I felt it necessary to share with this wonderful community, my thoughts on Memorial Day and the current state of our military and its alleged leaders. I apologize if this gets a little long-winded but I have a lot to say.
When I was a kid, Memorial Day was always just another day off of school before the impending summer break. I never fully understood its import until later in my life when I reconnected with some relatives that I had not seen in some years. First, I suppose, a little background is in order. My mother's side of my family is steeped in American military tradition going back to the French and Indian War (in which I had relatives on both sides). As a child, when I heard of Memorial Day, if I even gave it a second thought, it was this:
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Upon seeing this image today, I can't help but think of my great-uncle Chester who, at the time, was a young Marine Corps Dentist who had cross-trained into the infantry in order to defend the pacific theater. He was there on this day and I have always been proud of him and of our military for the accomplishment that this photo represents. Unfortunately, Uncle Chet succumbed to cancer recently and I miss him terribly. I am afraid, however, that the unrelenting hope for a brighter day that victories such as Iwo Jima represented to his generation has died with these brave men who defended freedom and liberty those 60 or so years ago.
In a letter to Robert Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton wrote, "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." When I enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1997, this ideal was always in the front of my mind. My service would be dedicated to the service and defense of the ideals that this nation was founded upon and, more importantly, to the memory of those who went before me but never made it home from their own trials defending those ideals. I tried to live up to the responsibility that entailed with grace, dignity and honor and, for the most part, I believe I honored those men and women to the best of my abilities.
It is, therefore, with great sadness and quite a lot of anger that I have been forced to watch the memory of those brave souls sullied by a pack of miscreants with neither the experience nor the integrity to command the brave men and women under their care. It was my great pleasure and distinct honor to serve underneath some fine Commanders. These men and women all shared a singularity of purpose where their command was concerned: to uphold with integrity the core principles of the Air Force and to ensure that the troops underneath their authority all came home as intact as possible. In his incredibly poignant book, Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden wrote something to the effect that no one sets out to become a hero; it just sometimes works out that way. It has been my distinct honor to have met and worked side by side with some genuine American heroes.
My decision to join the military was a great mystery to many of my friends and they all asked me at one point or another what made the military the way it is. Why did I love it? Was it the adrenaline? Was it the women who love a man in uniform (God love them!)? Was it a thirst for action or death? They simply couldn't fathom why someone of my convictions (particularly politically) would wish to put myself in harms way for ideals that most Americans take for granted every day. The simplest way to answer that question is something I can say with certainty that every veteran would second. It's all about the guy standing next to you. It is esprit de corps, friendship, kinship, shared hardships and many other things all wrapped up into a single package. This is true whether you are standing next to a slick-sleeve (an E-1 or enlisted member with no rank yet) or a 4-star General. We all shared the same goals, trials, and everything else that went along with the mission.
In the early days of my military enlistment I believed this extended to ALL of those in command over me. When the call came down to go to Kosovo to stop thousands of ethnic Albanians from being slaughtered, there was an outpouring of troops volunteering to put an end to such a grave injustice. While there, the integrity of the Civilian and Military leaders above us shown through radiantly in the execution of that engagement (Thank you General Clark!). Sadly, that changed in the last 2 years of my enlistment. I decided not to reenlist 4 days after Vice President Al Gore conceded to the Supreme Court's decision to appoint a man with no sense of integrity to the office of Commander in Chief. I knew then, as I do now, that George W. Bush had neither the integrity nor the intelligence to command the United States military wisely (among other things). Upon his appointment of Donald Rumsfeld to the position of Secretary of Defense, I knew that the US military was truly in trouble. Unfortunately, my predictions were even more prescient than I realized at the time.
These men have systematically changed the landscape of our military's operational theater. In their myopic and, I would argue insane, view the Geneva Conventions (a document that serves to protect our troops in the field as well as those of our enemies) are "quaint and outdated", torture has become systemically accepted and associated with the American military the world over (something I never ever thought I would have the misfortune of saying/writing), and an atmosphere of inculpability at the highest ranks has been fostered and allowed to become prevalent. Meanwhile, the troops who are bleeding and dying for the mistakes of these power-hungry war mongers are being neglected both while still in theater and when they come home.
"You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you would want to have." This was Donald Rumsfeld's response to an honest question from one of the troops underneath his command regarding the lack of adequate armored vehicles in the theater. This is simply unconscionable! Three years after we engaged in a war fought on a whim, at a time of our choosing, and based on lies we are still not providing our troops with the equipment necessary to protect their safety during the execution of their mission (whatever that may be this week). We are sending mentally unstable men and women back into the meat grinder that caused their instability in the first place and treating the situation with narcotics that may cause them to become suicidal or homicidal. In addition, a myriad of egregious attacks on military and veterans' benefits have been undertaken by the Department of Defense and the Republican controlled Congress of the United States. In point of fact, there is not a single benefit afforded to Veterans of the US military that they have not attempted to cut outright or strip down to the point of ineffectiveness. It begs one to wonder whether the goal all along was to undercut our military's effectiveness and, therefore, generate a never-ending necessity for more military spending. I find it strikingly abhorrent that the fiscal year 2006 budget caused over 100,000 veterans to lose their health coverage while, at the same time, providing $1.2 Billion for a weapons system that has been proven to be, at best, ineffective if not completely inoperable. Our Congress, who get to go home to their families during the 270 days of vacation they have this year, felt it more important to pass an "English as official language" bill rather than give our military, many of whom haven't seen their families in over a year, the money they need to execute the mission prior to the holiday this weekend. These along with the many other offenses against this nation's brave defenders will become an albatross around the neck of this nation for decades to come.
I mentioned earlier that, as a child, when I thought of Memorial Day it brought to mind heroic images of campaigns past such as Iwo Jima or VJ Day. Sadly, from now on the rest of the world will associate other images with the memory of our military:
On this Memorial Day my heart is saddened and goes out to the families of all of our troops who have died for a lie in the last 3 years. It goes out to the children of my friends who have been killed or maimed in this travesty of a war. It goes out to all the brave men and women who are spending today hunkered down in the blistering heat of the desert cuddling with an M-16 rather than their sweetheart. It goes out to the civilians who have lost their lives including the CBS news crew which was killed this morning and all of the innocent Iraqis killed for oil, logistics and greed. My heart is heavy and my pride in the accomplishment of my military service lessened. Thanks for reading this.