What a way to start the day. First off, if you read this please do not worry about my husband and I. We are just going through the “feelings” that go along with this life dilemma. We will make it through this and making it through anything and growing from it requires processing as much of the truth as one can find and one can bear to digest. I have just gone through two days of being very depressed about Iraq and all of the dead due to Iraq. Sometimes depression is not a good thing, like when it carries on and on, but true emotional depression is often involved in getting to solutions to the biggest problems in our lives. My husband got up this morning while I was reading about the Iraqi UN Ambassador’s cousin being killed, and now he is back in bed. He has decided to sleep in today a little bit. I went through two days of feeling profoundly sad and unable to control what was saddening me, and now he is.
I keep track of a lot of the military happenings because the military is a part of my life. I am antiwar but I do believe that we will need a strong military as a deterrent and we will need to be able to help the UN during times of genocide. It was a part of my life that I used to be proud of, but I have given that up because it can be used as a good place to hide behind to avoid truths that hurt. I also wanted to accept that our military is in a shambles right now and will have to be rebuilt and that can be hard to do when one is so proud of something.
I have also been very worried about our troops being “blamed” for Iraq. When they first went over there it wasn’t their choice and let’s face it, they were looking for WMD’s. God, I even thought they were going to find one or two……who would have thought that Iraq had absolutely nothing other than regular ammo? I did think though that BuchCo was at least going to find ONE to use as a basis for their invasion!
With that objective gone now, the objective is to liberate and bring freedom to Iraq so that it can be the democracy that it desires to be. I don’t know if Iraq has ever desired to be a democracy so how can we claim to be bringing democracy to Iraq. Do they even want it? As far as Freedom, I am not a completely free person. I can’t yell FIRE in a theater. I can’t drive around drunk running over pedestrians that are in my way. I can’t write checks out for sums that I don’t actually have in my account. I can’t go gun down my next door neighbor because they hate me, or poison my dog, or shout obscenities at my children…..or even molest my children. I can’t even legally kill them if they kill my children. I am not free so how can I give something to someone that I don’t have?
I have stayed true to our soldiers though. I have repeatedly stuck up for them and insisted that the administration be blamed for wrong doing in Iraq, and maybe at the start of this that was the “right” thing to do. Something inside of me is changing though lately.
We have been in Iraq now for two years and horrible shit happens and happens and happens and our soldiers are doing it. Granted that they didn’t sign up for this and I don’t fault them there. The writing is on the wall though where Iraq is concerned, and things are not getting better and anybody who thinks that we ought to stay there and continue to “fight” the invisible enemy and take out the innocent whenever we feel the slightest intimidation or fear is in my opinion sadistic or suffers from some kind of maladaptive personality disorder that they need to come home and have addressed! When you think that killing is a solution and killing people who scare you no matter who they are is okay, that tends to carry on through out your life!
I am beginning to include the military now in those who I hold accountable! The individuals who continue to beat the drums and HAIL THE CHIEF and knock anybody around who doesn’t act the same way that they do are who I’m talking about! I am not talking about the quiet ones who are doing everything they can to survive this, I am talking about the fuckers who get in my face with their finger. I am talking about mindless hypnotized fuckers in uniform that I have to deal with daily and who I once used to think had a place in the world also but just needed sane leadership. These fuckers are taking all of us down now too and sadly in the military you HAVE TO HAIL YOUR CHIEF! It isn’t an option, but some don’t do it with zest right now and they get SHIT for it! It gets hard to keep up a good act every single day and I’m glad that I’m not a soldier right now trying to do that with these fucking jarheads running around crazed and self righteous with the entire administration’s philosophy to stand on while they whip the shit out of everybody else!
I have turned a corner I guess. This is a big corner for me and I’m going to have to feel my way around this one carefully.
Tracy, even though I am not of a military family, many in my extended family (father, father-in-law, grandfathers, etc.) have served. I go back and forth between the feelings you describe above about the actual people doing the fighting and/or int he active military. I turned the same corner you did a few years back, but I was coming at it from the other direction. I now feel more empathy for individual soldiers that I ever have in my life….
