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scaredyclassic
Participantbowe bergdahl email…a traitor. I assume we are not thanking him for his service. deserting his post…look at the bs he was spouting…
“I am sorry for everything here,” Bowe told his parents. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.” He then referred to what his parents believe may have been a formative, possibly traumatic event: seeing an Afghan child run over by an MRAP [mine-resistant ambush protection vehicle]. “We don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks. . . . We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them.”
Bowe concluded his e-mail with what, in another context, might read as a suicide note. “I am sorry for everything,” he wrote. “The horror that is america is disgusting.”ParticipantOn Veteran’s Day, do this vet a favor: Don’t thank me for my service
09
Saturday
Nov 2013
Posted by The Curmudgeon in Military ≈ Leave a comment
I served just under six years in the US Army, from October of 1985 to August of 1991. I did so voluntarily. I was paid for my efforts. The Army helped pay my college tuition. Like pretty much everyone else I knew who served, I had no altruistic view in mind when deciding to enter the service. Please don’t thank me.I had a variety of objectives in mind when I decided to serve. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to do something besides sit behind a desk. I wanted to get the hell out of Alabama. That alone would have been enough incentive for me to join, but I was also offered the opportunity to fly helicopters. The decision was a no-brainer.
I knew the risks of what I was getting into. I knew how much (or how little) I would be paid for assuming them. But I did it anyway, because from my perspective at the time, the benefits outweighed the costs. It had nothing at all to do with the notion that I was performing some great service for my country.
In 1985, there was no surge of gratitude directed at veterans such as is common today. Serving in the military did not instantly bestow glory and honor upon a soul just for their having enlisted. The country still hadn’t gotten over its disgrace at what it had asked its service members to do in Vietnam. And it had drafted those guys. If you want to thank a vet for his service, find one who served in Vietnam or Korea. They didn’t volunteer to fight those wars, to kill and die for no apparent reason except the country told them to. They deserve every bit of our guilt assuaging gratitude.
When someone who hasn’t served thanks a vet for their service, what they’re really trying to do is assuage their own guilt at not having served. I get thanked more from guys than women. Maybe the guys think they’re less manly somehow for not having volunteered to do the military’s bidding. Hogwash. There is no particular manliness required of doing most jobs in the military these days. And anyone is as courageous as they have to be. Ask the regular Joes who we celebrate for heroism whether they think they’re anything except ordinary guys thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
When I got back from the first Gulf War, it was clear to me that things had changed. I was cheered in airports, just because I had a uniform on. I thought it all absurd. I was just doing the job I had signed up to do. I got out after that war because I knew, with the Cold War over, it represented the first of many unnecessary adventures the military would likely be asked to perform in the coming years. I reevaluated things and realized that I was adamantly opposed to the idea of killing people who were no threat to me or the US, so I got out.
But I don’t need to be thanked for any of it. It was not an act of altruism that I served. When you thank me to assuage your own fuzzy, amorphous guilt, it just transfers your guilt to me, because I already got thanked for my service through all the benefits, material but mostly otherwise, service bestowed on me. Don’t make me carry the burden of your guilt around. Don’t thank me for my service.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=scaredyclassic]
but why must we all be so grateful?[/quote]
Very good question.
I for one feel that the treatment of returning Vietnam veterans by a disgusted nation was pretty appropriate on the whole.[/quote]
as the curmudgeon says, we should not be thanking such veterans for their service…we shoudl be apologizing to them…
i am thinking we should be apologizing to all veterans of Iraq as well. I am willing to sincerely do that. I am truly sorry you were sent to kill and die for no good reason at all… I did not do much to stop it except perhaps some antiwar bumper stickers right when we were invading iraq. thats’ nothing i know…
Participant…
ParticipantWhy I don’t thank military members for their service, and you needn’t do so either
Why I don’t thank military members for their service, and you needn’t do so either
04
Thursday
Aug 2011
Posted by The Curmudgeon in History, International Relations, Personal, Politics ≈ 1 Comment
Elizabeth Samset, a professor of English at the US Military Academy (i.e., commonly, “West Point”) explained in a Bloomberg column how her colleagues and students were always being thanked for their service when she would accompany them off-post in public places:One former captain I know proposed that “thank you for your service” has become “an obligatory salutation.” Dutifully offered by strangers, “somewhere between an afterthought and heartfelt appreciation,” it is gratifying but also embarrassing to a soldier with a strong sense of modesty and professionalism. “People thank me for my service,” another officer noted, “but they don’t really know what I’ve done.”
