Wars And Their Aftermath
#1
12-05-2004, 04:22 PM
Wars And Their Aftermath
Wars And Their Aftermath
http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
Things Seldom Spoken Of
December 4, 2004
The observant will have noticed that we hear little from the troops in Iraq and see almost nothing of the wounded. Why, one might wonder, does not CNN put an enlisted Marine before a camera and, for fifteen minutes without editing, let him say what he thinks? Is he not an adult and a citizen? Is he not engaged in important events on our behalf?
Sound political reasons exist. Soldiers are a risk PR-wise, the wounded a liability. No one can tell what they might say, and conspicuous dismemberment is bad for recruiting. An enlisted man in front of a camera is dangerous. He could wreck the governmental spin apparatus in five minutes. It is better to keep soldiers discreetly out of sight.
So we do not see much of the casualties, ours or theirs. Yet they are there, are somewhere, with missing legs, blind, becoming accustomed to groping at things in their new darkness, learning to use the wheelchairs that will be theirs for fifty years. Some face worse fates than others. Quadriplegics will be warehoused in VA hospitals where nurses will turn them at intervals, like hamburgers, to prevent bedsores. Friends and relatives will soon forget them. Suicide will be a frequent thought. The less damaged will get around.
For a brief moment perhaps the casualties will believe, then try desperately to keep believing, that they did something brave and worthy and terribly important for that abstraction, country. Some will even expect thanks. There will be no thanks, or few, and those quickly forgotten. It will be worse. People will ask how they lost the leg. In Iraq, they will say, hoping for sympathy, or respect, or understanding. The response, often unvoiced but unmistakable, will be, “What did you do that for?” The wounded will realize that they are not only crippled, but freaks.
The years will go by. Iraq will fade into the mist. Wars always do. A generation will rise for whom it will be just history. The dismembered veterans will find first that almost nobody appreciates what they did, then that few even remember it. If—when, many would say—the United States is driven out of Iraq, the soldiers will look back and realize that the whole affair was a fraud. Wars are just wars. They seem important at the time. At any rate, we are told that they are important.
Yet the wounds will remain. Arms do not grow back. For the paralyzed there will never be girlfriends, dancing, rolling in the grass with children. The blind will adapt as best they can. Those with merely a missing leg will count themselves lucky. They will hobble about, managing to lead semi-normal lives, and people will say, “How well he handles it.” An admirable freak. For others it will be less good. A colostomy bag is a sorry companion on a wedding night.
These men will come to hate. It will not be the Iraqis they hate. This we do not talk about.
It is hard to admit that one has been used. Some of the crippled will forever insist that the war was needed, that they were protecting their sisters from an Islamic invasion, or Vietnamese, or Chinese. Others will keep quiet and drink too much. Still others will read, grow older and wiser—and bitter. They will remember that their vice president, a man named Cheney, said that during his war, the one in Asia, he “had other priorities.” The veterans will remember this when everyone else has long since forgotten Cheney.
I once watched the first meeting between a young Marine from the South, blind, much of his face shot away, and his high school sweetheart who had come from Tennessee to Bethesda Naval Hospital to see him.
Hatred comes easily.
There are wounds and there are wounds. A friend of mine spent two tours in Asia in that war now little remembered. He killed many people, not all of them soldiers. It is what happens in wars. The memory haunts him. Jack is a hard man from a tough neighborhood, quick with his fists, intelligent but uneducated—not a liberal flower vain over his sensitivity. He lives in Mexican bars few would enter and has no politics beyond an anger toward government.
He was not a joyous killer. He remembers what he did, knows now that he was had. It gnaws at him. One is wise to stay away from him when he is drinking.
People say that this war isn’t like Viet Nam. They are correct. Washington fights its war in Iraq with no better understanding of Iraq than it had of Viet Nam, but with much better understanding of the United States. The Pentagon learned from Asia. This time around it has controlled the press well. Here is the great lesson of Southeast Asia: The press is dangerous, not because it is inaccurate, which it often is, but because it often isn’t.
So we don’t much see the caskets—for reasons of privacy, you understand.
