As we come to this Veteran's Day we are left with the same tap dance that we have had for the past several years. I haven't met anyone that does not respect the troops and their efforts. I don't know anyone that wouldn't agree that we should all thank them for their heroic efforts. Yet, every time anyone steps up to question our foreign policy there are images conjured up of protestors spitting on soldiers during the Vietnam War. Therefore, the separation is complete: if you support the President's policy then you support the troops. If you don't then you don't.
Instead, what I see is an erosion of the values that the founders of Veteran's Day intended. We want to honor those who fought and helped preserve our freedoms that we regularly enjoy. I think a part of that erosion comes from the absence of shared sacrifice. Astrogirlkel had a terrific blog yesterday about the shared sacrifice that occurred back in World War II. The same could be said for Vietnam even if rationing didn't occur on that level. There was still a draft, so the public was affected more or less equally. Still, we have people that never served that somehow feel it necessary to chastise the rest of us. The shared sacrifice simply isn't there.
The key is for us to separate the heroism that these men and women demonstrate on a daily basis from the decisions of where their heroism is used. In essence, if we consider that heroism as a resource then we can honestly say that the heroism has been mismanaged. This is where the disconnect occurs. Most of us recognize the difference between men and women that do their job honorably wherever they are told to do it and those that choose where those men and women do their jobs. Unfortunately, some do not.
The disconnect also occurs when these men and women are performing tasks that don't seem to have much to do with protecting our freedom. Quite frankly, this angers me. My cousin fought in Iraq and luckily he came home physically and emotionally intact. However, I know he saw things that bother him and that he doesn't want to talk about. They weren't illegal things or immoral things necessarily, but things that happen in war that don't happen in peace time. He fought in a war that shouldn't have been waged. Our troops in Aphghanistan also are doing something they weren't originally supposed to do. In essence, this is a waste of heroism.
So, today I would like to thank our troops. I want to thank them for their heroism and service. I also want to apologize to them. I'm sorry our leaders are not strong enough to return or foreign policy to one that protects our freedoms and our interests and that's it. I'm sorry that we as citizens don't have the courage that you do. I'm sorry we sit on the sidelines while our leaders continually miss the mark. As Obama has shown so far, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an issue of a bloated defense budget and a nation that feels obligated to justify that budget. Let's bring our troops home and let those in the Middle East solve their own problems. We have enough problems over here to wrestle with.
Well put Wilma. Our mission, at first, in both countries was righteous. The same as in Viet Nam. But when you come to the point of diminishing returns, you MUST reevaluate your strategy and the potential of your operation. And that shouldn't take 8 years, a Trillion$$$ and 5,400 American lives.
Even if we fought the wrong war, I don't believe any of our soldiers died "in vane." They died serving our country, and most believed in our mission. But do I believe they died needlessly based on decisions of our former CIC? Yes. I think those 2 can be distinguished. No family should feel that their loved one died in vane, but needlessly. Confusing? Well, if we LOSE a war, then the 60,000 who died in Viet Nam were in vane. I rather say "needlessly". I have no clue if those words bring more comfort or not.
As for your distinction, Scott, you are right on. From the beginning I supported our troops in Iraq, but not the war. Brave men and women died doing their duty. Their blood is on the the hands of our former CIC and his ASSistant.
couldn't agree with you more scott, thanks for reading the whole story. next week i have a goal to cut my average posting length in half. i've got another paid research project that will take some time and writing as well, and anyway, i feel like john kerry sometimes writing things so long:)
Thanks for sharing that story. It's hard to reconcile stories like that with the glamour image that some want to sell. The marines really helped my cousin grow up, but the war gave him experiences I could only imagine. However, I would say that honesty like that can only help us understand what soldiers go through and therefore make us respect them that much more.