I’ve even had it happen to me, though not while I actually served. This idea of thanking service members didn’t gain purchase until the Cold War concluded and people began to realize (if perhaps only subconsciously) that every subsequent engagement in which troops were asked to serve had little to do with defending the freedoms provided by our Constitution and more to do with defending the unwritten imperative that every American soccer mom has the right to a McMansion and a gas-guzzling SUV, and every investment banker a multi-million dollar annual bonus.Interestingly, on all the occasions I can remember having been thanked, it was Asian-Americans that did so, after learning some way or another that I had served in the military. One time, it was in church on (or close by) Veterans Day. The pastor had asked all the veterans to stand and be recognized, and I stood for the brief smattering of golf-clap applause. After the worship service concluded, an elderly Korean man (I know he was Korean because he had a Korean-English Bible in his hand) sitting in the pew behind me offered his hand and “thanked me for my service”. Another time, it was a French-Vietnamese woman at the Red Cross that showed her appreciation that I had served. (I discovered her heritage through further conversation after the initial, awkward “thanks” she offered). I thought to myself that she should be thanking me for donating blood, not for my service in the military. While both donating blood and serving in the military are voluntarily undertaken, there is no financial compensation received for the act of donating blood, though I had good reasons for donating blood that made the lack of financial compensation irrelevant.
Every time someone offers their appreciation for my time served, I want to explain that my service was not selfless—I was getting paid to “support and defend the Constitution” as I had pledged an oath that I would, and would never have voluntarily served otherwise. Besides, what I did was in no way heroic or remarkable; I just did my job. Each time somebody thanks me, I want to say that you’ve already thanked me for my service by paying the taxes that paid my salary, which is as true of my service as it is of the volunteers serving today. There is no reason to thank someone for doing that which they volunteered to do, and for which they are paid. Do you thank the grocery boy bagging your groceries for his “service” in protecting your groceries from spillage?
When I first volunteered for the military in the early eighties (I did Army basic training in 1983 as a reservist), the purpose of the organization was clear—to protect and defend the country from annihilation by Soviet nuclear or conventional forces. As a practical matter, this involved fighting skirmishes on the boundaries of the two superpowers’ global influence. For example, during about nine months of my six years on active-duty, I flew missions in and around Central America in support of the American presence in Honduras and El Salvador. We were there to counterbalance the Soviet influence in Nicaragua and among rebel groups elsewhere in the region. We indirectly (and at times, directly) helped the Salvadorans beat back the Soviet-backed insurgent group, the FMLN (which ironically now run the country). I’m sure the Salvadoran regime we supported killed a good many people, and I’m sure our actions helped them along in doing so (particularly as we flew missions in direct support of US Special Forces attached as advisers to the Salvadoran military). It was not a pleasant thing to consider that people were dying, if indirectly, by my actions, but it posed no harsh ethical dilemma for me, because the Soviets, who we were fighting by proxy, had the ability to destroy us, and a nation or state, just like an individual, has the right to kill in defense of its continued existence.
When the Cold War–the sole existential conflict the US has faced since the War of 1812–ended, I promptly asked to get out of the military. By that time, I had served four years of a six-year obligation (due to flight school), but could not see where they needed my services anymore. The Army felt otherwise, and refused to allow me (and legions of cohorts like me) to leave.