The war in Iraq is fought by volunteers, which means people that no one in power cares about. No one in the mysteriously named “elite” gives a damn about some kid from a town in Tennessee that has one gas station and a beer hall with a stuffed buck’s head. Such a kid is a redneck at best, pretty much from another planet, and certainly not someone you would let your daughter date. If conscription came back, and college students with rich parents learned to live in fear of The Envelope, riots would blossom as before. Now Yale can rest easy. Thank God for throwaway people.
The nearly perfect separation between the military and the rest of the country, or at least the influential in the country, is wonderful for the war effort. It prevents concern. How many people with a college degree even know a soldier? Yes, some, and I will get email from them, but they are a minority. How many Americans have been on a military base? Or, to be truly absurd, how many men in combat arms went to, say, Harvard?
Ah, but they have other priorities.
In fifteen years in Washington I knew many, many reporters and intellectuals and educated people. Almost none had worn boots. So it is. Those who count do not have to go, and do not know anyone who has gone, and don’t interest themselves. There is a price for this, though not one Washington cares about. Across America, in places where you might not expect it—in Legion halls and VFW posts, among those who carry membership cards from the Disabled American Veterans—there are men who hate. They don’t hate America. They hate those who sent them. Talk to the wounded from Iraq in five years.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
Things Seldom Spoken Of
December 4, 2004
The observant will have noticed that we hear little from the troops in Iraq and see almost nothing of the wounded. Why, one might wonder, does not CNN put an enlisted Marine before a camera and, for fifteen minutes without editing, let him say what he thinks? Is he not an adult and a citizen? Is he not engaged in important events on our behalf?
Sound political reasons exist. Soldiers are a risk PR-wise, the wounded a liability. No one can tell what they might say, and conspicuous dismemberment is bad for recruiting. An enlisted man in front of a camera is dangerous. He could wreck the governmental spin apparatus in five minutes. It is better to keep soldiers discreetly out of sight.
So we do not see much of the casualties, ours or theirs. Yet they are there, are somewhere, with missing legs, blind, becoming accustomed to groping at things in their new darkness, learning to use the wheelchairs that will be theirs for fifty years. Some face worse fates than others. Quadriplegics will be warehoused in VA hospitals where nurses will turn them at intervals, like hamburgers, to prevent bedsores. Friends and relatives will soon forget them. Suicide will be a frequent thought. The less damaged will get around.
For a brief moment perhaps the casualties will believe, then try desperately to keep believing, that they did something brave and worthy and terribly important for that abstraction, country. Some will even expect thanks. There will be no thanks, or few, and those quickly forgotten. It will be worse. People will ask how they lost the leg. In Iraq, they will say, hoping for sympathy, or respect, or understanding. The response, often unvoiced but unmistakable, will be, “What did you do that for?” The wounded will realize that they are not only crippled, but freaks.
The years will go by. Iraq will fade into the mist. Wars always do. A generation will rise for whom it will be just history. The dismembered veterans will find first that almost nobody appreciates what they did, then that few even remember it. If—when, many would say—the United States is driven out of Iraq, the soldiers will look back and realize that the whole affair was a fraud. Wars are just wars. They seem important at the time. At any rate, we are told that they are important.
Yet the wounds will remain. Arms do not grow back. For the paralyzed there will never be girlfriends, dancing, rolling in the grass with children. The blind will adapt as best they can. Those with merely a missing leg will count themselves lucky. They will hobble about, managing to lead semi-normal lives, and people will say, “How well he handles it.” An admirable freak. For others it will be less good. A colostomy bag is a sorry companion on a wedding night.
These men will come to hate. It will not be the Iraqis they hate. This we do not talk about.
It is hard to admit that one has been used. Some of the crippled will forever insist that the war was needed, that they were protecting their sisters from an Islamic invasion, or Vietnamese, or Chinese. Others will keep quiet and drink too much. Still others will read, grow older and wiser—and bitter. They will remember that their vice president, a man named Cheney, said that during his war, the one in Asia, he “had other priorities.” The veterans will remember this when everyone else has long since forgotten Cheney.
I once watched the first meeting between a young Marine from the South, blind, much of his face shot away, and his high school sweetheart who had come from Tennessee to Bethesda Naval Hospital to see him.