It’s a difficult quandry for someone like me, who likes to take individuals as the come…as an institution, the military hasn’t given me much opportunity to get to know individual soldiers. That has changed recently as I spend more time on the internet adn get to hear viewpoints and insights into their experiences.
I still waffle though, when I hear stories like the one about the Iraqi UN Ambassador’s cousing, or the old man shot in his bed in Afghanistan earlier this week. Who are these people I ask? What fears do they carry within them that enables them to carry out these “missions”? Do they deserve my empathy too? I don’t know any more.
I feel you, Tracy, I really do.
going to hurt in the end by this! The long term mental problems for those returning and all of us facing what has been done on a personal level. I am pretty free though here, and I am free to feel and free to deal and free to heal. It is a different shade of Vietnam though I think, but our country had undergone an attack beforehand. I suppose that we are all supposed to learn that even when in pain we must stop and think and apply all of our learned lessons from before the painful happening in order to truly solve our problem. Otherwise we are just predatory animals who need prey to survive and that can make for a really messy Sunday at church.
I don’t think the hurt will stop at our borders.
There are many things that Americans misunderstand about freedom and what it means, we have been programmed to belive that we have a lock on it here in our country, when the reailty looks very much different from elsewhere.
I think some of the freeest people I have ever met lived on the island of Ko-Phan-Gan in the gulf of Thailand — not the people who visited, those who lived there….I got a taste for two weeks and it changed the way I looked at and felt about freedom permanantly. I think anyone who has lived in another country (I have lived in Germany, Japan and Korea) understands alternate views on freedom.
I think it’s criminal that we have a “leader” who doesn’t know anything about the world at large….
Well, what a message we are getting from the other side of this war. We as law abiding Americans would like to think our military ppl are like us. I can tell you they are not. I can tell you that they are afraid for their lives on a daily basis and when you live it 24/7 it is a raw area of which one places oneself for living. This fogs the judgment on lots of things. The leadership if our military is going to have to blame themselves at some point or the other. They are the ones who give the lower eschelon their go aheads for things. This is called orders and that sometimes they are not very clear to those said orders, is the reason that ppl are going nuts in a handbasket here. When one takes fear to the from.
Look at what this administration has done to the public as a whole straight from 9/11 and forward. They instill fear and it grows well on such a medium that grows like it has. There has not been anything out there to stop this fear. SO, folks, start blaming the leadership and how they make fear of of the known or unknown in scared troops their tool for getting ther job done or so they say. I too would be scare in such an enviroment, wouldnt you? So now that we have defined the problem, lets solve this by being rational and address this with the leadership of this mess. and that includes Abizid (sp), Casey, etc, and all that of the likes of them.
I know you aren’t talking to me, brenda, but in answer to your question “wouldn’t you?” Yes, I would scared in a war zone, no doubt about it, and I think I do try to give soldiers, in general, the benefit of the doubt.
But there are some instances, where I find I just can’t JUST look at the “leaders”, of course they bear a great amount of rsponsibility, but individuals make choices too, unless we are to believe that free will is dead among members of the armed services.
oh Brie, no, I was not talking to you personally. I could be wrong on this whole outlook on things, I am just going on past experiences to say what I have said. When the fear of God is placed in your whole being it is hard to judge right from wrong with fearing for ones life. I am not making any excuses for anyone over there. Yes the person has got to make certain calls on ones own judgement. I just wonder what is going thru their minds when they commit such acts. I can only imagine. I know from what is written here on Booman that they do not have the right and proper equipment to do their jobs and to do it safely. I think some of them have got devious minds and and that in/of itself is dangerous. I do know that many have been endoctronated to the point of cult behavior. It is just way toooooo sad if you ask me. We saw the same shit go down in VN. war is hell and I would prefer not to ever have it ever. I suppose we would do much different if we were in the Iraqi’s shoes too. It is just too bad for everyone…
I think that my husband would tell you that even if they had all of the equipment that they are short, there isn’t any “safety” in Iraq.
you/he probably are right on that one, Girlfiend!