In the meantime, the politicians dutifully found something for us to do, deciding that we should go kill and destroy the citizens and military of a country (Iraq) that posed no possible threat to the Constitution or the continued existence of America. I reluctantly did as I was told, though in retrospect, I should have claimed conscientious-objector status; my personal ethics did not provide for killing people who weren’t trying to kill me or mine, and who presented no existential threat to the Constitution I was sworn to defend. Once the war was over, I promptly asked again to be let out, and this time, they agreed. Because I had served two years as a Reservist prior to my six years on active duty, I had “eight good ones” that allowed me to request a total discharge of any further obligation, which was granted. People with less than eight years of service are placed in the Individual Ready Reserve, subject to recall when the next bit of imperialistic militarism rolls around. More than a few soldiers I ran into in Iraq had been activated from the Individual Ready Reserve. At the time I got out, which was a few months after returning from the first Iraq war, I told my wife that I knew this wasn’t the end of American involvement. Leaving the service was the proper thing for me to do. I knew that Iraq was only the beginning of a new, post-Cold War age of militant imperialism, and I could not in good conscience collect a paycheck from an organization whose mission I no longer supported.
Without an existential threat against which to provide protection, the Department of Defense quickly transmogrified into the Department of Military Support for Capitalist Imperialism and American World Hegemony. It devolved to the status it had held during the early part of the twentieth century, doing the wet work for American capitalists in their relentless pursuit of expansion. I wished to have nothing to do with it. You can thank me for that.
It makes me a bit queasy to imagine that every soldier, sailor, airman and marine that volunteers today understands, or should, that they will be engaged in killing, either directly or indirectly, people who pose no existential threat to the constitution they have sworn to protect and defend. When I entered active service in 1985, it was beyond the scope of my imagination that my service would conclude with a war in the Middle East against a penny-ante dictator with whom we had once been allied, and for the purpose of protecting the unfettered flow of oil and money, just to keep soccer moms and investment bankers happy. I checked the Constitution. There’s nothing in it about defending international commerce such that foreign oil and money flow freely and cheaply to our shores.
Every service member today should know full well that he will be asked to do exactly what I found so repugnant, yet still, they volunteer. Do they actually believe the drivel dripping from the mouths of politicians, that they are protecting “freedom”? Nobody’s freedom is at stake when a Predator drone covertly assassinates a foreign national whose only crime is fitting a terrorist profile, except perhaps the freedom of the putative terrorist and whomever is unfortunate enough to be close by him when the missile strikes. I suppose I could forgive them their innocence at wishing to believe their service protects American freedom, but it’s long been clear that the intentionally-amorphous War on Terror is about something else than the individual freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. The only freedom today’s service members are protecting is the freedom of American capitalists (mostly investment bankers) to ply the globe looking for cheap labor, leaving American workers to collect unemployment checks. Does that sort of service deserve any thanks? Particularly when one has volunteered to do it and receives a paycheck for the trouble?
Even 9-11 was not a threat to our freedom, and certainly not to the Constitution, except in the manner with which the response to the attack so weakened the social compact until its tenets protecting freedom are now nearly unrecognizable for a certain segment of those to whom it purports to apply. (And 9-11 was at least indirectly the result of the first Iraq war, if the motivations claimed by its instigators are to be believed). The US could suffer a 9-11 attack each year until eternity and its Constitution would not be necessarily threatened by anyone other than itself. 9-11 was tantamount to a flea biting a lion, and should have been mostly ignored, except to seek out and punish those directly responsible, just as murderers motivated by any reason, ideological or otherwise, are routinely punished.
If anyone deserves thanks for their service, it is the vets of the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, each of which had a purpose as confused as the leadership prosecuting them was feckless. In fact, instead of just thanking a service member that fought in those wars, we should also apologize to them. Those vets had no choice in the matter. They were conscripted into barbarism by a government and a country that understood very little about wielding power, military or otherwise. The Soviet Union was not powerful enough at the time of the Korean conflict to have posed an existential threat to America, so Korea can’t be justified on those grounds. Vietnam was a civil war, much like Cuba, in which we chose the wrong side. It’s always problematic to fight a proxy battle with an existential foe that involves choosing sides in a civil war, as the prosecution of the war in Vietnam bears witness. We owe the troops that fought in Vietnam and Korea, and their families, a huge apology.
