Friday Morning Funtime Rant
It was 4 AM and I was awake. I'd had one of my standard dreams, it woke me up, and I spent the next half hour thinking about it. And other stuff too.
Before I go any further, please cleanse yourself of any references to "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon", "The Deer Hunter", "China Beach", "MASH", "Sgt. Rock", "Nick Fury", and each and every one of his Howlin' Commandos.
First and foremost, I'm awfully young to have served during either the Korean or Vietnam Wars. At the outside, I could have been conscripted to go to Vietnam when I was 2, the year conscription ended, but my martial skills were not yet recognized at that tender age. Second and midmost, an awful lot of boomer-generated media communicates the message that combat vets, particularly Vietnam-era vets, are fucked up and psycopathic, which is dreck. Third and aftmost, I'm not a combat vet and do not pretend that my experiences whilst in the armed services in any way mirrors what soldiers experience in combat. I was in during the Gulf War but the 3ID never left Germany. At least, not as an entire division it didn't.
OK, on with the dream: This was standard dream A1, which over the last 2 years I have about 3-4 nights in 5. I used to get it before that, but not as often. In dream A1, I'm still in the Army, either having recently reenlisted or never having left. Typically in A-series dreams alot of folks I was close to then are still around. Usually we are in the same unit as we were then, and often hold the same rank, all of which is entirely inplausible. The dream, I think, is more about reconnecting than anything else, not having seen these men in so long and being happy to be in their company again. Usually when I wake up I'm sad they're not here.
Now, this morning's A1 dream got me up around 4. And I started thinking about how I felt during Gulf War 1. The pics of protestors in the paper ticked me off, but there was an uncertainty in the air that I wasn't comfortable with. It had nothing to do with whether we'd win the fight- believe me- it was how things were at home that could really get people off mission and into a funk. Funk like introspective and taciturn, not funk like supabad.
See, soldiers, including members of all service branches, want to know that what they do is valued by the people they are ostensibly serving. That the profound sacrifice they make is respected and understood by the wider population. And lemme tell you, when I came home on leave and saw how things were here, I'd give this country a B-. Tops.
It's not about yellow ribbons, although that's nice. I saw plenty of private displays like that, and am seeing them again since 9-11. Which I like. But what is absent are public representations, public displays of support and understanding that communicate what a broad section of the population feels, together, en masse, and not the onesies and twosies of "support our troops" bumper stickers. Displays like that were largely absent in 1990, and they're largely absent now.
But I'm not necessarily talking about billboards or advocating for continuous parades. I mean, particularly for the media, to treat this whole situation as a war, a bona-fide, thunderbolts from Zeus and sword of Ares war. Today, as then, it's just another story, no different on the page from the piece on welfare reform, grade inflation in the Ivy League, and the goddamn weather, bracketed by upswings in fighting. Of course increased violence is newsworthy, but why are ongoing operations within this conflict rarely reported, or relegated to to lesser sections of the paper if covered at all?
You know what would be nice to see? A paper treat soldiers with some goddamn respect, and not as fucking stories. Run some major articles on what they do, and who is doing them. You could do it without running afoul of OPSEC restrictions. And hey, it's even easier because the leads are already there: the command element runing the military side of things in Iraq puts out many press releases every single day discussing who's doing what and where. Why do I have to go to a Pentagon website, or freaky Free Republic, to read them, not the so-called "paper of record" or its minion agencies?
What a soldier in the field needs to know is that he or she is valued back on the block, CONUS, the Land of the Round Doorknob, the World, home. We can put up all the bumperstickers, yellow ribbons, and flags we want, but such singular gestures have little impact. The only way to communicate with them in great numbers is via journalistic media, but it shows no interest in the task. And that's a fucking shame.
But hey, the weekend weather looks promising...maybe I'll wash my truck and take in a movie. I think the movie listings are at the back of section D, just before that paragraph about Army Special Forces soldiers building schools in Afghanistan.
on
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Some random musings, GL:
Some random musings, GL:
A war was once a war. Peacetime conscription was multiplied manyfold. People at home got used to goods being rationed and they learned in general to do without if they could not make it themselves. There were war bond sales and scrap metal drives. Movie stars got drafted. Rosie rivetted. Folks victory gardened. Over there, war was waged by hand as humans were involved in all logistics. Thus all Americans were involved in some method and to some degree. War could not be ignored or forgotten.
War has changed. Beginning with Grenada (or thereabouts, I'm not up to ensuring my history is correct) and through Panama, Haiti, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Haiti again, Afghanistan again, to Iraq, war has become a quick exercise of power. Some definable objective gets achieved, the battle is declared won, and then all is immediately forgotten and the headlines cease. If you think I'm only blaming the major new media and short-attention-span-theater Americans, I'm not. Yes, the media and public are at fault, but the direction for this mindset comes from the top. War is presented as everything from a casual afterthought (lob some cruise missiles at some offending location some afternoon) to shooting fish in a barrel (Kuwait's "Highway of Death", smart bombs flying down the chimney, zero casualty bombing sorties from afar.) The media, the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, and the President all behave as if this is so and indeed encourage this outlook.