Hatred comes easily.
There are wounds and there are wounds. A friend of mine spent two tours in Asia in that war now little remembered. He killed many people, not all of them soldiers. It is what happens in wars. The memory haunts him. Jack is a hard man from a tough neighborhood, quick with his fists, intelligent but uneducated—not a liberal flower vain over his sensitivity. He lives in Mexican bars few would enter and has no politics beyond an anger toward government.
He was not a joyous killer. He remembers what he did, knows now that he was had. It gnaws at him. One is wise to stay away from him when he is drinking.
People say that this war isn’t like Viet Nam. They are correct. Washington fights its war in Iraq with no better understanding of Iraq than it had of Viet Nam, but with much better understanding of the United States. The Pentagon learned from Asia. This time around it has controlled the press well. Here is the great lesson of Southeast Asia: The press is dangerous, not because it is inaccurate, which it often is, but because it often isn’t.
So we don’t much see the caskets—for reasons of privacy, you understand.
The war in Iraq is fought by volunteers, which means people that no one in power cares about. No one in the mysteriously named “elite” gives a damn about some kid from a town in Tennessee that has one gas station and a beer hall with a stuffed buck’s head. Such a kid is a redneck at best, pretty much from another planet, and certainly not someone you would let your daughter date. If conscription came back, and college students with rich parents learned to live in fear of The Envelope, riots would blossom as before. Now Yale can rest easy. Thank God for throwaway people.
The nearly perfect separation between the military and the rest of the country, or at least the influential in the country, is wonderful for the war effort. It prevents concern. How many people with a college degree even know a soldier? Yes, some, and I will get email from them, but they are a minority. How many Americans have been on a military base? Or, to be truly absurd, how many men in combat arms went to, say, Harvard?
Ah, but they have other priorities.
In fifteen years in Washington I knew many, many reporters and intellectuals and educated people. Almost none had worn boots. So it is. Those who count do not have to go, and do not know anyone who has gone, and don’t interest themselves. There is a price for this, though not one Washington cares about. Across America, in places where you might not expect it—in Legion halls and VFW posts, among those who carry membership cards from the Disabled American Veterans—there are men who hate. They don’t hate America. They hate those who sent them. Talk to the wounded from Iraq in five years.
#2
12-05-2004, 06:11 PM
Wars And Their Aftermath
Well said...being a vet, gives a perspective others just dont understand. Theres a reason most of us are so bitter towards our administration...they had better things to do, when the call came, but I had to go. Now those very same people, who had better things to do, want to send my children.
War should be reserved for the final option, it shouldnt be rushed into . Ill bet those families, of the 1100 dead enlisted men (and counting), wish bush really was pro life.
I really like his editorial on patriotism. This is also on that web site.
Adolph, Heinz, And Poland
Why Johnny Fights
March 17, 2003
In my daily snowstorm of email I find furious appeals to patriotism, usually addressed to large lists of recipients. The writers invoke The Founding Fathers, urge fealty, and counsel solidarity with all the whoop and holler of a camp meeting. I'm puzzled. Why is patriotism thought to be a virtue? It seems to me a scourge.
Judging by my mail, patriotism has little to do with a fondness for one's country. Yes, many Americans like America. They reflect affectionately on Arizona's painted deserts and the wooded hollows of Tennessee, on the music of Appalachia and New Orleans, the rude vigor and brashness of a remarkable people, the rich accents of Brooklyn and Mississippi, all the things that give a sense of home and attachment in a large world. But they do not want blood. They speak quietly. Apparently they are not patriots. They do not use the word.
The email patriots are different. They growl and threaten, and seem less to appreciate their country than to hate others. They remind me of nothing so much as bar-room drunks looking for a fight. Their letters seethe with bitterness and begin with denunciations of liberals and the communist media (by which they mean any that fail to agree with them). They don't eat French fries. They hate. They would make, and in fact did make, excellent *****.
The difference between patriotism and love of country seems to be the difference between an inward-looking fondness and an outward-looking hostility. The email patriots regard any disagreement as treachery and softness. To doubt the wisdom or necessity of a war, any war, is treason; any inclination to think for oneself is evidence of being in the enemy's camp.