Military service is no longer obligatory and hasn’t been, now for almost four decades. It has been clear since at least the first Iraq war that the purpose of the US military is no longer, if ever it really was, defending freedom or the Constitution that provides for it. Because no existential threat to the US exists, the US military now prosecutes wars of its political master’s choosing. Every potential service member should strive to fully understand the reality of the situation, and carefully weigh the merits of service before volunteering. Thanking them for doing what they volunteered and are paid to do, knowing full well what it entailed, is not necessary, and anyway does not absolve one of guilt for asking others to do things that one is not willing to do themselves. If someone really wants to thank them, they should petition to bring them home, and for America to curtail its imperial ambitions.
Participanti ran these arguments past my kids adn they say it’s crap. theya re on the wide of the soldiers, who they beleive are always honorable, regardless of whatt he mission is.
maybe it’s all the damned military advertising. what about some equal time antienlistment ads? why would any reasonable potential enlistee have any faith that the American People are going to wisely guide their leaders to only engage in just wars?
Participantthe fact that someone puts their life on the line, by itself, does not mean their purpose is noble. the risk has to be coupled with a noble purpose. mere riskiness does not make any particular act or service praiseworthy. the riskiness might just be dumb.
People put their lives on the line in all sorts of extreme sports ventures, and it would be dumb.
People put their lives on the line in military service, and it’s probably less risky than some extreme sports ventures, but the fact that there is risk , by itself, doesn’t mean we need to be thankful for the behavior. there may be other reasons to be thankful, but not simply because the activity is risky.
For instance, someone might put their life in danger to protect some material good of mine say, run in the street in oncoming traffic to fetch something expensive that fell off my car. that would be nice of the person. i would be thankful. they saved my valuable thing by putting themselef in harms way.
but I would also think that what they were doing was incredibly dumb and foolish and, more important, pointless…
is it “juvenile” not to be grateful to that dude who ran in the street to protect my stuff?
no.
the risk to him of life and limb is “irrelevant” to whetehr or not I am truly grateful for hsi service.now the military arguably servces a greater purpose than running into traffic to save my stuff. but it may be about the same thing. putting one’s life on the line to protect our access to resources. if it is the same thing, then…well… why are we prasing people for thei service.
people may still very well want to serve int he military. it may be a great career path. some may really get off on the idea of guns and firepower, and a smaller minority will relish the idea of getting out and killing people. others will enjoy the discipline and camaraderie.
but why must we all be so grateful?
Participanti guess im thankful that someone is willing to die to protect our material advantage in the world. but it just seems so morally wrong. it seems wrong that the gov. takes advantage of young people’s earnestness. it seems not uncommon for more experiecned vets to be so jaded and disappointed int heir mission.
when we say “thank you for your service”, what do we really mean?
are we saying thank you for your willingness to kill, for no reason whatsoever, simply because youa re ordered to, in defense of any goal whatsoever, and to unleash hellfire on any country’s citizens on our behalf, even if it is just to provide better access to resources and assure our global dominance? thanks.
and perhaps this is why some are so intolerant of PTSD…it feels wrong for a soldier who signs up ready and willing, perhaps even eager to kill, to complain about traumatization by it. when they come back wacked out of their minds, there is some sympathy, a bit, for a while, until they are just too irritating and drugseeking and wacko, and then we have to put them in prison…
Participantwhen you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
when you have the biggest badass military force the world has ever seen, everything looks like a target.
Participantguns dont kill people, people kill people.
military personnel don’t act immorally, only the commander in chief acts immorally.
on the other hand, moral actors don’t sign up to put themselves in immoral positions….
Participant[quote=ucodegen][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=scaredyclassic]
seems liek today there is a heavy contingent of people who want to be heavikly armed personally to ward off an oppressive evil govt.
yet i tend to think that of that group, many are proUS military…
[/quote]
I think that you very accurately put it right there.
It’s within that group that you see parents encouraging their children, just out of high school, to enlist in the military.
It’s a question of culture and education. I doubt any on this board would allow their kids to enlist in the military.
