I wrote it out. I looked at it, and I just couldn't find the heart to publish it.
What's the point?
You all know as well as I do what I was going to say. War is a racket. We - me, everyone I served with, the people serving now, the veterans of tomorrow and next week and next year - are just the bailiff's men, serving our country's liens in places and on people all over the world. No, we don't do sweet fuck all to "defend your freedoms". We kill people and break shit that our "leaders" have designated as inimical to our national interests. This year we're the button men and women for Donnie "Five-Deferment" Trump and his crew of racketeers - just as we have been for every President and every Congress since about 1945. Maybe 1953, if you want to be nice about it.
Now there's some honor and decency serving as an imperial legionary. Not all empires are Evil.
But to pretend that we're still the Arsenal of Democracy of Remember Pearl Harbor? To tell ourselves that the people who wore the uniforms in the 1980's and 1990's and Oughts and now the Teens are somehow like the Greatest Generation that saw off Hitler and Tojo?
That's just foolish, the self-deluding mumbling of an idiot child afraid of the dark and needing the comfort of a kindly lie.
I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy my Army days. I won't pretend that I'm not proud that I was a good soldier and then a good sergeant. When my days are done I'll gladly slope off for a pint in Hell with my old pals from Division, from my Reserve and Guard outfits, and maybe if we're lucky with the hard boys of the Legio X Fretensis, and the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the Légion étrangère. Here's to us. Who's like us. Damn few, and they're all dead.
I know who I am, and what I did. I'm not ashamed of it, but I'm not vauntingly proud, either. I didn't hold Bastogne or Guadalcanal. I did the dirty work of geopolitics and I'm okay with that. I served with good people, had a laugh, and came home sound, and no legionary can ask more than that.
No, it is you and I, my friends, my fellow Americans, my fellow citizens and civilians, who need to look into our hearts and souls and ask why we have been happy - or, at least, not incandescently furious - to be lied to, gleeful to parrot - or willing to let it pass without clamor - the nonsense hurled at us about "freedom" and "fighting them there", eager to pretend - or willing to let others pretend - that we have not sent, or been willing to let others send in our name, young men and women into harm's way for nothing more than a handful of dollars, or a passing bit of geopolitics, or some fancy of "national honor", or some fantasy about dangerous enemies, where there is nothing but ruin and impotent anger that our own nation has grown from the seeds of our own ignorant hate and fear while pretending to be the victims ourselves.
I just don't have the heart to rant about this. I am just tired, and a little grieved, for the foolish waste of it all.
On this day I offer only the cold comfort that our nation's ideals promise that We the People can choose to honor our veterans by choosing not to make more of them unless it's for a truly fucking good reason.
For those of you who have come here seeking grave words hymning this day, weighted with honor and glory of the service I and mine have done and do, I have none.
"(...)just as we have been for every President and every Congress since [1954]."
ReplyDeleteThere, I fixed it.
The whole thing really picked up speed in 1983, though.
Thing is, the U.S. was doing a lot of military and quasi-military farkling about the global hustings looking for nothing more than squalid political coin in the early Fifties, too. Mossadeigh was 1953. Shitloads of gunboat diplomacy in Central America in the Fifties and Sixties - Cuba, DomRep, propping up Montt in Guatemala and Somoza in Nicaragua...
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah, you can count Korea as a "good war", if you're willing to accept that there IS such a thing. Maybe a "can't-avoid-war" might be a better term.
It's not about good war or not. Korea was not a 'want to play games' war, nor a selfish one. It was the last time the U.S. non-hypocritically defended the values of the Charter of the United Nations.
DeleteThe coup against Mossadegh was done through the CIA, not the military. I picked 1953 as the turning point myself, but back then I was not focused on military force.
https://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-rot-of-pax-americana-i.html
Agree, and that's why I changed the text.
DeleteAs I replied to mike, below, the mailed fist wasn't far inside the leather glove of the CIA; the old OSS hands thought of themselves as fighting wars by other means, and it's no surprise that there was a spectrum of conflict between things like the intrigues in Indochina and the origin of MAC-V, or the invasions of Lebanon and the Bay of Pigs. One of the big geopolitical issues with U.S. foreign policy has been the nebulous boundary between "intelligence" and force.
We were not dragged kicking and screaming into the Korean War. It was definitely just as avoidable as many of the others since then. As for Mossadegh, Montt, and Somoza, are you equating the CIA with the military?
ReplyDeleteI see your boy 'five-deferment' Donnie is once again skipping laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. And instead is play acting as the Grand Marshal of the New York City Veterans Day parade. Although he will NOT be marching. And not even riding in the parade in his bullet proof 'Cadillac One'. Instead he gave a speech at Madison Square Park, which had been roped off so he could not hear or see protesters chanting "bone-spurs". The organizers who invited him, the United War Veterans Council, should be ashamed. He has recently agreed to pay a fine of $2 million dollars for misusing funds from veterans fundraiser during the run-up to the 2016 Iowa caucuses to further his political campaign.