This is everywhere the rule. There were Japanese who thought that attacking the United States was not a conspicuously bright idea. They were squelched by patriots. GIs loved duty in Tokyo.
Malignant patriotism explains the attack, by a large heavily armed industrial power, against a weak and bedraggled nation so helpless as to be conquered in weeks. I refer of course to the **** assault on Poland. The Wehrmacht, like the Imperial Japanese Army, was awash in patriotism. It is in large part why they fought so well. No emotion is more usefully manipulable by governments with misbehavior in mind.
The connections among patriotism, military service, Christianity, and morality are tangled and fascinating. The first two appear to me to be incompatible with the second two. Consider Heinz, a German youth joining his armed forces in, say, 1937. Enlisting was then, as now, a patriotic thing to do. Heinz was probably a decent sort. Most people are. He probably had little interest in Poland, a minor creation which posed no threat to Germany. He liked beer and girls.
Then, come September of 1939, he found himself butchering Poles. The war had nothing to do with defense. The German attack was savage, unprovoked, and murderous. And why was Heinz killing people he didn't know? Because his government told him it was his patriotic duty. Which is to say that being in the Wehrmacht meant forfeiting moral independence to a dark squatty effeminate Aryan blond superman. Oh good.
It is curious. If Heinz had decided to kill Poles as a free-lance, he would have been called a mass-murderer, hanged, and had a movie made about him. If as a soldier he had decided not to kill Poles, having no reason to kill them, he might have been shot as a mutineer. But when he killed them unreflectingly because he had been told to, he became a minor national hero and and, if extraordinarily effective in the killing, received a medal.
Fortunately for Adolph, refusals on moral grounds to kill the enemy, any enemy, are rare. In human affairs, morality is more than window-dressing, but not much more. Lust, hormones, and the pack instinct take easy precedence. Thus armies seldom say en masse, "No. We think it the wrong thing to do."
When the war goes badly, patriotism becomes compulsory. Heinz, driving toward Stalingrad, did not have the choice of changing his mind. Deserters tend to be shot. Enormous moral suasion serves to quell reluctance to die. Going against the herd is unpleasant. Governments understand this well.
Patriotism often needs propping, and gets it. Conscription serves to make fight those who otherwise wouldn't. (The ancient Persians used whips to force unwilling soldiers to go forward. Firing squads work as well, and do not tire the arm.) Societies punish draft-dodgers, except in the case of Republican presidents, and revile conscientious objectors as cowards, traitors, and homosexuals. Deserters particularly suffer heavy punishment, because if soldiers in a long nasty war could escape without penalty, most would.
Heinz, being German, was probably a Christian. Soldiers often believe themselves to be Christians. There is remarkably little in the New Testament to encourage aggressive slaughter, yet Christian countries have regularly attacked everybody within reach. (So of course have most other countries.)
Heinz cannot serve two masters. Either he puts the authority of religion above that of government, or he kills anyone he is told to kill. As a rule he compartmentalizes, accepts official justifications, and obeys.
Why does a coalition of Christian nations send troops at great expense to the Middle East to attack a Moslem nation offering no threat? I refer of course to the Crusades. The answer is simple: Humankind has a profound instinct to form warring groups. Crips and Bloods, Redskins and Cowboys, Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservatives. Because a thin veneer of reason floats like pond scum on our instincts, we invent tolerable rationalizations: We must take the Holy Lands from the infidels. God says so.
In Chicago, young males form nations, which they call by such names as the Vice Lords, the P Stones, the Black Gangster Disciples. They have ministers, pomp and circumstance, hierarchy, and intense loyalty to the gang. They wear uniforms of sorts-hats with bills pointed to the left or right, chosen colors-and they fight for turf, which is empire measured in blocks. The gangs of Chicago are international relations writ small.
Patriotism is most dangerous when mixed with religion. Both give high purpose to low behavior. Worst are the fundamentalists, the Ayatollahs and born-agains, the various Christian Wahabis and Islamic Cromwells. A fundamentalist believes that any idea wandering into his mind comes from On High. Actually he is making it up. He confuses himself with God, which is not a good thing when he is a bit loony to begin with. Fundamentalists usually are.
