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Or, Those Bumper Stickers Are Sticking in My Craw
I’ve had it.
I never want another current Republican, or Democrat office holder for that matter, ever again to utter the phrase "Support the Troops" or assert they do so.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not adequately equip or train them to do their job.
● It is not supporting the troops if you don’t have enough of them to do their job.
● It is not supporting the troops if you keep them too long or too often overseas.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not allow them adequate rest and recuperation time in between.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not adequately take care of the wounded, whether mentally or physically.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not keep your promises about how long they have to serve.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not give them the GI Bill benefits you bragged about to entice them to join.
● It is not supporting the troops if you keep relying on the National Guard except in emergencies.
● It is not supporting the troops if you hire mercenaries like Blackwater guards with taxpayer funds to do the same thing as privates for five times the pay privates get.
● It is not supporting the troops if you fire the generals who got it right and promote those who got it wrong.
● It is not supporting the troops if you ignore the advice of them on how to do their job.
● It is not supporting the troops if you send them in alone with just token allies.
● It is not supporting the troops if you discriminate against non-Protestant members of the military or harass the females or those in uniform who might be gay.
● It is not supporting the troops if you do not abide by the Geneva Conventions or our own Constitution.
● It is not supporting the troops if you use them under false pretenses, frivolously, for your ego or arrogance or ignorance, for your personal economic gain or greed, for your political party partisan purposes, for using it as an attempt to distract from domestic woes or personal stupidity, for keeping "score" internationally or bragging about "winning" or being "#1", or without adequate attempts at all other alternatives.
● It is not supporting the troops if you have not studied history and investigated thoroughly your opponents.
It is a harsh thing to say, but I personally believe you are a liar or an ignoramus if you claim to be supporting the troops and yet you have allowed any of the above things to happen unchallenged. Worse, you are arguably a traitor to everything this country once stood for. You have made Osama bin Laden gleeful if you have remained silent these past several years.
I am not insisting you enlist and serve in a shooting war close enough to hear the bullets impact as I did, but if you want to assert you truly do support the troops, then speak out regarding the malfeasance our elected officials have been committing against our own troops. It is bad enough the cowardly REMFs in the West Wing have encouraged atrocities against foreigners and international laws. It is worse for us to metaphorically do the same thing to our own troops and laws.
In any event, you are not entitled to use the phrase hereafter if you voted for or encouraged any of those things in the "bullet list" above that are still coming out of Washington, or voted for anyone who voted for any of those things once in office, especially if you continued to do nothing about those in power once you discovered any of those things had occurred. It is particularly odious if you utter the phrase after having avoided military service for yourself or your family members, or after complaining about taxes or petroleum prices, or after sacrificing little or nothing while troops were in the field. A special place in Hell ought to be reserved for those who say they are going to give up something like the Prez claiming he was going to give up golf as long as the troops were off in mortal combat and then was filmed secretly cheating on his pledge. It was an idle, worthless, even demeaning gesture to begin with, but to then to dishonor it altogether by ignoring even that minor inconvenience shows how low some hypocrites can go.
Thoughtful, reasoned, intelligent supporting of our combat soldiers, sailors and airmen who happen to be legally doing their job is a duty of all citizens at all times. Blind obedience to a President or empty bravado or pasting a yellow ribbon or a bumper sticker on your big gas guzzling SUV or Humvee with the phase or wearing a flag lapel pin made in China to pretend you are a patriot is not. Those naked and minuscule whims cannot be considered as really supporting the troops. It is posturing.
Those troops who put themselves in jeopardy for you deserve more. If you have not at least carefully followed and independently questioned what is going on, then you have failed in your duty as a citizen and you have failed those who needed you.
Keep in mind, there will be a test on such duties. It is about time you stopped failing it.
Showing posts with label the military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the military. Show all posts
2008/03/26
2007/09/04
“SAME ARMY, DIFFERENT WARS”
Or, Rank Has its Version
General David Petraeus, a former commander of the 101st Airborne Division on its last tour in Iraqis currently in charge of Bush’s “surge” efforts there. He will be returning shortly to pontificate on how Bush’s latest plan to “win” the war supposedly has been going. The snippets he has leaked to date suggest he will proclaim it’s, metaphorically, going great guns. In an alternate view published recently by the New York Times, seven sergeants who have actually been on the streets carrying out the surge provided their own personal observations and they could not be more contrasting.
What the two versions reveal is that there are basically two types of soldiers in most wars, those with the rank of major and above and those with the rank of captain and below. The former see the war as symbols on a map or, at closest, from helicopter height. These days, their's is the world of air conditioned comfort, hot meals, and clean, even pressed, uniforms. The only natives they meet tend to be just the local warlords and ward healers, usually corrupt ones at that. These upper rank officers, the ones with lots of gold braid and shiny brass, may get out in the field occasionally, but seldom for long. And, far too many never listen to those below them, particularly those in the enlisted ranks. The field grade officers, a misnomer, typically remain isolated even when completely surrounded by obsequious underlings.
