the US military
Aug. 2nd, 2007 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI've seen a number of newspaper articles and a couple of posts on LJ about the investigation into how the Army dealt with Pat Tillman's death. And it's made me think about my attitudes towards the US military.
I grew up in Hampton Roads, an area that's very heavily military, in that there are several military bases (Ft Eustis, Ft Monroe, Langley AFB, Norfolk Navy Yard, the Oceana Naval Air Station, Little Creek Amphib Base, the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, plus some others I've probably forgotten) and the Newport News Shipyard (which builds a lot of Navy ships). Many of the kids I went to school with were the sons and daughters of service members (and many of them have gone on to serve in the military themselves). A number of my parents' friends, neighbors, and acquaintances were retired military persons. My dad served in the USAAC and both of his brothers served in World War II; my mother's father served in the military in World War One--he and a cousin were among the relatively small number of US pilots.
So I've always had a great deal of contact with military people when I was a kid, and I've worked with a lot of them as a grownup and made many friends, especially through reenacting, who were current or former military. I respect many (though certainly not all) of the military folks I've known and appreciate the sacrifices that many of them have made. It's not a terribly easy life constantly moving from place to place, and a lot of the locations of military posts are selected because no one in their right mind would consider locating a community on that patch of land (Ft Hood, TX, springs to mind immediately, as do stories I've heard about Ft Polk, LA...) Plus, then, there's a reasonable possibility (now more than ever) that someone will be trying to shoot you or blow you up.
Yes, military people are often a lot more conservative than the normal run of folks, much more than my usual acquaintances. Yes, some of them are just in it for the money and the skills, or because they don't see any other economic opportunity. But an awful lot of the people I know who've served, enlisted and commissioned, have done it because they believe in the ideals of our country and they feel strongly that the best thing they can do, either with their life or with some significant portion of it, is to protect those ideals and their fellow citizens by serving in the military. The armed services and the diplomatic (don't believe everything you hear about how that's a life of caviar and champagne) go through an awful lot for their country, and I appreciate their doing so. I may not agree with the decisions they are told to implement, but that's generally an issue with the political leaders making the decisions, not the people who have sworn to obey lawful commands carrying them out.
So it makes me sick when I see someone like Pat Tillman, who saw an opportunity to serve his country instead of himself, used as a PR pawn. And to discover, after he was tragically killed in a grievous accident (and accident s will happen, especially when bullets are flying; that's just a fact of life) that someone somewhere decided that the best thing to do was to lie to all of us, and to lie to his family, about what had happened... that makes my blood boil. That's a grave disservice to Tillman and to everything that he offered his life to protect and defend. Whoever did that shouldn't just be reprimanded and given some minor punishment. He should be busted down as low as he can go and booted out of the Army.
And Pat Tillman was just one man. We've lost over 4,000 service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for what? Have their sacrifices been honoured? Has our government sent those men and women out to die for good reason? What penalties are going to accrue to those who planned these wars and carried them out if those lives were given up in vain?
I'm not an ultrapatriot, but I do love my country, despite of all of its faults, which I know so well. I *do* respect and honour the courage of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, of all those who put themselves in danger for our nation. But I see no sign that those who prate loudest about such things in our government do so. And that makes me heartsick.
We need change.
I grew up in Hampton Roads, an area that's very heavily military, in that there are several military bases (Ft Eustis, Ft Monroe, Langley AFB, Norfolk Navy Yard, the Oceana Naval Air Station, Little Creek Amphib Base, the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, plus some others I've probably forgotten) and the Newport News Shipyard (which builds a lot of Navy ships). Many of the kids I went to school with were the sons and daughters of service members (and many of them have gone on to serve in the military themselves). A number of my parents' friends, neighbors, and acquaintances were retired military persons. My dad served in the USAAC and both of his brothers served in World War II; my mother's father served in the military in World War One--he and a cousin were among the relatively small number of US pilots.
So I've always had a great deal of contact with military people when I was a kid, and I've worked with a lot of them as a grownup and made many friends, especially through reenacting, who were current or former military. I respect many (though certainly not all) of the military folks I've known and appreciate the sacrifices that many of them have made. It's not a terribly easy life constantly moving from place to place, and a lot of the locations of military posts are selected because no one in their right mind would consider locating a community on that patch of land (Ft Hood, TX, springs to mind immediately, as do stories I've heard about Ft Polk, LA...) Plus, then, there's a reasonable possibility (now more than ever) that someone will be trying to shoot you or blow you up.
Yes, military people are often a lot more conservative than the normal run of folks, much more than my usual acquaintances. Yes, some of them are just in it for the money and the skills, or because they don't see any other economic opportunity. But an awful lot of the people I know who've served, enlisted and commissioned, have done it because they believe in the ideals of our country and they feel strongly that the best thing they can do, either with their life or with some significant portion of it, is to protect those ideals and their fellow citizens by serving in the military. The armed services and the diplomatic (don't believe everything you hear about how that's a life of caviar and champagne) go through an awful lot for their country, and I appreciate their doing so. I may not agree with the decisions they are told to implement, but that's generally an issue with the political leaders making the decisions, not the people who have sworn to obey lawful commands carrying them out.
So it makes me sick when I see someone like Pat Tillman, who saw an opportunity to serve his country instead of himself, used as a PR pawn. And to discover, after he was tragically killed in a grievous accident (and accident s will happen, especially when bullets are flying; that's just a fact of life) that someone somewhere decided that the best thing to do was to lie to all of us, and to lie to his family, about what had happened... that makes my blood boil. That's a grave disservice to Tillman and to everything that he offered his life to protect and defend. Whoever did that shouldn't just be reprimanded and given some minor punishment. He should be busted down as low as he can go and booted out of the Army.
And Pat Tillman was just one man. We've lost over 4,000 service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for what? Have their sacrifices been honoured? Has our government sent those men and women out to die for good reason? What penalties are going to accrue to those who planned these wars and carried them out if those lives were given up in vain?
I'm not an ultrapatriot, but I do love my country, despite of all of its faults, which I know so well. I *do* respect and honour the courage of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, of all those who put themselves in danger for our nation. But I see no sign that those who prate loudest about such things in our government do so. And that makes me heartsick.
We need change.