Usually wrong, but unfamiliar with doubt. I can't think of a better ground for policy.
War should be reserved for the final option, it shouldnt be rushed into . Ill bet those families, of the 1100 dead enlisted men (and counting), wish bush really was pro life.
I really like his editorial on patriotism. This is also on that web site.
Adolph, Heinz, And Poland
Why Johnny Fights
March 17, 2003
In my daily snowstorm of email I find furious appeals to patriotism, usually addressed to large lists of recipients. The writers invoke The Founding Fathers, urge fealty, and counsel solidarity with all the whoop and holler of a camp meeting. I'm puzzled. Why is patriotism thought to be a virtue? It seems to me a scourge.
Judging by my mail, patriotism has little to do with a fondness for one's country. Yes, many Americans like America. They reflect affectionately on Arizona's painted deserts and the wooded hollows of Tennessee, on the music of Appalachia and New Orleans, the rude vigor and brashness of a remarkable people, the rich accents of Brooklyn and Mississippi, all the things that give a sense of home and attachment in a large world. But they do not want blood. They speak quietly. Apparently they are not patriots. They do not use the word.
The email patriots are different. They growl and threaten, and seem less to appreciate their country than to hate others. They remind me of nothing so much as bar-room drunks looking for a fight. Their letters seethe with bitterness and begin with denunciations of liberals and the communist media (by which they mean any that fail to agree with them). They don't eat French fries. They hate. They would make, and in fact did make, excellent *****.
The difference between patriotism and love of country seems to be the difference between an inward-looking fondness and an outward-looking hostility. The email patriots regard any disagreement as treachery and softness. To doubt the wisdom or necessity of a war, any war, is treason; any inclination to think for oneself is evidence of being in the enemy's camp.
This is everywhere the rule. There were Japanese who thought that attacking the United States was not a conspicuously bright idea. They were squelched by patriots. GIs loved duty in Tokyo.
Malignant patriotism explains the attack, by a large heavily armed industrial power, against a weak and bedraggled nation so helpless as to be conquered in weeks. I refer of course to the **** assault on Poland. The Wehrmacht, like the Imperial Japanese Army, was awash in patriotism. It is in large part why they fought so well. No emotion is more usefully manipulable by governments with misbehavior in mind.
The connections among patriotism, military service, Christianity, and morality are tangled and fascinating. The first two appear to me to be incompatible with the second two. Consider Heinz, a German youth joining his armed forces in, say, 1937. Enlisting was then, as now, a patriotic thing to do. Heinz was probably a decent sort. Most people are. He probably had little interest in Poland, a minor creation which posed no threat to Germany. He liked beer and girls.
Then, come September of 1939, he found himself butchering Poles. The war had nothing to do with defense. The German attack was savage, unprovoked, and murderous. And why was Heinz killing people he didn't know? Because his government told him it was his patriotic duty. Which is to say that being in the Wehrmacht meant forfeiting moral independence to a dark squatty effeminate Aryan blond superman. Oh good.
It is curious. If Heinz had decided to kill Poles as a free-lance, he would have been called a mass-murderer, hanged, and had a movie made about him. If as a soldier he had decided not to kill Poles, having no reason to kill them, he might have been shot as a mutineer. But when he killed them unreflectingly because he had been told to, he became a minor national hero and and, if extraordinarily effective in the killing, received a medal.
Fortunately for Adolph, refusals on moral grounds to kill the enemy, any enemy, are rare. In human affairs, morality is more than window-dressing, but not much more. Lust, hormones, and the pack instinct take easy precedence. Thus armies seldom say en masse, "No. We think it the wrong thing to do."
When the war goes badly, patriotism becomes compulsory. Heinz, driving toward Stalingrad, did not have the choice of changing his mind. Deserters tend to be shot. Enormous moral suasion serves to quell reluctance to die. Going against the herd is unpleasant. Governments understand this well.
Patriotism often needs propping, and gets it. Conscription serves to make fight those who otherwise wouldn't. (The ancient Persians used whips to force unwilling soldiers to go forward. Firing squads work as well, and do not tire the arm.) Societies punish draft-dodgers, except in the case of Republican presidents, and revile conscientious objectors as cowards, traitors, and homosexuals. Deserters particularly suffer heavy punishment, because if soldiers in a long nasty war could escape without penalty, most would.
