As one of the MCM diarists and one of the few diarists currently on active duty I owe it to you, the dear readers of my ramblings, to know why I'm here, where I came from, and what you can expect from my rambling posts. Warning: this post also rambles
The funny thing is, my wife and I both want to be proud conservatives. No really, that's how we both grew up and that's closer to the political philosophy we gravitate towards, but something happened to conservatives along the way.
I was raised in Arkansas and the only governor I was remember from my youth was Bill Clinton. My parents were not fans, however, and passed their feelings on to me. Growing up Catholic (and having 12 years of Catholic education) meant that most politics were centered around abortion. The only other vivid memory of childhood politics is when the GOP nominee for governor turned out to actually be a Neo-Nazi. Not exactly a hotly contested election there.
So I grew up and registered R, went to the US Naval Academy for college and immediately found myself surrounded by more conservative people; the prevailing feeling was "Democrats = wussies." I voted for Bush the Younger the first time around, somewhat from a latent distrust of Clinton administration officials. President Bush came to graduation that year and was bear-hugged by the anchorman (the lowest ranked graduate from the class) which aggravated the Secret Service quite a bit. Pay was going to go up, taxes were promised to go down, life was good.
There was a shift in attitudes after the WTC attacks. USNA had gone from a school filled with people who wanted to serve their country to a school of people getting ready for war. A year later when the Iraq buildup began, most of the student body believed the President. We had all been alive and aware of the world during Desert Storm and figured this wouldn't be much different. We were keeping an eye on those TV tuners to see when this whole "Shock and Awe" thing would happen. It was very easy to stay Republican. Secretary Rumsfeld was well received at my graduation, not least because he made a "Marines exist to guard the gates and harass the sailors" joke only a few months after the Superintendent (a Vice Admiral) had made headlines for his New Years altercation with one of the gate guards.
As I worked my way through flight school and the fighting intensified my friends started dying. I had a couple former teachers and a TBS classmate get killed within a few months of each other, but it didn't change my attitude much. It's a war; we all knew the risks, and we accepted them when we signed on.
As the war drew on, I started questioning our motives. Whenever I'd see signs or stories that WMDs had been found, I perked up because I wanted to see them, I wanted to know that we had gone in for good reason.
The 2004 election was an exercise in apathy. I didn't want to re-elect President Bush, but I didn't have any motivation to vote for Senator Kerry. It wasn't the swift boating or the "he's not a real soldier" claims, just no reason to vote for him. My absentee ballot sat on my desk for most of October and was never filled out.
As my career continued my previous strong-right stance shifted. During the 2006 elections I was in Virginia and felt the GOP was asking me to vote for a known racist simply because he pretended he'll outlaw abortions. Around this time I started paying more attention to politics. The more people I knew the more I realized how similar everyone really is. The same thing happened when I traveled abroad; no matter what country I was in everyone just wanted to live their life without other people interfering.
Looking internally at politics I saw that goal being supported more by the Democratic party than by the GOP. Without consensus, the default answer to a political question must be against restrictions. A man's closest friend is another man instead of a woman? Fine, just treat them right. Never mind what my religion says or what your religion says, if it's not their religion then it doesn't apply.
Which brings me to where I am now. I don't fight for religious reasons, or the furthering of my party, or for the greater glory of America. I choose to fight because the rights of the opposition are what make this country possible and what allows it to be great. Michele Bachmann's right to give her opinion on light bulb policy is every bit as important as the right of citizens to gather in peaceful protest. The rights of the opposition, however small its makeup, is one of the most important tenets of my political philosophy.
So here I am on Kos, a not-entirely-Democrat who definitely doesn't fit in with the GOP. As one of the few active duty Kossaks I hope I can shed some light on military theory, general principles of warfare, and how new tech might shape the next battlespace. I welcome any and all diary suggestions, but do need to remind everyone of a couple of things.
1. I've identified myself as an active duty Marine. I cannot speak or comment about ongoing operations, policy, or other matters that may get me in trouble (e.g. why we're in Afghanistan, what the US goals are, etc). No matter who is in office, I am supposed to follow their orders and execute policy and I take that responsibility seriously.
2. I can speak about my personal experiences, as long as I don't break the aforementioned rule about commentary on current operations. Questions about military theory are fare game, as are most questions on military tech and application.
I'm always wearing the uniform when posting, so I'll probably be a little more guarded than your average Kossak. That said, ask away! I'm going to start on a series about maneuver warfare theory and we'll see what spawns from that.