Deserters are "wonderful" but there's nothing honorable or worthy of thanks in agreeing to take the risk that your country might ask you to serve in a way that is both dangerous and with which you might not agree, is that it?
And by the way there are plenty of people in the armed forces who disagree vociferously with Bush and say it loudly and whenever they can. I am personal friends with a guy who risked his commission by working tirelessly on a political campaign (against general orders) in order to try and get himself - and America - a new commander-in-chief. I exchanged a harrowing phone call with a young guy from the Stryker Brigade - from his barracks at Fort Lewis - who was so upset with the Bush administration that he was tearfully considering going AWOL. He didn't do it only because he felt he couldn't do something that would dishearten his comrades just before they all shipped out.
Maybe you need to live somewhere where there are more people in the military.
So when I thank the uniformed personell I am clear with them that I am against the war and if it was up to me we wouldn't be shipping out to Iraq or have had to be over there. They have been uniformly thankful for the sentiment. Very few of them are eager for this mission, in my experience, and most of the veterans I've met support their comrades overseas but that's pretty much the extent of their support.
I really don't understand what you'd like these soldiers to do. Drop their guns and run for Syria? Sneak off their bases and start some communes in Kuwait? Or should they do what they committed to do (almost all of them having made this commitment before they could have had an opportunity to question the war they would be called on to fight) and get themselves and their fellow soldiers back home in one piece?
You really need to re-think this.
boddi
On 11/23/05, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> >Doug:
> >> No. They're trained killers who follow orders without question. Yeah,
> >> I know all about the pressures that make people join, but they are,
> >> in the final analysis, volunteers. And yeah, it's nasty risky work,
> >> but they signed on the dotted line. I don't owe them any gratitude.
> >>
> >> And, as we learned at Nuremburg, following orders is no excuse.
> >
> >I am certainly sympathetic to this line of reasoning, but I also spent
> >enough time among the GIs to believe that things are that simple. Yes, they
> >do voluntarily sign the dotted line, but they are not necessarily trained
> >killers who follow orders without question. More likely, they become such
> >killers as a result of the circumstances - as for example superbly portrayed
> >in the film _A full metal jacket_.
> >
> >I think there is a lot of middle ground and shadows of grey between
> >gratitude and condemnation.
>
> I saw John Crawford, who's written what may be the first novel of the
> Iraq war, reading with Chrstian Parenti the other week. Christian
> pretty much discovered him on one of his visits to Iraq, and put him
> together with an agent. Now he's got a best-selling novel. Crawford's
> a smart guy, but he made it very clear that he's an army man, as were
> his colleagues. They do/did as they're told, and don't think or talk
> about politics. As Christian pointed out, in this they're good
> Americans, who in civilian life don't think much about politics
> either. But even though these guys have gotten fucked over by a lying
> administration who sent them, under-equipped, into a hideous and
> pointless war, they don't seem to mind. Deserters like the wonderful
> Camilo Majia are rare indeed.
>
> Doug
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