Maybe if they had the spare medical supplies (to name one) to give to the local hospital(s) they’d have had a few less enemies.
I have always been puzzled at how our nation is so concerned about family violence and how we understand that violent families breed violent families and we understand that violence itself breeds violence and that trauma does long term mental and emotional damage, but we continue to look the other way at what is happening to our soldiers in Iraq and the violence that they endure and take part in. We went through Vietnam and we saw what happened to so many of them, and hell…….even the ones who made it all look so good and gave some of us reason to think that not everybody had been so emotionally adversely affected are offing themselves to this day over it (My Uncle). How can we continue to pretend to or not want to understand what is happening to our soldiers. I can’t any longer support other soldiers who are most often senior soldiers beating the emotional mental crap out of the other soldiers who are rightfully frightened by what is taking place and the toll that it is going to take. It is like the mental idiots beating the shit out of the scholars lately. Soldiers are only people. Training doesn’t take the person out of anybody even though they like to talk like they can “train” someone to do something without having their humanity present. God didn’t make people to be able defy their humanity by following orders. Anybody who thinks differently is a sick fuck and needs help! A person can kill someone when they are fightened and scared that they normally would not have ever killed and they can understand that on a cognitive level, but the heart and soul must forgive and sometimes nobody can forgive murder no matter how “justified” or “understandable” the head says that it is. Living on the ranch in the summers, I was never one to want to have anything to with butchering time…..I have no stomach witnessing anything die even though I will eat it and it sustains my body and my life. I can’t imagine what it is like witnessing a persons death with the gun in my hand, it would be like killing myself passive aggressively.
Tracy, Hon, it is very hard to see death in any form. Rather it is thru violence or natural. I think of that young marine who just shot that man who was dying in the beginning of Fullila (sp) What was in his mind? Why did he do such a thing? Why was everyone out to get the reporter for reporting what the marine did? ( he even got death threats himself over this incident) Why is it that ppl can really be moved to kill when it is not necessary to kill. That is the $64,000 question. Sometimes the one killing can not answer that for others or even himself. Some call it reflex. some have other names for it. I just have to wonder to myself. Then again survival is a natural thing when under pressure. When in boot, a person is treated like this, they take all his morals and beliefs away and re install new things for him to think. It is supposed to be for his own good, they say…they teach him to kill in the name of many reasons. But first of all and mostly for his own survival they tell him. So when one snaps what is to say why. I can’t answer many in my own mind to even think of others minds. To me, killing another human is a struggle. I think if I were attacked, I could kill, if one of my kids were attacked, I could kill, there are many reasons I say I could kill, but really I have never been face to face with this decision to make. I just think that many of the young who really do not consider what they are doing firstly, is listening to the officer corps, the line officers who train these men and women to do their jobs. It is truly perplexing to me, to say the least. I almost took my own life for the shear reason I let, listen to me I LET, someone intimidate me into doing such a thing. When one looses control over themselves and their actions, lots of reasoning is lost. It took a Thai Dr. to reason with me on this whole matter. We all speak from our own experiences and learning’s. This is only human. I would only hope that you would stay firm in your convictions and still love someone in the process. Maybe I am getting way out there for all of us to even rationalize, but this is just me and how I think and feel. I do blame leadership in a lot of this; however, I do see what can make a person do the things they do. It is for us to question the ppl in all of this to gather any sense of all this tragedy. When I go against my own convictions, by following orders, I question me instead of the person giving the order. That I had to learn was wrong. It required me to think. which some do not have the luxery of doing in time of being shot at. but when one is just doing it for the lell of it, that is another matter, IMHO. Am I making any sense here? :o) Seems like I am finding myself rambling on and on…sorry if that is what I am doing. I want to thank each of you for your opinions on things of such an important matter. It is something that does need to be adressed.