The soldiers actually in the field, the grunts, those at the sharp end, see the war very differently. They see it up close and personal. They can’t miss the puddled blood and splattered gray matter. Perhaps circumstances force them to lie in it at times. They get to smell the indescribable stench of long dead or burned flesh that never leaves the nostrils once experienced. They taste the grit. They freeze. They bake. They hear, or worse, actually feel in their chest, the uniquely terrifying deep krump concussion of mortars dropping nearby. They understand that unlike in the movies, it does not matter how much a super soldier you are if the mortar shell decides to share your foxhole or if the AK-47 bullet happens to share the same airspace. They walk at night unable to see the trip wires, notwithstanding the high tech starlight scopes and infrared gear they wear. They often have reason to curse the limits of technology toys, particularly the untested new ones foisted on them by defense contractors more interested in surging profit than supporting the troops. They know the limits of human endurance by packing 80 pounds of gear on their own backs and eating cold MREs. They experience the real effects of the war, not the sanitized versions the history professors will later write. The grimy sweaty enlisted men and the lowest ranking officers actually leading them on foot learn all too well what war does to both to their own friends and the civilians they were there to protect. Interestingly, the enemy combatant sometimes earns greater respect than the REMFs who “lead” our own troops only from bunkers located far in the rear.
In any event, the view of war from the perspective of the ordinary infantryman carrying a rifle and searching buildings is one of almost relentless stress, worry, dirt, thirst, pain and fatigue. The one good thing, and occasionally very bad thing when death sickles a buddy, is the close comradery that can develop from the shared, often communal, experience among those fighting the war as captains, lieutenants, sergeants and privates.
These two very different views of the same conflict; i.e. the “higher highers” vantage point versus those scuttling, sometimes literally, on their bellies seeking cover, are so dramatically different that it is almost as if they are fighting different wars. Neither can really understand the other, yet both desperately need to communicate because each has critical information the other lacks.
The best commanders, sadly they’re quite rare, seem to be those who have endured enough close combat at some point in their careers to develop a genuine and lasting empathy with the enlisted ground pounders permanently assigned to kick down the doors. It needs to be long enough for the commander to discover that the enlisted men have useful and practical information. It needs to be long enough for the adrenalin rush to hard wire the experience into muscle memory. Merely earning the combat infantry badge is not enough. That only necessitates being under fire once. Unfortunately, what is probably needed for the lessons to really take hold is to be under fire long enough to lose someone they really cared about. That is when they finally learn the uncountable costs of combat and to not be wasteful of others’ lives. They certainly need to have taken the combat tour assignment for something more than just getting their ticket punched to show they met all their future promotion requirements.
Is General Petraeus one of those commanders men in uniform would consider worth following up a hill? I don’t know. Having served in the 101st Airborne myself, I hope so out of unit pride. But, if it becomes a question of whether to believe the seven doubting sergeants who have been carrying out Bush’s “surge” house to house or believing some general arbitrarily put in power by Bush, my inclination is to put more trust in the observations of the ones who happened to have observed events at grenade distance. They may not have the “big picture,” but the big picture type of guys like Bush’s buddies seem to have been uniformly and horribly wrong.
Besides, when breaking in doors and interacting with civilians in other ways, it is pretty easy for the average boot wielder to get a pretty good feel for at least whether or not the locals are genuinely interested in behaving. Body language is quite eloquent in situations like that. The number of bobby traps discovered divided by whether or not the locals give warnings before such traps are discovered the hard way equals the pucker factor. It is usually a far better predictor than the ideologies and egos of those at high levels who never have contact with the average citizen of the country sought to be subdued.
And, since we are not trying to simply exterminate the populace, isn’t that the one key question in Iraq; i.e., whether they are really interested in behaving themselves? As almost every guerilla war in the past century seems to have shown, until the populace decides they really want to have peace and solve their own problems, it becomes just a bottomless pit. On that subject, the cynical pessimists (which combat troops usually become after extended months under fire) are less likely to indulge in wishful thinking except the wish to go home. Therefore, is General Petraeus routinely seeking the unfiltered comments of his enlisted men who go out beyond the concertina wire every night? If he is, I would feel more confident that his reports will be reliable.
What is bothersome regarding the unknown qualities of General Petraeus is that Bush is not known to allow anyone in a position of authority who might disagree with his particular world view, even in private. Bush unconsciously seems to prefer someone more incompetent than himself so that he can look good in comparison. (How else would you explain “Heckofajob” Brownie for instance.) Consequently, a logical fear is that General Petraeus might be another crony type or an ambitious one. After replacing all the generals who accurately predicted the mess before the war even started and got fired for saying so, it is hard to have confidence that Bush’s latest selection is unafraid to report reality.