Heinz, being German, was probably a Christian. Soldiers often believe themselves to be Christians. There is remarkably little in the New Testament to encourage aggressive slaughter, yet Christian countries have regularly attacked everybody within reach. (So of course have most other countries.)
Heinz cannot serve two masters. Either he puts the authority of religion above that of government, or he kills anyone he is told to kill. As a rule he compartmentalizes, accepts official justifications, and obeys.
Why does a coalition of Christian nations send troops at great expense to the Middle East to attack a Moslem nation offering no threat? I refer of course to the Crusades. The answer is simple: Humankind has a profound instinct to form warring groups. Crips and Bloods, Redskins and Cowboys, Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservatives. Because a thin veneer of reason floats like pond scum on our instincts, we invent tolerable rationalizations: We must take the Holy Lands from the infidels. God says so.
In Chicago, young males form nations, which they call by such names as the Vice Lords, the P Stones, the Black Gangster Disciples. They have ministers, pomp and circumstance, hierarchy, and intense loyalty to the gang. They wear uniforms of sorts-hats with bills pointed to the left or right, chosen colors-and they fight for turf, which is empire measured in blocks. The gangs of Chicago are international relations writ small.
Patriotism is most dangerous when mixed with religion. Both give high purpose to low behavior. Worst are the fundamentalists, the Ayatollahs and born-agains, the various Christian Wahabis and Islamic Cromwells. A fundamentalist believes that any idea wandering into his mind comes from On High. Actually he is making it up. He confuses himself with God, which is not a good thing when he is a bit loony to begin with. Fundamentalists usually are.
Usually wrong, but unfamiliar with doubt. I can't think of a better ground for policy.
#3
12-05-2004, 06:34 PM
T Rex Rider
What irritates me is!
Those 6-packs work pretty good.
What irritates me is!
Those 6-packs work pretty good.
Wars And Their Aftermath
BSB64, you know I love ya man, but every soldier I've talked to is dang proud of what they feel they are accomplishing over there. There will never be a 100% consensus on any war and it's always debatable whether the ends justify the means. Personally, I think we should take time to pray for the safety and well being of our troops. And pray that they are successful. If we pull out now, the injuries and deaths we have already sustained were for nothing. On the other hand, if we can rid the world of some hate breeding cults and replace it with political freedom, then maybe we can find a silver lining on that dark cloud.
Working in a somewhat political world myself, I've see how the media can twist the truth. I've seen how the general public thinks they run things better when they don't have the pertinent information. I've learned to trust our leaders. I've learned while I may not always agree with their decisions, we're on the same team. And are generally striving for the same goals. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
ps - don't forget about Samson's Room! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]
Working in a somewhat political world myself, I've see how the media can twist the truth. I've seen how the general public thinks they run things better when they don't have the pertinent information. I've learned to trust our leaders. I've learned while I may not always agree with their decisions, we're on the same team. And are generally striving for the same goals. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
ps - don't forget about Samson's Room! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]
#5
12-05-2004, 06:46 PM
#6
12-05-2004, 06:51 PM
T Rex Rider
What irritates me is!
Those 6-packs work pretty good.
What irritates me is!
Those 6-packs work pretty good.
Wars And Their Aftermath
Originally posted by: bsb64
<<< but every soldier I've talked to is dang proud of what they feel they are accomplishing over there. >>>
The point the writer is making is go ask those who lost limbs and eyesight, how they feel in 5 years.
<<< but every soldier I've talked to is dang proud of what they feel they are accomplishing over there. >>>
The point the writer is making is go ask those who lost limbs and eyesight, how they feel in 5 years.
Yeah, but if Hugh Hefner invited me to his mansion for the weekend and I lost a limb, I'd prolly wanna kick his butt later! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]
#7
12-06-2004, 10:24 PM
Wars And Their Aftermath
Originally posted by: bsb64
<<< but every soldier I've talked to is dang proud of what they feel they are accomplishing over there. >>>
The point the writer is making is go ask those who lost limbs and eyesight, how they feel in 5 years.