I am very lucky that a man fell in love with me for my strengths and I for his. I know that we will be okay, the truth isn’t always black and white and it isn’t always the same from one day to the next. I understand why people must under military circumstances obey orders and also know at the same time that everything isn’t ever going to be perfect. Take Somalia for example and what happened there. Things don’t always go like we would want them to in every situation. Rational functional people though aren’t afraid to reassess and change. Iraq is more than one situation going badly and nobody will reassess or make changes, and that is crazy. Now soldiers are beginning to think outside the box and other soldiers are flying off the handle about it. There is such a thing as loyalty and functional people give loyalty when loyalty is deserved. Disfunctional people give loyalty without question and are often used and abused by tyrants. I have had my fair share of tyrants in my life too. This whole stay the course thing is beginning to only be led by tyrants in the military.
ditto, and that is all I was trying to make the point of. PPl even in the pentagon is doing it. What in the hell are they thinking? We have to stop this madness and do it now, if it can be done. I really feel if we all left they would figure out what to do. These are not stupid ppl here. I think if they knew that we would re-enter this mess if they scred up they would find a way to fix the problem, frm within….
Thank you for understand me. I know you do not have an easy job being a military wife. It really never has been easy.
Rapid dog soldiers all over the military are beginning to freak out on the others. I guess we are beginning to eat our own.
I mourn for the 1,700 American soldiers who have died. I weep for the many tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed.
But another cost that is harder to measure is exactly what you, Tracy, are talking about here. How ordinary young men and women can be exposed to, and asked to do horrendous acts of violence against fellow human beings. What will these kids be like when they come home after all they have been witness to? How will they have changed inside, and how will they be happy and productive members of their own families let alone society?
They take kids fresh from the senior prom and they tell them they are fighting for America, fighting for freedom and democracy, fighting for their families and friends. The military, in order to ensure complete loyalty, essentially brainwashes these kids. I mourn their loss of innocence, but I abhor the fact that it is all part of “doing their duty.”
I have boys that will be ripe for the picking if the draft is reinstated. The worst acts of atrocity they have performed is squashing a spider. It makes me weep to think about getting my sweet boys back after they have looked into the eyes of another human being and then shot them dead. If the cause was noble it would be another matter, but to do this for the incredibile mendacity of this president and his henchmen is tragic.
That is a tragedy of no lesser magnitude than the loss of life. At least to me.
That’s why Joe Wilson’s words at John Conyers Downing Street hearing really hit home. He included the words “to kill”, sending our troops “to kill and die”. This was the first recongition I’ve heard from anyone remotely associated with government to make that point.
That is the ultimate crime of BushCo., in sending our troops and keeping our troops in a man-made hell.
I think this also goes to the people around you everyday. As a teen I learned about Germany and the camps, I read the Diary of Anne Frank. I could not, and still can’t, get my mind around all those people who did the deeds, but more all the people who turned their backs on the deeds. I came to understand that we as a country are no more immune to this behavior than other country. You get the right circumstances in place and a lot of people start feeling free to become things that a good society would not have allowed. People you thought you knew become something else. Being I was no doubt a strange child I remember thinking many years ago which one would turn against me or turn me in. Who would stand up and do the right thing. I often thought I would no doubt be surprised by who would do the right thing and who would take advantage. We all want to think we would do the right thing. But as time goes on and fears play on all of us I don’t think any of us really know. Bad times will bring out the best or the worst in us and I dread that here in the US we are slowly being dragged into one of those times.
I am antiwar but I do believe that we will need a strong military as a deterrent and we will need to be able to help the UN during times of genocide.
When my husband graduated from Officer Candidate School, I sat in an auditorium full of Marines and their families, and listened to a long, and long-winded speech, about how, unlike people in other careers who have tangible results to show for their jobs every day, when a Marine does his job, at the end of the day he can be proud that, “Nothing happened.” It seems like a life-time ago, though it’s been only 7 years, and I can’t believe how quickly we have gone from a belief in national “defense” and “deterrence” to one of unbridled aggression.