"Sacrifice" is mere lip service for the cameras. None of the people I have mentioned are truly affected. Removing the draft meant ordinary Americans (of which I'm one) could plan on not serving in the Armed Forces. Children of the wealthy and politically powerful rarely serve, indeed celebrities of all types rarely serve. Movie stars are only seen in uniform in motion pictures. War is financed through debt, the debt is held by treasury bonds, and this debt will be paid by our children in the future through of payroll taxes. There is no immediacy of named War Bonds anymore that clearly link the waging of war to the monetary cost. Americans are not being asked to conserve for the war effort. Gas prices may rise yet "trucks" still outsell "cars." The grocery stores are full. There are no war-induced shortages of any goods.
Unless an individual American has a family member, neighbor, or friend in uniform and in harm's way, it is unlikely said person is really thinking long and hard about soldiers. No powerful entity is asking them to. Heck, the president declared this war over hundreds of battle deaths ago. We still have troops in Afghanistan, they are still being shot at, and unless there are deaths, Afghanistan is already "forgotten." I haven't heard serious mention about the place by any politician in either party lately. War is fought on borrowed money by professional soldiers and is logistically supported by machinery run by private contractors. The American public is being asked for nothing. Couple all that with compassion fatique and busy lives and you get the situation we currently have.
GP,
GP,
I wish you were readily to hand this morning as I was trying to remember what I'd thought about at 4, and had seemed fucking brilliant at the time, and trying to actually put it down at 8. Because between my post and yours I think is a more precise message which I was grappling with all morning.
I think the message is: Mr President, I WANT to be involved. TELL me what to do! TELL me to conserve something, or collect something, or skip a goddamn meal. I don't need to hear it'll all be OK, and I don't need to hear that it's my patriotic duty to spend up all my money to energize the economy. I need to be led. LEAD me!
And I don't think that's some vestige of nostalgia for my younger, barracks-dwelling lifestyle. I think that's just in all of us, in all homo sapiens, or indeed in hierarchical societies in the animal kingdom. Whether it's people, wolf packs, orca pods, or beehives, we like it when someone's in charge.
GP - you are so right. Very
GP - you are so right. Very few Americans really get in touch with their friendly neighborhood armed forces employee. It's because the mainstream of America thinks that serving in the military is beneath them. For this reason, I think there should be mandatory military service like there is in S. Korea, Switzerland, Israel, etc. It gives snot-nosed middle-class kids a chance to really understand what the military is, and not just turn into a neo-con policy hack.
I know most folks think that this idea is crazy. I've posted it before, but I think mandatory military or alternative service is very important. GL is begging for leadership by our president, and honestly, I LOVED Clinton for instituting Americorps. VISTA gets so little press, but that's a worthwhile public service program too.
For all my anti-military stance, I freak and I panic when I see babies on television, for often that's what they are. I respect my friends from ROTC a lot for the choices they've made and the shitty things they've seen.
GL, I think I'll go buy some yellow ribbon today and put it on my car and front yard. Thanks for reminding us that it's still important to support our troops, even if we don't support our president.
GL, I'm sure you realize that
GL, I'm sure you realize that I sympathise. But the fact is, historically we have been involved in four wars in the sense you're talking about. The Revolution, the Civil War, and WW's I & II. And there are caveats for the first two of those. All of the many small wars we have fought have been fought with little or no media attention, or what attention was given was similar to what we see today, adjusted for the limitations of media technology at the time. The Marines in Nicaraugua, the Army in the Philippines, etc - they were not "supported" and in fact were often vilified in the press. Mark Twain was particularly bitter and hateful towards the soldiers in the Philippines.
I am not claiming that we are becoming an empire. But wars are now being fought by legions, who must fight and die not for the direct security of the homeland, but for national interest. While I believe that the war in Iraq was a good and righteous thing, I know that Iraq was not going to invade us. If we left them, and the other state supporters of terrorism alone, we might eventually lose a city, but at no time would we be threatened in the way we were by the commies or the nazis.
Until we are presented with that threat, and the people realize that threat, and we as a people mobilize to meet it; you won't see the kind of support you're talking about. Until then the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen will have to realize that they are serving in a largely thankless job that won't get much more than lip service from the government, indifference or active contempt from the media, and the occasional thanks from the people who do care.
(By the way, thank you.)
Geek Lethal, I think THAT
Geek Lethal, I think THAT was the big mistake the President made after 911. "Go shopping".
And thanks to you and any other of our military, (past, present, or future) who read this.