Even if General Petraeus is fully competent, inclined to speak his own mind and has good intelligence regarding Iraq’s present situation though, there probably will not be any genuine two way communication between him and Bush. In fact, General Petraeus might be expressly ordered by his commander in chief not to convey any message or facts contrary to the White House daily delusions. Remember, although Bush obviously likes to pretend he is a warrior by dressing up in flight suits, he was too gutless actually put himself where he could even hear the sound of guns which means he has no shared combat experience on even war in general, let alone Iraq, despite his brief sneaks into the county at night. Once again, it suggests what the seven sergeants and those like them have to say on whether the surge is serviceable is more likely to be accurate than what a higher ranking politically appointed general has to say.
It should be noted I have nothing per se against those who quite wisely seek to avoid places where you can be killed. If Bush had confined himself to hiding out during the Vietnam War, that would merely have been self preservation instincts at work. I do have a problem though when the person hiding out insists that the war is a great idea and that others go in his place. The reason I draw the distinction is because when our “deciders” lack that shared sacrifice under fire so important to comprehension, it almost insures a lack of understanding as to both the realistic capabilities of our soldiers and the full costs when trying to conquer.
Let us hope General Petraeus is one of the good commanders who can still remember when he was younger huddling scared in the same hole as his men. Let us hope he recognized that others had valuable information. Let us hope he has the cajones to attempt to educate his boss. A good start might be for General Petraeus to bring those seven sergeants with him on his next visits to the White House and Congress.
If Bush would ever listen to what the troops actually have to say, as the seven sergeants have attempted to share, we would be a lot stronger or wiser, at least not have as many dead and wasted. Of course, that would require that Bush actually care about the troops he so willfully expends.
[Written by a former SSG, 3rd/187th battalion, 101st Airborne, Vietnam era. Lawlessone was his radio call sign.]
General David Petraeus, a former commander of the 101st Airborne Division on its last tour in Iraqis currently in charge of Bush’s “surge” efforts there. He will be returning shortly to pontificate on how Bush’s latest plan to “win” the war supposedly has been going. The snippets he has leaked to date suggest he will proclaim it’s, metaphorically, going great guns. In an alternate view published recently by the New York Times, seven sergeants who have actually been on the streets carrying out the surge provided their own personal observations and they could not be more contrasting.
What the two versions reveal is that there are basically two types of soldiers in most wars, those with the rank of major and above and those with the rank of captain and below. The former see the war as symbols on a map or, at closest, from helicopter height. These days, their's is the world of air conditioned comfort, hot meals, and clean, even pressed, uniforms. The only natives they meet tend to be just the local warlords and ward healers, usually corrupt ones at that. These upper rank officers, the ones with lots of gold braid and shiny brass, may get out in the field occasionally, but seldom for long. And, far too many never listen to those below them, particularly those in the enlisted ranks. The field grade officers, a misnomer, typically remain isolated even when completely surrounded by obsequious underlings.
The soldiers actually in the field, the grunts, those at the sharp end, see the war very differently. They see it up close and personal. They can’t miss the puddled blood and splattered gray matter. Perhaps circumstances force them to lie in it at times. They get to smell the indescribable stench of long dead or burned flesh that never leaves the nostrils once experienced. They taste the grit. They freeze. They bake. They hear, or worse, actually feel in their chest, the uniquely terrifying deep krump concussion of mortars dropping nearby. They understand that unlike in the movies, it does not matter how much a super soldier you are if the mortar shell decides to share your foxhole or if the AK-47 bullet happens to share the same airspace. They walk at night unable to see the trip wires, notwithstanding the high tech starlight scopes and infrared gear they wear. They often have reason to curse the limits of technology toys, particularly the untested new ones foisted on them by defense contractors more interested in surging profit than supporting the troops. They know the limits of human endurance by packing 80 pounds of gear on their own backs and eating cold MREs. They experience the real effects of the war, not the sanitized versions the history professors will later write. The grimy sweaty enlisted men and the lowest ranking officers actually leading them on foot learn all too well what war does to both to their own friends and the civilians they were there to protect. Interestingly, the enemy combatant sometimes earns greater respect than the REMFs who “lead” our own troops only from bunkers located far in the rear.
In any event, the view of war from the perspective of the ordinary infantryman carrying a rifle and searching buildings is one of almost relentless stress, worry, dirt, thirst, pain and fatigue. The one good thing, and occasionally very bad thing when death sickles a buddy, is the close comradery that can develop from the shared, often communal, experience among those fighting the war as captains, lieutenants, sergeants and privates.