We may very well be creating monsters. It’s arguable that we did in Vietnam, although the vast majority came back, and did not commit acts of aggression at home. I think it takes a certain type of person to endure the horrors of war, and not be sucked into the heart of darkness. They are people who can move through the shadow-world and emerge changed, but not destroyed. Ideally, military training should be about that. What many old warriors gain is the knowledge that war should be avoided, and should only be a last resort.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” — General Douglas MacArthur
This war, like Vietnam, is a prescription for disaster. It’s fought in urban areas, in and amongst civilian populations, rather than on a battle-field. The objective is a vague ideal, at this point, and we have no clear exit strategy. That we would have new My Lai’s should come as no great surprise. It could be that the conditions are such that “violentization” is occurring, as has been theorized with regards to My Lai. I don’t know. I don’t think all people who fight in brutal wars become killing machines. I think, in some cases, it’s situational. We have no idea how many of those involved were twisted fucks before they even went over there, like Grainer. But, war is a Pandora’s box, and, those rules of engagement, including not following illegal orders, sometimes get lost in the fear and adrenaline of experiences that none of us can imagine, if we haven’t faced them.
I know what my family has lost in all of this and may I just take a moment to say that I am sorry for your loss! It is difficult to have packed and moved and packed and moved and put up with them going to officer candidate school because it is so stressful on them. It isn’t my job but it has become an aspect of my life that has required my time, attention, energy and loss of stability at times….but it was all okay because it was all for this MUCH GREATER GOOD! One of my friends did say something funny though about all the high stress training many of them have gone through to do the job and perhaps I should end with a laugh. She said a couple of years that back that whenever she meets someone in the aviation family and it ever happens to come out that they got pregnant during flight school she always wants to know how in the hell that happened because they are grouchy and evil that entire year and it ought to be impossible.
Tracy you have a very unenviable position as the spouse of someone in the military right now. I feel so sorry for what are illegitimate government has done and is doing to the families of our service people. This kind of division is just one by product of the lies they perpetrated to lead us into war.
One more reason to loathe them.
“I am talking about the fuckers who get in my face with their finger. I am talking about mindless hypnotized fuckers”… I am not in contact with many active military, but I could at least give them the benefit of believing that they have to buy the BS to keep their heads from exploding. It’s the ones who think it is noble for the United States to kill people who object to our invasion of their country but won’t enlist themselves that make me homicidal. Perhaps if those soldiers who don’t believe we have done the right thing by invading Iraq were given the opportunity to leave the military we could more clearly define the troops.
Stop loss has prevented many from leaving who would have already been gone, and I’m pretty sure that we would be out of here too if you could just leave if you wanted to.
I am not in contact with many active military, but I could at least give them the benefit of believing that they have to buy the BS to keep their heads from exploding.
I think there is a lot of cognitive dissonance among military and their families. It’s very painful to believe that you are risking life and limb, for no good reason. I think sometimes it’s an almost conscious choice to tune out any information that could shatter the illusion of a noble cause. Unless you can make new and different meaning of these losses — as have those family members of our fallen who have used their sacrifice to mobilize political opposition — the senselessness of it is excruciating.
Tracy,
Hugs to you, as the war continues to work on you… As it should be working on ALL OF US.. Time for the people of America to put an end to this disaster of a war. As we have discussed before, hold THESE Bastards accountable for their actions, or this will soon repeat. Follow your heart Tracy, the brain can mislead, the heart aims true. EtJ
but someone on the radio made the comment when you look at the list of folks killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, you’re not going to find many commissioned officers. They’re the ones giving the orders…but it’s the non-coms who are doing the dying.
Another person (I think it was a former soldier who’s running for Congress) said that generals aren’t soldiers…they’re politicians. They’re too busy shaking hands and kissing ass to know what war’s really about.
