Supporting our Troops, Boston Globe Style!

Supporting our troops By Steve Almond September 18, 2008 PERHAPS the most insidious byproduct of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a reflexive sanctification of the military. To put this in bumper stickerese: Support the Troops. Well, I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops - at least not unconditionally. When somebody tells me they serve in the military, my first impulse isn't to say, "Thank you for your service!" like those insufferable chickenhawks on talk radio. My first impulse is to say, "I'm sorry to hear that." Because I am. I'm sorry to know that the person I'm talking to might someday be maimed or killed on the job, or might someday kill someone else. Or refuel a plane that drops bombs on buildings. I can't see how anyone who calls himself or herself Christian - or human, for that matter - wouldn't be sorry. The fact that we have an army, that we need an army, is inherently tragic. It's an admission that our species is still ruled by fear and aggression.

I'm sorry that people like Steve Almond's parents did such a poor job of raising him and that he turned out to be such a narrow minded fool.

The fact that our society allows people like him to have acess to media resources is inherently tragic. It's an admission that our species is still producing fools without enough sense or courage to protect themselves and those who depend on them.

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either rods or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

-- Frederick Douglass

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

-- President Ronald Reagan

Golly, since this has already been posted, I must have already read it. I apologize for not posting that I have already read this.

You haven't?! Shame on you! I am going to report you to the duplicate post police.

I have read every single post ever posted here since 1997. Anyone who hasn't should be banned, tarred and feathered, and brought up on felony hate-crime charges!

And no parole for you filthy duplicate posters!

Mr. Almond, sir? As long as someone out there wants to make you his bitch you're gonna’ need “rough men” at the ready.

Why people like you think this is some failing on the part of the would-be bitch escapes me.

There are words to describe people such as yourself whose understanding of Human Nature and whose view of life on earth is so simplistic: “Simpletons” is one. “Dead” is another. “Bitch”, of course, is still another. “Tragic” is still another. But “Masturbatory thinkers” is one I like a lot....

Yes, it would be nice if we all agreed on everything — or would it? Because there are good guys and bad guys, we will find ourselves in conflict. Not to be in conflict is to accept anything, however bad it might be. Is that what you want? Do you actually think that you will be, not only spared, but honored for your shameful retreat from responsibility? The world is a tough place, mister, and if you can’t or won’t fight for your security and prosperity, you will be consumed by the forces around you. No doubt, you would like the world to be different, but it is not. And you will not and cannot change it, however many good people you are prepared to sacrifice to that end. Of course, it is almost too obvious to mention that you would never be prepared to sacrifice yourself or your family, would you? As long as it is others who pay the price for your misplaced idealism, everything is A-OK, right?

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