Posted on 07/22/2007 5:07:27 PM PDT by RDTF
Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in our military. In a time of war, what should that mean to the rest of us?
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Most Americans seem to take their luck for granted. Even September 11, 2001, didn't motivate a surge of young people to enlist the way Tuyishimire's bitter experience in Rwanda motivated him.
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World War II headlines celebrated accomplished military killers and called them heroes. Second Lt. Audie Murphy mowed down dozens of attacking German soldiers, won the Medal of Honor and went on to become a movie star. Today, U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who win medals for successfully doing their jobs while obeying the laws of war might get local coverage. But the brightest national spotlight is reserved for killers who are war criminals, such as the alleged perpetrators of the Haditha massacre, or heroes who are victims, such as prisoners of war. American civilians no longer seem comfortable labeling a soldier as both a killer and a hero.
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When Frank Schaeffer's son John enlisted, Schaeffer himself wasn't sure it was such a great idea. The other parents at John's exclusive prep school reacted with horror. Schaeffer recalls: "One of them, a professor at Brown, went to the headmaster and demanded a special meeting of the board and faculty to look into what went wrong with John Schaeffer. They were worried: Is this contagious?" At graduation, another parent commented about John, "What a waste."
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DURING WORLD WAR II, all four of FDR's sons joined the military.
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Today, only a very few of our top leaders have a family member in harm's way.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What we are perhaps seeing is a great nation entering its final stage where its citizens can’t find anything of value in it to defend. Time will tell the tale.
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MEL’s -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-
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“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
-John Stuart Mill
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
—Samuel Adams
bookmarked.
The U.S. is as deeply divided as the conventional wisdom says. In the Midwest and South, young people are joining the military, and are respected for it. Look at all the soldiers who pray daily together. Chaplains in Iraq are baptizing soldiers by the dozen. These young people are from a different country than the one country that occupies the two coasts.
The government schools in the Midwest and South are doing their best to continue infantilizing both parents and children. It’s incredible to see with what tenacity people cling to this “American” system of socialized/communized “education.” It’s the greatest agent of infantilization in the world today. Yet, somehow, the middle of the country is managing to keep producing the amazing young people we see in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Well said,
Thanks
This could be me talking - "I had changed," he says, "but everyone else hadn't. I felt like I should be back with my boot camp buddies. We went through a lot together, and here I am sitting with these people who don't understand. The things they were into -- watching movies, going bowling -- it was fun for 10 minutes, but then I had to wait two hours till I could leave. It seemed like a waste of time."
I felt the same way in 1969. I took a look at my high school buddies and wondered "Have I been brainwashed?" But it wasn't brainwashing at all, it was simply the knowledge that what I was doing was about something and that they were still looking for it. Some of them still are. Some are dead and never found it.
This I find particularly inspiring -
He's hoping for infantry, but he's not sure he'll get it -- an infantry assignment is one of the most coveted. According to statistics, it's particularly coveted by young white men such as Day. "If you choose to do this," Day explains, "you want to do it all the way, hard core -- infantry. It's what you signed up for." With not enough infantry slots to go around, he could wind up in something like artillery or logistics.
Let that sink in for a minute. Not enough infantry slots to go around. Why on earth would the most dangerous, dirty, unforgiving, and violent jobs be the most coveted? If you have to ask the question you wouldn't understand the answer.
I really don’t think that this is the case. It is true that we have plenty of citizens that are anti-American; and we have plenty of citizens that are too self centered to ever risk their precious lives for anyone else, let alone an ideal. But, that has always been the case.
I think that Americans seem not to be supportive of this particular conflict — as they came not to support us in Vietnam — primarily because we’re not fighting with everything we have to win in the most efficient manner possible. We’re fighting a PC war that takes more time and more U.S. lives than necessary and they have their collective craws full of this nonsense.
This is false.
The article confuses civilians with the Washington Post's staff.
I still think we’ll fight when the stakes are high enough.
I think that our refusal to fight now will cost us dearly later but so be it.
Time will tell.
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This 21st Century of ours,
this new LIBERTY Century,
is really all about...
LIBERTY & JUSTICE for all...
or it will be LIBERTY & JUSTICE for NONE.
And our enemies know it...
far better than we.
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Because men still want to feel like they are men, not wussies. Why in the world would anyone go into special forces, infantry, or any comabat arm if one puts a “cost/benefit analysis” to it? Some men want to find out what they’re made of.
Because he is a real man.
The men in Iraq today will be the leaders of tomorrow. They have earned it, they deserve it, and their peers will recognize it.
The attitude against military service indicated the upper class doesn’t understand what is important any more. They expect others to assume responsibilities that they are incapable of assuming.
Of course the article uses Marines as an example of civilian disconnect.
As an Army guy, I always thought the Marine attitude was kinda over the top. I had no need for the rah-rah, pat yourself on the back stuff that Marines seem to revel in.
However, there is nothing cooler than firing a tank main gun. OK, maybe lighting up the area with an M-2 comes close. :-)
WHAT????
Oh, yeah. The ruling class that is typified in the article as being Ivy League very definitely includes the vast majority of the media. They are projecting their own distrust and ignorance of the military on the general population. They aren’t veterans, they don’t understand the military, and not only do they think that the rest of the country doesn’t, they don’t want us to. Pathetic.
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