And one more comment before I go kick the spouse in the butt to get him moving: I wish they’d found at least ONE WMD…with the “Made in USA” sticker visible. ‘Cause face it, people, any WMDs that Saddam may have had at one point probably were sold to him with the blessings of the US Government…
Hi Tracy
I can’t imagine how you can even function with all the contradictions you have to live with. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I’ve never been associated with the military on any real basis and I’m afraid military wives come across as rather sterotypically limited on the news. I truly appreciate your broadening MY limited perspective through your complexity and soul searching and I wish you all the best.
I would start with the PNAC neocons who wanted to play war games and remake the Middle East. Whether “faith-based” or corporate wealth reasons, or settling old scores or playing with new toys or just plain greed, a hellish coalition managed to undo decades of progress with U.S. military recovery after Vietnam.
Anyone that challenged how easy it would be to invade Iraq was demoted or fired. This is old news, I’ll try to stay on focus. It would have helped if we had a President who read a book or traveled abroad before being handed the keys not only to the nukes, but to the sending of troops abroad.
I blindly “supported the troops”, thinking it “wasn’t their fault” for a long time. My support has morphed a bit, however, over time. Instead of blindly supporting all of the troops, I accepted that most did not expect to be put in an impossible position in Iraq (that I have no clue how to relate to) with little or no planning, and no exit strategy. I also have problems with the right wingers who so strongly support this war and refuse to deal with any reality as they slap that yellow ribbon on their SUV — all the while making sure their children or themselves don’t have to actually SERVE.
Military Tracy, my sympathies to you and yours as you deal with your reality. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rice, etc. are no closer than my big toe to the “action” that your family faces because of the CHOICES these POLITICIANS made. What you decide to do, and what your husband decide to do, and what you decide to do as a family are your decisions to make. My having walked exactly zero steps in either of your shoes makes me exactly zero qualified to judge you. I can pray for you and offer you support and best wishes for whatever life puts on your path.
Tracy, I tend to believe that this is a syndrome. It’s like my ex-Mother-in-law who grew up under Stalin. She has three icons over her bed, Jesus, her deceased husband, and Stalin. She’s so old now that she can’t, emotionally, admit to the atrocities that Stalin committed. She’s a wonderful woman, but if ahe had to admit that Stalin was evil, then she would also have to admit that her life was a waste and based on lies. I think she knows it in her heart but just can’t bring herself to admit it.
It may be the same with the Army folks you have to deal with. They may know in their hearts that you are right but to admit it would be admitting their complacency in this. As you know, serving in the military is not like a civilian job, they demand your heart and soul (and for a good reason such as why your husband is home safe and sound) but it can get detached from reality.
All I can say is hang in there, kiddo…we got your back here online.
You’re not crazy.
If one person or a movement is behaving badly, they’re probably evil or stupid. But when everyone, everywhere we turn, is behaving insanely, it’s a sign the whole system is breaking down or is being overrun by the march of progress.
One fact of progress is that institutions are now able to offer rewards that cost them nothing, but are irresistible jackpots to their lowly human recipients. It drives behavior that would be crazy for people who had to remain part of a healthy society. But since people can cash out and make their families rich for life, for a few years’ work or maybe one or two shady decisions, the rewards are too great to turn down.
This is happening across the leadership of every area of American life from government, the military, religion, the general economy, media, culture, whatever.
All of this was inevitable once we began taking the restraints off of accumulation of wealth and market share of the top individuals and businesses. It was only a matter of time before the forces of society outgrew our little subsistence farmers’ Constitution. That process began with JFK in the early 1960’s.
We have the added emergence of the mass media which show us the world as we know it. With them operated by the owners of this society, and with no civilizing forces of our system of government to balance the needs and rights of the people within the media, we have a population in which reasonable ordinary people just can’t see what’s going on, and have no way to come together unchaperoned to form their own views.