These two very different views of the same conflict; i.e. the “higher highers” vantage point versus those scuttling, sometimes literally, on their bellies seeking cover, are so dramatically different that it is almost as if they are fighting different wars. Neither can really understand the other, yet both desperately need to communicate because each has critical information the other lacks.
The best commanders, sadly they’re quite rare, seem to be those who have endured enough close combat at some point in their careers to develop a genuine and lasting empathy with the enlisted ground pounders permanently assigned to kick down the doors. It needs to be long enough for the commander to discover that the enlisted men have useful and practical information. It needs to be long enough for the adrenalin rush to hard wire the experience into muscle memory. Merely earning the combat infantry badge is not enough. That only necessitates being under fire once. Unfortunately, what is probably needed for the lessons to really take hold is to be under fire long enough to lose someone they really cared about. That is when they finally learn the uncountable costs of combat and to not be wasteful of others’ lives. They certainly need to have taken the combat tour assignment for something more than just getting their ticket punched to show they met all their future promotion requirements.
Is General Petraeus one of those commanders men in uniform would consider worth following up a hill? I don’t know. Having served in the 101st Airborne myself, I hope so out of unit pride. But, if it becomes a question of whether to believe the seven doubting sergeants who have been carrying out Bush’s “surge” house to house or believing some general arbitrarily put in power by Bush, my inclination is to put more trust in the observations of the ones who happened to have observed events at grenade distance. They may not have the “big picture,” but the big picture type of guys like Bush’s buddies seem to have been uniformly and horribly wrong.
Besides, when breaking in doors and interacting with civilians in other ways, it is pretty easy for the average boot wielder to get a pretty good feel for at least whether or not the locals are genuinely interested in behaving. Body language is quite eloquent in situations like that. The number of bobby traps discovered divided by whether or not the locals give warnings before such traps are discovered the hard way equals the pucker factor. It is usually a far better predictor than the ideologies and egos of those at high levels who never have contact with the average citizen of the country sought to be subdued.
And, since we are not trying to simply exterminate the populace, isn’t that the one key question in Iraq; i.e., whether they are really interested in behaving themselves? As almost every guerilla war in the past century seems to have shown, until the populace decides they really want to have peace and solve their own problems, it becomes just a bottomless pit. On that subject, the cynical pessimists (which combat troops usually become after extended months under fire) are less likely to indulge in wishful thinking except the wish to go home. Therefore, is General Petraeus routinely seeking the unfiltered comments of his enlisted men who go out beyond the concertina wire every night? If he is, I would feel more confident that his reports will be reliable.
What is bothersome regarding the unknown qualities of General Petraeus is that Bush is not known to allow anyone in a position of authority who might disagree with his particular world view, even in private. Bush unconsciously seems to prefer someone more incompetent than himself so that he can look good in comparison. (How else would you explain “Heckofajob” Brownie for instance.) Consequently, a logical fear is that General Petraeus might be another crony type or an ambitious one. After replacing all the generals who accurately predicted the mess before the war even started and got fired for saying so, it is hard to have confidence that Bush’s latest selection is unafraid to report reality.
Even if General Petraeus is fully competent, inclined to speak his own mind and has good intelligence regarding Iraq’s present situation though, there probably will not be any genuine two way communication between him and Bush. In fact, General Petraeus might be expressly ordered by his commander in chief not to convey any message or facts contrary to the White House daily delusions. Remember, although Bush obviously likes to pretend he is a warrior by dressing up in flight suits, he was too gutless actually put himself where he could even hear the sound of guns which means he has no shared combat experience on even war in general, let alone Iraq, despite his brief sneaks into the county at night. Once again, it suggests what the seven sergeants and those like them have to say on whether the surge is serviceable is more likely to be accurate than what a higher ranking politically appointed general has to say.
It should be noted I have nothing per se against those who quite wisely seek to avoid places where you can be killed. If Bush had confined himself to hiding out during the Vietnam War, that would merely have been self preservation instincts at work. I do have a problem though when the person hiding out insists that the war is a great idea and that others go in his place. The reason I draw the distinction is because when our “deciders” lack that shared sacrifice under fire so important to comprehension, it almost insures a lack of understanding as to both the realistic capabilities of our soldiers and the full costs when trying to conquer.
Let us hope General Petraeus is one of the good commanders who can still remember when he was younger huddling scared in the same hole as his men. Let us hope he recognized that others had valuable information. Let us hope he has the cajones to attempt to educate his boss. A good start might be for General Petraeus to bring those seven sergeants with him on his next visits to the White House and Congress.
If Bush would ever listen to what the troops actually have to say, as the seven sergeants have attempted to share, we would be a lot stronger or wiser, at least not have as many dead and wasted. Of course, that would require that Bush actually care about the troops he so willfully expends.
[Written by a former SSG, 3rd/187th battalion, 101st Airborne, Vietnam era. Lawlessone was his radio call sign.]
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