Like all human beings, I am a bundle of contradictions. A librarian with published stories in the fantasy and erotica genres. A feminist who thinks kinky sex is nobody's business so long as all involved are consenting adults and you're not doing serious harm to each other. a liberal opponent to both rounds of insanity in the Gulf who is the wife of a Navy vet who served 23 years, and participated in the first round of madness.
I was the Worst Navy Wife in History--or at least one of the top ten. I never did ANY wives' club meetings, avoided squadron parties like the plague, and didn't volunteer to help with a damned thing. I was openly critical of military inefficiency and some of the more stupid traditions. I found the sexism in the military appalling. and said so. The Military Honor and Decency Act which removed 250 or so mags form exchange bookstore racks (granted most of the mags they pulled were pretty sleazy--but they left Soldier of Fortune, which just proved violence is American but naked breasts are not) was the start of my letter writing campaign to Stars and Stripes--I found out I had a fan following of women who wanted to say stuff but were afraid of harming their husband's career; MINE backed me 110% since freedom of speech was one of the rights he had joined up to defend.
But I learned one thing: that most of the people who serve are just that: PEOPLE. They are someone's son or daughter, someone's husband or wife, someone's brother or sister, someone's parent. Some were as liberal politically as I was, but many were pretty conservative. Some were atheists while there were conservative Christians (about 50% identify as fundamentalist or evangelical Christians, higher than the population). Most were pretty smart, while others were Too Stupid to Live (like the one kid my husband supervised who electrocuted himself three times the same way). They were mostly intelligent and funny and planned to stay in just long enough to get their college bennies, since they tended to come from families which weren't poor enough to qualify for BEG grants but couldn't pay for college even with student loans (and Bush pushed through some nasty legislation that made it almost impossible to get student loans if you lived home with your parents to save money). I got to know a lot of the younger guys because we always invite them over for Thanksgiving and Christmas--and I liked most of them a lot.
Which is why it gives me pain when I write diaries that make nasty remarks about the troops and say it isn't possible to oppose a war but support the poor schmucks fighting it. I suspect we are on the way to the attitude that greeted the men who fought in Nam--they will be greeted by people who will spit on them. And that infuriates me.
I am just as appalled by Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and the use of torture as the noisiest anti-war person here. Probably more so, because I KNOW this couldn't have happened without sanction (or willful ignorance) from lots higher up the command ladder, and, from the memos written by Gonzales as White House Counsel, probably all the way to the White House. I want the Big Guys burned, not just the peons. The nonsense that they are enemy combatants, not soldiers, is bullshit. It is hairsplitting that would make a Jesuit cringe. Whether they wear uniforms or not, we cannot afford to mistreat prisoners--it harms us in the eyes of the world, and it is simply morally wrong.
I want all incidents in which civilians are hurt that have even the appearance of being mishandled, investigated and the perpetrators punished if they are found guilty (and I'd like these investigations to involve Iraqis as well s the military--an outside committee). Someone mentioned the checkpoint killing of an Iraqi family--the soldiers say the car was speeding and didn't slow down to stop for the checkpoint; others say that isn't true. This was never settled to my satisfaction. I suspect the car might not have slowed sufficiently, and that the young soldiers panicked. When you have seen friends blown up by IEDs or suicide bombers or short by snipers, you tend to be distrustful and to read ill intent where none may have existed. I don't know what happened that night, and, frankly, since there wasn't a video of the shooting, we will likely never know. But I doubt those soldiers shot them for the hell of it.
The difference, I think, between me and the ones who point fingers at Abu Ghraib and at the checkpoint killing as evidence that the entire military is rotten and that our soldiers are monsters, is that I actually know people in the military. Most Americans don't--especially if they are white, middle class and well-educated. . And that, perhaps is why some liberals tend to condemn our troops so easily--demonizing them
Since we abolished the draft, and went to an all-volunteer force, the enlisted ranks are made up of those who couldn't get a job, couldn't afford college,. or sincerely believe in old-fashioned service to their country. Some stay in and go career because they marry and can't afford to get out--no jobs. After you do 12, you stay in for the pension. And some love the discipline and believe what they are doing is valuable (and, frankly, it can be--Kosovo is an example). The lower ranks of officers have a lot of ROTC grads who have to serve their time to pay for their educations. I think pilots stay in because they can fly fighter jets, something they can't do in civilian life--maybe not the best reason, but pilots are a breed unto themselves. But for the most part, whatever their reason, most military people are decent, hard-working, caring and concerned. They don't enjoy killing, and most are traumatized by their experiences--at least 25% of troops have PTSD (and those are the ones honest enough to admit it). They probably hate what they do --even if they support the war--far more than those pf us complacently sleeping cozily in our beds far away from gunfire and roadside bombs, because they know the effects of war in a way we never will. My own husband has seen combat. It took him 10 years to talk to me about his experiences. He cried in my arms. I suspect scenes like that happen often in homes with a military member.
Without a draft, it is easy to make soldiers The Other, someone so different from us that we can feel safe demonizing them and hating them. We take away their humanity and look down upon them. And this trend--Them in the military, and Us, civilians who know we'll never have to feel that THEY feel--will continue so long as there isn't a universal draft with no college exemptions.
Do some families who have lost a child or spouse defend the war? Sure. Some do because they honestly believe that the war is just--to them removing Saddam Hussein, who, by anyone's standards was a monster, justifies everything. They seem to be able to close their eyes to the insurgency and the impending civil war. They need to believe that their loved one's death meant something. And that is their right. Unfortunately BushCo uses these grieving families. Attack the Republican rhetoric, not the grieving families.
Others, like Cindy Sheehan don't believe that their loved one's death happened as part of a just war that will ultimately benefit the Iraqi people. Had it been my husband,. I'd have been camping out in Lafayette Park, burning flags in protest. Because I KNOW that the reasons for going to war were lies, that the real reason was oil and revenge and Bush one-upping Poppy--and that, ultimately Iraq will fragment into what it always was until the British cobbled it together: three separate entities. Maybe a miracle will happen and traditional hatreds will be conquered, but these days miracles seem in short supply.
I have no problem with people op[posing the war. I do. I have infinite respect for pacifists. But you aren't only a pacifist if you can truly state that you are willing to die before you will defend yourself--and that you will die rather than kill someone else, to defend someone you love. I can certainly respect someone who feels a particular war is wrong and who is willing to go to jail rather than fight in it. But I have real problems with snarky loudmouths who put down men and women in the military and brand them as monsters.
Oppose the war. PLEASE. Call f or Bush's impeachment. Attack the rhetoric of the Busheviks that uses grieving families to support its unjust, illegal war. But don't attack the troops. Because THEY are US. And if there is a draft, WE will become THEM.
The best way to support the troops is, of course, to f=demand that Bush bring them home NOW.