delezzia you are neither stupid or a commie to speak the truth, yet that is exactly what pat tillman's brother has been called and worse. the best thing said about cindy sheehan was that she was a mother who was grieving "out of her mind", and that courtesy was afforded her by her soon to be ex-husband on the record with greta. as you know much has been said since then, especially by dems who want her to shut up and go away because she transfers her protest for bush to obama. the current administration handles her exactly as the last, ignore her and hope she goes away. today i said a little prayer for this woman, who after all these years still feels her son died in the midst of madness, confusion, and as she later observed, in vain of the most perverse vanity. writing to his parents initially from the idealistic young and willing voice, that turned into frustration, then futility, until it was silenced. all of our young men and women are casey sheehan to me, or gonzelda g., my apartment neighbor who left abruptly with no forwarding address. after two back to back tours, this twenty-something married mother of 3 told me in a quiet voice at the mailbox in 2008 that if her number came up again for the hostile middle east, that they planned to "disappear". i asked her why she joined and she explained she was ROTC all through high school, married her school sweetheart and signed up as a communication specialist with 4 languages. sold on college, career, healthcare for her asthmatic child and her dream of a military career of honor and service to her country. a husband who as a mechanic, could find work anywhere, and an offer of family base housing, this idealistic young patriot sailed through basic, settled stateside and studied for officer training that was described in both chauvinistic and realistic terms. it seems the army was in need of hispanic females, and like offers too good to be true, this one was. a couple of years into the gig came the tragedy of 911, followed by her 2nd child the next month. sent to virginia to study arabic she became nervous but was told it was "shock & awe", would be over soon, they'd probably not get to her number. but they did, and she went. for 8 months and was shocked and awed. stateside for a year and sent again. 2nd tour assigned her to assist contractors who sexually harassed. nobody cared. she did not tell her husband because she explained, hispanic men take things like that as a failure to protect their women. told by her fellow soldiers "that comes with the territory" and "it's a man's job,". soon after going stateside again, an unplanned pregnancy, but her first son was born. the army told her to "stay in shape", while she tried for over a year to be assigned back to virginia, or anywhere but the middle east, the war from hell. but the real hell was a private hell of trying to avoid rape. one day she breaks down and tells her husband, they talk over options all night because he's lost his job, bills are piling up and she's missed most of her daughters grade school experiences. there's no ending to this story to share, because one day this family simply no longer were my neighbors. i am not ashamed to say between redeployment and a disappearing act, i'm hoping for the latter because the former is unimaginable for me. part of the reason is because i was trained over 20yrs ago to counsel rape victims, but i've also discovered i'm fed up with these wars. my apologies for the length of this post, today was emotionally draining for me as it no doubt was for you all. despite being called stupid commies, unpatriotic or whatever the mindless zealots try and pin on us, the opposite is in fact true. we know it, and i pray so does president obama.
Agreed. We should have gone in and captured/killed those responsible for 9/11 and then gotten the hell out. Every American and damn near every other country on the planet was behind us. Instead, well, we're all too familiar with what happened instead.
BTW, I think the word you were looking for at the end was pansy. Pantsy would be something you would call someone who wore jeans in the swimming pool or something. ;)
I could not agree more with your comments. We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I truly believe that not everyone wants democracy crammed down their throats. No wonder half the world has bad feelings towards the US.
This is one of those history deals that I used to love to teach my students. The mistake in Afghanistan is a simple one: we've muddied our objective. If you hyperfocus the objective we win everytime. It was hunt down al queda and either kill them or bring them to justice. Every blasted American was on board in 2001. That objective morphed into the Taliban and then supporting democracy. If you want to win you need a clear objective that has a finite end. Either you destroy al queda or you don't. There is no gray area there. Yet, when we start to ask when we can leave a stable Iraq or Afghanistan it becomes murky. How do we define stable? Then someone asks what in God's name does a democratic Iraq or Afghanistan have to do with keeping us safer? So now they have to vote that they hate the US?
I don't care whether I'm called a pantsy. Killing people is wrong unless it is to protect yourself.
While I don't think we should have ever been in Iraq to begin with, I feel that the war in Afghanistan was just when we first went in. Even in the days leading up to the 2008 elections I believed that we should finish what we started there in October of 2001. But since it was bungled so badly by the previous administration, and since there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, I now think it's just time to pack it up and bring our troops home.
As evidenced by the Soviets occupation in the 70's and 80's, Afghanistan is where superpowers go to die, and we need to learn from their mistakes and just cut our losses.
Of course they'll be cries of cut and run, and lots of spouting off of claims that Democrats can't or won't keep our country safe, but are we as a country really any safer than we were on September 10, 2001 ? Seems to me that Republicans aren't any better or worse at keeping the country safe, they just excel at killing American kids for no good reason.
It's truly shameful that so many would have died in vain, but I don't see any other option at this point.
Thanks to all our veterans and their families for the sacrifices they all make.
Yes, God Bless our men and women in uniform. They are on the front lines every day for our nation.
Not a Commie or being stupid here but let's bring our troops home. There is nothing gained by us staying in Afgahanistan or Iraq. Let us try diplomacy and try to foster some peace. This war is endless and fruitless. Not worth our lives.
I was there. 1968-69. Being anti-war meant you were NOT a patriot. You were, in fact, anti-American. You were a commie symnpathiser. Or worse, a COMMIE.
Funny how in 40 years we haven't come very far. We also haven't learned that injecting ourselves into other peoples' conflicts can be CO$TLY in money and DEVASTATING in lives lost. A TRILLION$$ and over 5,400 American lives lost not to mention Iraqi and Afghan fatalities in the hundreds of thousands.
For a pretty smart people, WE REALLY ARE STUPID.
I say that on Veterans Day so that NEXT YEAR, maybe, just maybe, we won't be grieving fallen heroes, but celebrating Veterans Day with or soldiers, sailors and airmen, here at home and abroad IN PEACE.
We MUST move war lower DOWN on the option list.