----- Original Message ----- From: Vets Call to Conscience To: calltoconscience at yahoo.com Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 4:40 PM Subject: letter from active duty reservist who does not want to deploy
This is from a young man I have been corresponding with. He has tried to get out of the military many times. He might appreciate hearing from some of you with thoughts of support.
terri
This is my letter I sent to my commander. The first part I got from Scott Ritter and the second part I got from a combination of sources including my head.I am planning on writing an essay called TURTLE AM I.
Jeremy W. Suggs
March 18, 2003
Dear Friend,
Originally I requested a discharge but since you will not grant my wish. I must go to the next best option. Which is the inactive reserves. The reason for my should be apparent in my past actions. I have gone AWOL, countless negative counseling statements, and disrespect towards NCO's. I do not believe in the war against Iraq and have rejected civilizations work ethic.
The case for war against Iraq has not been made. This is a fact. It is doubtful in the extreme that Saddam Hussein has retained any functional aspect of the chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons programs so thoroughly dismantled by the United Nations weapons inspectors who worked tirelessly in Iraq for seven years. This also a fact. The idea that Hussein has connections to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists is laughable. He is a secular leader who has worked for years to crush fundamentalists Islam within Iraq, and if he were to give weapons of any kind to Qaeda, they would use those weapons on him first.
If Bush decides unilaterally to attack Iraq he will be in violation of international law. Saddam Hussein is a monster, by any definition, but he is our monster. We supported him when he used chemical weapons against Iran and in fact thwarted attempts by Iraqi insurgents. The only solution requires time and patience. Through a gradual change. Muslim clerics have met and decided that if the US attacks Iraq they will urge Muslims to commit Jihad on US interests. If Bush does attack Iraq, he will precipitate the exact conflict of cultures between the West and Islam that Osama bin Laden was hoping for. War is horrible if you do not believe me talk to the Veterans for Peace. We talk nothing of war anymore. I think this is good enough for the purpose of this letter. If you want more I will give it to you.
What is an idler? The word is most commonly used these days in its prejorative sense: an idler is lazy, a good-for-nothing, a lay about, slacker, indole, a slothful couch potato who contributes nothing to society, a sponging lollygag without the wherewithal and discipline to put in an honest day's toil.
It is my belief that idleness has a rich and noble heritage dating back centuries. Idleness is seen again and again for what it actually is: a rejection of worldly pressures, an individualist revolt against authority, a pleasure, a spiritual practice. The work ethic is revealed as a relatively recent phenomenon, conceived to make people slave away in dark satanic mills for puny returns.
Even now one is ashamed of resting: and prolonged reflection almost gives people a bad conscience. One thinks with a watch in one's hand, even as one eats one's midday meal while reading the latest news; one lives as if one "might miss out on something." "Rather do anything than nothing": this principle, too, is merely a string to throttle all culture and good taste. Just as all forms are visibly perishing by the haste of the workers, the feelings for form itself, the era and eye for the melody are also perishing. The proof of this may be found in the universal demand for gross obviousness in all those situations in which human beings wish to be honest with each other for once-in their associations with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes. One no longer has the time and energy for being obliging in a direct way in conversation, and for any otium at all. Living in a constant chase for gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion in continual pretense and overreaching and anticipating others. Virtue has come to consist of doing something in less time than someone else. Hours in which honesty is permitted have become rare, and when they arrive one is tired and does not only want to "let oneself go" but actually wishes to stretch out as long and wide and ungainly as one happens to be.
If sociability and the arts still offer any delight, it is the kind of delight that slaves, weary of their work, device for themselves. How frugal our educated and uneducated people have become regarding joy! How they are becoming increasingly suspicious of all joy! More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a "need to recuperate" and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to ones health" that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. Soon we may well reach a point where people can no longer give in to the desire for a walk with ideas and friends.
I would like to end with a quote from Leo Tolstoy " I only know that on the one hand, government is no longer necessary for me, and on the other hand, I can no longer carry out the measures that are necessary to the existence of a government. Settle for yourselves what you need for your life. I know only what I need and do not need, what I can do and what I cannot. I know that I do not need to divide myself off from other nations, and therefore cannot admit that I belong exclusively to any state or nation, or that I owe allegiance to any government." I breath only peace and freedom. I wish only to live and remain idle. You in contrast, sweats, scurries about, and constantly frets in search of ever more laborious occupations. Your kind toil until death, and even hastens toward his grave in getting ready to live, or surrenders his life to acquire immortality. He pays court to great men he loathes and rich men he holds in contempt; he spares nothing to gain the honour of serving them; he delightedly boasts of his own humble station and of their protection, and, proud of his slavery, he speaks patronizingly of those who have not the honour of sharing it. So let me go and leave me alone.
Sincerely,
Suggs, Jeremy, W.
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