytales?
So I do believe there are other kinds of wars. (There are defensive wars, too.)
My criticism is that many Americans confuse every battle we fight as fights for freedom.
Thanks for your response; I appreciate the support!
Another way to look at the founding of the U.S. is to look at it as an act of treason, which in a technical sense it really was, an act of treason against the British Empire, the empire that George Washington as a colonial officer had earlier sworn to defend. The Declaration of Independence was in part an explanation of why sometimes treason is acceptable and even necessary.
During the war of independence, what was Parliament’s message to the colonists? “Support your troops!” You could argue the colonists who really did “support their troops” supported the redcoats, not the patriots.
The U.S. was founded by people who argued that sometimes you have to reject “your troops” when you have a good reason to….
First of all, before I really can “support my troops,” I am going to need a ruling about who actually counts as “my troops.” It’s not as simple as it sounds. Of course, people serving in a uniform as active duty personnel in one of the official branches of the Armed Forces would count, but not all of those personnel are well-behaved. I refuse to say that everyone in uniform is all one way or all the other. They are still individuals responsible for their own actions. They are not all heroes just for wearing a uniform, and they are not all war criminals just for wearing a uniform either. I salute the ones who are doing their jobs honorably and bravely. I renounce the ones who are murdering and torturing people.
Giving blanket support or always giving the benefit of the doubt because a person wears a uniform is not a good recipe for democracy. Tens of thousands of Americans have died fighting AGAINST the ideology of blind allegiance to people in uniform. (Fascism, anyone?) A uniform is not a magic talisman that transforms the wearer into a hero. It just isn’t. Induction and basic training does not automatically transform you into a hero, for that matter.
Okay, let’s say if you are a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, etc., in the conventional sense I will give you full support. What am I supposed to do about all the other government agents active overseas?
Am I supposed to give blind, blanket support to American intelligence operatives, CIA agents using military covers, CIA agents using diplomatic cover, private security mercenaries, and other people with very little public oversight who are not bound by rules of engagement, military codes of conduct, or any transparency at all? I hope I’m not being asked to just blindly support the CIA and NSA because they’re protecting my freedom. Please.
Glad to see that there are thinking people here. Glad to see disagreement with my comments. This give me some hope for our species, though I fear war and its minions will have its way with us for quite awhile yet. Perhaps until our specie’s last breath, but perhaps not. The peace of the dead may not be the only way out of war, though it certain is one of the ways out of war.
The Wet One
“1. Today’s soldiers aren’t our granddad’s soldiers
2. Today’s wars aren’t our granddad’s wars”
Having spent more than 10 seconds reading about the great war and the second world war, this is horribly wrong. Failing to learn of the atrocities of the past, committed by British, American, German, Russian and all other participants, means you get to salute them in ignorance.
I would also suggest the likes of cheating soldier and racist soldier would not lose the cheating and racist label if they lost the soldier label. Where are the articles decrying the racist/cheating/inappropriate mortician?
+1
And PTSD is not a recent phenomenon, just a new word for a very old kind of casualty.
It’s the granddads who never came back or can’t talk about their experience who may have the most realistic lessons to teach us about their wars….
The late Paul Fussell wrote a great essay on the realities of war, which can be found via longform.org. He addresses everything from atrocities to the frequently inferior weapons that our side went to war with. Ever wonder where “FUBAR” came from?
Aside from the points he makes, it has always irritated me that most Americans think the European war was won at Normandy. Granted, that was a desperate affair and nobody from Ike on down was sure it would work. But the decisive blows against Hitler had happened 12-18 months prior, first at Stalingrad and then Kursk. Through some accident of history, the US was allied with one totalitarian state against another totalitarian state, and Cold War realities and pride made it hard to acknowledge those victories.
I also think that Americans would have a more realistic opinion about war if the US had been geographically situated next to say, Imperial Germany. We mock the French, but unless you go to the Civil War we’ve never had anything remotely close to the desperate defensive battle of Verdun on our soil.
+1
I really could say more, but +1 or “I concur” pretty much says all I need to say.
I was walking through my town centre a few months ago, and saw hundreds of policemen. I asked one of them what was going on, and he told me that the town’s army regiment had just come back from Afghanistan, and would all be going out tonight. I said shouldn’t our soldiers be disciplined and respectable. The policeman just laughed…
Training is a sacred cow in all discussions of this kind, because it saves soldiers’ lives and allows them to do a job most of us could not stand to do. (Necessary or not, I won’t go into.) But to do that training, conscientiously and well, you have to crush a little bit of your humanity. And it may not grow back, or grow back in the right places.
Whether one sees combat or not, just being military can change a person in ways they may or may not be able to cope with. It’s a side of our wars no one feels they can acknowledge.
Brandon, I like your article and I agree with most of it.
It’s about time we talk honestly about those “hypocrisy wars”. Let’s call a spade a spade (but, perhaps, most people are not that adult).
For me, the only “honourable” war is a defensive war, when a country has been attacked.
There’s no honour in fighting for oil or copper, for greed or status.
And no, the so-called “war on terror” is NOT a defensive war, because no country openly attacked the USA; the 9/11 was just an excuse for something else (that I won’t go into now; let’s just say the official explanation of 9/11 is far from believable).
BTW, IMHO America DID lose the Vietnam war. The vietnamese resisted until the USA retired; that’s victory in my own book.
And I’m afraid the same will happen in present Middle East wars: USA will eventually retire, out of exhaustion, with little results – if at all.
The world will never improve, until we are mature enough to acknowledge right and wrong, regardless of our interest and the side we’re on.
This reminds me of the “Avatar” movie: someone see the protagonist as a “traitor”, while I (and many others) see him as someone who knows right and wrong, and decide to stand on the right side, even at the cost of losing everything.
That’s being a hero to me.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
(Theodore Roosevelt)
(the same is true when replacing “the President” with “our country”)