The good news is, assuming our worst conspiracy fears about elections are wrong, it’s still possible to win back government, and then to rescue this badly injured society. But we’ll need people to be thinking broadly and in futuristic terms about how society and economies and government work, what kinds of overall goals and overall interests they need to balance, and how everything is evolving.
Small tweaks like a media “fairness doctrine” or “campaign finance reform” or shuffling Pentagon departments will do nothing to help people in a time when machines are about to begin reasoning and the machinery of life itself will become accessible to the economy.
I recently – finally – watched Born on the Fourth of July for the first time. I’m not sure why that popped into my head after reading your diary because, frankly, one of the bonuses of having a really bad memory is that I can watch movies and forget what they were about not long after – enabling me to watch them again almost as if they’re brand new. The downside is that I can’t remember what the heck they were about!
I’m rambling.
Anyway, maybe watching it would help? I don’t know. I think you need your feelings validated and that was a very powerful movie.
One of my mottos is: tolerance ends where abuse begins. IOW, if the gung ho attitude is really getting to you, stick with those who support you and share your views as much as possible. I don’t know how much that might be possible, considering your situation, but it might help.
Depression is a normal part of the grief process and it sounds like you may be grieving your former view of what the military is all about, so it’s natural to go through all kinds of feelings. Losing your ideal about anything is tough. You’re doing the exact thing you need to be doing – letting it out. As they say, this too shall pass. (Boy, do I need to drill that one into my head).
A huge hug for you, Tracy, and thanks for letting us know what you’re going through. As for my advice, again as they say, take what you need and leave the rest. Just know you’ll be all right. Well, you already are all right!
The military you and your husband are part of bears no resemblance to the military of 40 years ago. Back then every piece of equipment, and all the food, ammo, vehicles, clothing, and housing was handled by someone in uniform. Someone was responsible for making sure people got what they needed. And it wasn’t KB-freakin-R.
Must be the clerk in me, but I got very conversant with regs and manuals, and that knowledge helped me understand the “why” of things military. Also (more than once) got some very irritating NCO’s off my back. Never hurts to read the rules.
Got this awhile back. Letter from a battalion CO to his people when he retired. Makes sense:
I believe that we are making progress in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Despite the ravings of pundits and uninformed ambulance chasers, this fight doesn’t’ hinge on oil or payback. It isn’t about religion or race. And it damn sure is not about any innate desire to rule the world. These people will succeed or fail on their own merits. The task is daunting. You can release a person from bondage. You can remove a tyrant from power. You can create the conditions for liberty. But, you cannot simply grant or proclaim freedom. Freedom without honest action is a whisper in a storm just as change without vision and purpose is the illusion of progress. For ages these people were literally beaten to the point of submission by oppression, censure, murder, torture, and rape – regardless of age or gender. I have asked myself why they let it happen. The only answer I can fathom is that evil flourished because good people refused to pay the price required to oppose it. Sure, it’s easy now to pontificate and blame the poor and down trodden for their collective indifference, but forgive my sarcasm – I think we owe them more than a couple of days to realize that their hopes and dreams have a chance to grow and one day flourish. No amount of rhetoric and no pressing agenda will change the fact that time is required to help heal these people and that ancient grievances require redress. Make no mistake: I’m no crusader -I do what I do because I am a professional soldier. For me it’s been simple: protect the innocent, punish the deserving, accomplish my mission and bring my men home, period. As Sting said “Poets, Priests, and Politicians have words to thank for their positions.” For a soldier it is black and white: deeds not words. If you need words to better illustrate, the Latin mottos of two Infantry Regiments I have served in will suffice: “Sua Sponte” and “Ne Desit Virtus”: Of their own accord and Let Valor not fail. Or in true cowboy fashion: Saddle your own horse, cull your own herd, and bury your own dead. [My War, 28 Sep ’04].
It’s a helluva lot more than kill or die. Every time a soldier manages to find that “spare” clothing, or food, or uses what little medical supplies they have to help out, one more person or family begins to understand they are not the enemy. One person, one family, one block, one village at a time.
Deeds, not words.