<<< but every soldier I've talked to is dang proud of what they feel they are accomplishing over there. >>>
The point the writer is making is go ask those who lost limbs and eyesight, how they feel in 5 years.
They would feel the same....if they were treated with respect and recieved a few thank you's along the way from those that didn't or couldn't serve. They get that bitter hatred for being unappreciated and even feel their lives were wasted for no reason....not by the government...by the people. Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armistice Day, lots of folks go to a parade (maybe an average of 1-3% of the population). How many stand up as the US flag passes? How many go to Veterans cemetaries to help clean up the headstones etc..... When was the last time you went to a veterans home (hospital type) to visit with the guys and tell them you appreciate them? Some of the WWII soldiers have no family left...they outlived them all. They are lonely.
These are the "throw away people" you talk about...yet what have any of you done for them (other than your relatives), for the poeple who served so you can have the "freedom" to pound the keyboard with your opinions?
I retired a "whole person" physically, and was just a little young for the Nam war. So...how do you think I felt in November of 1975 having just graduated from boot camp and flying home at the age of 17 so proud in my Dress Uniform to be called a "baby killer" and spit on in airports in California. The bleeding heart liberal anti-war crowd is just as responsible as any government war-hawk or war monger for the feelings of a lot of veterans.
Trending Topics
#8
12-06-2004, 11:15 PM
Wars And Their Aftermath
<<<They would feel the same....if they were treated with respect and recieved a few thank you's along the way from those that didn't or couldn't serve. They get that bitter hatred for being unappreciated and even feel their lives were wasted for no reason....not by the government...by the people.>>>
Thats the whole point of the article. Right now 51% of the country is rooting for war like it's a doggone pep rally. But those same people will be too busy to show up at a Veteran's Day parade 5 yrs. from now........Talk about being used...
BTW, the writer served in the USMC in Viet Nam...
Thats the whole point of the article. Right now 51% of the country is rooting for war like it's a doggone pep rally. But those same people will be too busy to show up at a Veteran's Day parade 5 yrs. from now........Talk about being used...
BTW, the writer served in the USMC in Viet Nam...
#9
12-06-2004, 11:46 PM
Red Rider
Honda, accept nothing less!
Honda, accept nothing less!
Wars And Their Aftermath
Unlike Vietnam, not a single soldier over there in Iraq was drafted! Everybody who signs up, knows that they might have to be in combat someday.
I was draft eligible during Vietnam, but my number never came up. During Vietnam, I was neither for not against the war. I just didn't have enough information to decide. In hindsight, WE WON THE COLD WAR, and Vietnam was a big reason. Vietnam was never a war for nothing. It showed the Russian communists (evil bastards who murdered most of my family by the way!), that we would pay any price to defeat them. It saved us fighting that same war in Europe, where it would no doubt have gone nuclear. God bless all you vets!
I was draft eligible during Vietnam, but my number never came up. During Vietnam, I was neither for not against the war. I just didn't have enough information to decide. In hindsight, WE WON THE COLD WAR, and Vietnam was a big reason. Vietnam was never a war for nothing. It showed the Russian communists (evil bastards who murdered most of my family by the way!), that we would pay any price to defeat them. It saved us fighting that same war in Europe, where it would no doubt have gone nuclear. God bless all you vets!
#10
12-07-2004, 01:06 AM
Wars And Their Aftermath
I think this post is interesting, Everyone has all good and valid opinions/facts. I just wanted to give mine on a little bit 'smaller' scale. I was sent to Kosovo several years back. It was my choice to join. I knew there were always possibilty's that Conflict could happen, and so did most of the soilders. Regardless of what happens in Washington and what we think about it. We have a Job to do. A job that is not easy under certain conditions. A job that requires everyone to work together and most importantly trust eachother. I have been in some hairy situations. I have had people i know not come home w/ me. Regardless of what happend while overseas. I am a better person and see the world (in many ways) in a better and different way. Bottom line is I know my duties overseas were met to standard and goals were accomplished and made a difference in this world. I believe most soliders that are protecting this country have some of the same beliefs, regardless of what Washington or the Media may make of the situation. All i can hope for is that in the future, I will be still believe..... That I did make a difference.