Is there any data on the high schools/zip codes where enlisted military members come from?[/quote]
Complete demonstration of lack of core values – and focus on self serving.I am pro US military. They put their lives on the line. That does not mean that I am pro current commander in chief, nor previous commander in chief. Nor does that mean I approve of congress’s actions. The commander in chief as well as our congress are not putting their lives on the line when they order our military to some action. On the other hand, the members of our military have committed to put their lives on the line to do what has been requested of them, whether it costs them their lives or not. They put their lives and trust that ‘We the People’ are using our vote wisely and not just voting for a party of specific face because we ‘like how they look’ or say what we want to here.
If you don’t like what the military is doing, figure out why they have been ordered to do it (Current MSM is a really poor source. They are more interested in stories that sell and drum up emotion than informing – queue Dire Straits) as well as reflect on who you voted for and why. The military is really only doing what it has been instructed to.[/quote]
the military is just following orders, in other words, so everyone is off the hook?
i don’t buy it…
putting your life on the line is irrelevant.
if you volunteer for a corrupt private rorganization, even if it’s risky and you could die in the work, say an illegal whaling ship expedition, we don’t say, wow, taking risks, putting your life on the line, catching whales, making money……we say, why are you volunteering for a whaling experdition in vioaltion of international law? why are you involved in this mess. what in the hell was going through your mind when you volunteered for an obviously evil venture?
is there any point where we say, siniing up for tthe US military is like signing up for an illegal whaling expedition?
is there any point where a guy signing up for this is not signing up honorably to serve his country, but is signing up knowing we are doing bad crap?
is it ever OK for a regular citizen to say to say, NO, not in my name, no thank you, do not serve me, i do not want your service, in this way. I would prefer you NOT serve me whale meat, or back the military. youdo not have to follow these orders if you do not VOLUNTEER in the first place…
. I would prefer you not Volunteer to put your lfie on the line for a corrupt military industrial world whaling death expedition. iw ould prefer you fight for a better country here…
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=scaredyclassic]
seems liek today there is a heavy contingent of people who want to be heavikly armed personally to ward off an oppressive evil govt.
yet i tend to think that of that group, many are proUS military…
[/quote]
I think that you very accurately put it right there.
It’s within that group that you see parents encouraging their children, just out of high school, to enlist in the military.
It’s a question of culture and education. I doubt any on this board would allow their kids to enlist in the military.
Is there any data on the high schools/zip codes where enlisted military members come from?[/quote]
im pretty sure the military was lowering IQ standards when they were recruitng heavily for Iraq. now it’s probably as competitive as a good college. but on average probably a lot more lower IQ dudes are tring to take the test to get in than higher IQ. but that’s justa guess…ParticipantI would probably drink less if I could get high on the weekends. I’d grow my own to save on cost.
not gonna happen with children around. maybe in retirement after it’s all legal?
something to look forward to in life. inda like the old coot in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE?
rememebr that movie? it was hilarious
Participant[quote=SK in CV][quote=mike92104]
Thanks for the clearly unbiased source of information.[/quote]If you have any data that disputes anything presented, have at it. Otherwise, that’s a horrendously ignorant ad hominem argument.[/quote]
i thought it was lready pretty clearly established that on average, greater religiosity correlates with lower IQ.
obviously this doesn’t mean that only dumb people are religious, or all atheists are smart. Just that religious people tend to have lwoer IQs and atheists tend to have higher IQs. YMMV. if you’re dumb as a post and become an atheist, you don’t get smarter.
it can be open to what the causes are, but the set of really smart people does not overlap tremendously with the set of really religious people, I think. I could be wrong about this. but it didn’t think i t was really in dispute.
is church gonna get us back to the good old days?
Ha! fat frickin chance…i don’t think it’ll make people dumber. any more than it’ll make people better. or kinder. or less likely to shoot me. id think heavy analysis religions, with lots of analytic reading and arguemnt, like Judaism, can at least provide a good mental workout. might tend to encourage more mental activity than a more passive sit and watch relgiion.
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