Is This What I served in the military for?

Back in the day 1975-1981

Back in the mid 1970s I was a young (early 20s) and idealistic Air Force brat/young military troop with a father who had had a long and honorable Air Force career as a twenty-year NCO.

He was in Radar Ops. Sitting on mountaintops watching the Evil Russkies during the Cold War. We lived all over the United States, and in Spain (Mallorca, before Generalissimo Franco closed down the base there) and Germany (if you want to know where we lived in Germany go watch Stripes - that little blinking cursor on their map in the Urban Assault Vehicle, just over the border in Czechoslavakia, was at the most, 30 miles from where we lived in Germany when I was 13, in 1965).

I thought I was pretty intelligent about politics in my youth (been a Democrat, in the face of Republican opposition from my parents) from the time I was old enough to understand both terms. But I never really became politically aware until Bush II came to power..........then I started following things on the Web, read Daily Kos and a number of other very good blogs, and started reading the books that were recommended. (Barbara Ehrenreich, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Greg Palast) and realized just the filthy extent of how I had been lied to ALL my life.

Dwight Eisenhower had it right "beware the Military-Industrial Complex - once you've created a society for yourself where a whole bunch of your people are working for "defense" industries, you are going to depend on war to keep your economy afloat. Especially when you sign trade agreements that assure that all other jobs will leave your country in search of cheap foreign labor. (And trust me, I don't hate the poor bastards that comprise the cheap foreign labor, unlike the Lou Dobbs, et. al. of this world)

I'm now wondering what all the time I spent in the military was for........what were we doing there in Germany playing all those war games, going through all those motions, doing all that Very Important Cold War Stuff? Was it to get Ronald Reagan and GHWB elected? And what the HELL are we doing with military bases in 700 countries around the world? What is that for if not to secure (steal) resources for American (only nominally American, multinational) corporations at this point, and steal those countries resources?

I'm now familiar with the idea of "inventing an enemy". I mean, the Soviet Union was no prize, but I know they were lying to us about THAT, I know they were lying about the "Global War on Terror" and I know they lie about everything else. And have been doing it for years.

SIGH. Don't anybody say to me "thank you for your service". I mean, I appreciate that sentiment and all, but I don't think my service did anything to help the American People. And it's really them I care about. My so-called patriotism does not extend beyond the American People to the filthy liars that probably exploited my service and profited from it.