As Sven points out, though; Korea was, at least, a genuine bad-guys-on-one-side type war, as similar to the reasonable clear-cut ethics of WW2 as is possible. (You note I don't say "good-guys-on-the-other" because, well, fucking Syngman Rhee...). No, we didn't get "dragged in". And the Red Scare rationale that was the excuse was, generally, a bad influence in U.S. foreign policy. But - given how utterly horrible the Kims have been - we did as close to "the right thing"; at least for the many generations of Koreans who HAVEN'T had to live in a Kim-run state - as possible.
DeleteWhat I find infinitely appalling and depressing is how the Trump "charity" scam news has gone exactly nowhere. Can you imagine if Obama or, worse, the Clintons, had been caught doing exactly this? If in office they'd have been impeached in a fortnight and convicted and removed within a month.
Instead...here we are.
Yes. WASF.
Oh, and, as mentioned to Svan...yes. The old guard that regrouped as the CIA had come up through Donovan's OSS, and they were, fundamentally, officers in an unconventional warfare unit. The wall between the Army and the CIA was pretty thin, and a lot of the sorts of CIA-sponsored shenanigans in places like Colombia and El Salvador and Chile and Iran and Vietnam translated into GIs getting waxed.
DeleteTrump's grandfather left Germany to avoid the draft. When he went back he was kicked out for being a draft dodger. No members of the Trump family have ever served in the US military. President Bone-Spurs sure knows how to hump a flag though. They should burn those Trump crotch-caressed-flags that he wraps himself in while on stage.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the old guard of the OSS/CIA. Very few had military experience. Those that did were typically on the Jedburgh teams that parachuted behind enemy lines. And after the war they went back to their respective military services or returned to civilian life. One exception was Bill Colby. But most OSS folks came from civilian academia or law firms or diplomatic service and many diverse occupations as long as they already had foreign language skills. Kermit Roosevelt who some say engineered the Mossadegh plot for the British was never a soldier. He went directly from being a history professor at CalTech into the OSS. Allen Dulles never had military experience - he was a lawyer and during WW1 he was a diplomat. Thousands of other OSS personnel never came from the military.
For you and Andy: Veterans Day was stolen from Armistice Day, pure and simple. Why did they do this? because American WWI veterans are all fucking dead. Also, there is the possibility that since Memorial Day is for our dearly departed soldiery, you might as well give the living "Warr...scuse me while I swallow what came up ....iors a two for one Hus by not screwing corporations whilst ..... you know. I celebrated Marine Corps Birthday with a Pinot Noir from Oregon. On the tube, some years ago, I saw the last two Brits from WWI asked what they thought of the outcome of the war. They both uttered "A bloody waste."
DeleteDay
@Unknown - "A bloody waste" defines all war. Plus I'm old enough to remember as a boy it was still called Armistice Day. Gramps and Great Uncles Dinty and Douglas would have slapped me silly if I had called them warr..iors.
DeleteBut what I want to know is why you were drinking that pissy Oreegun Pinot on 10 November. Next year get yourself a bottle of Jarhead Red:
http://www.jarheadred.com/
How dare you sully the name of Oregon wine, suh!
DeleteMy seconds will call upon yours tomorrow at dawn.
You lads do make a good beer though. Even the Belgian monks can't beat A good Stumptown ale.
DeleteI've grown weary of Veteran's day which has turned into a highly commercialized and paper-thin hagiography for veterans. I don't participate and, in general, throughout the year I hide and downplay my status as a veteran. A lot of it is that I don't want to be "thanked" for my service, as everyone seems obligated to do. I also don't need special parking places, free meals, or discounts.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer that Americans put a little more thought into that, but of course we don't put much thought into anything. particularly history. I would much prefer that people concentrate on wounded and suffering veterans - they are the ones who need actual help. But in our narcissistic and lazy society going beyond saying thanks or typing the usual bullshit on social media is the limit of what the vast majority are willing to do.
I realize that it would be satisfying to blame "Americans" for their casual neglect and thoughtlessness about...well, pretty much everything, including their servicepeople. I mean, hey...Dancing With The Stars, Instagram, cancel culture, snowflakes...amirite?
DeleteExcept here's a dude by the name of Francis Quarles writing some time in the 17th Century:
"Our God and Souldiers we alike adore,
Ev’n at the Brink of danger; not before:
After deliverance, both alike required;
Our God’s forgotten, and our Souldiers slighted."
So, sorry. It's not "our narcissistic and lazy society...". It's people. It's people and always has been. It's the hairless ape insisting on something - how right and proper it is to die for (or put on the uniform of) your country"
If only the problem WAS Instagram and magnetic yellow-ribbon bumper stickers it might be simpler to address.
You're probably right - I suppose social media just makes it all that much more obvious.
DeleteThe US has always had a two-edged view of veterans. We have always alternated between worshiping the veterans and kicking them when they are down.
ReplyDeleteNeither is healthy for either the country or the veterans but I have no idea of how to get the general population to behave more intelligently.
The current weird religious/economic holiday (worship the veteran, take money from the veteran and disguise it as a sale) is a logical extension of the never-ending War on Terror. It is obvious to even the casual observer that this will not end well but when and how it will end is beyond my perception.
I'm not sure that the U.S. has ever "kicked veterans when they are down", Pluto.
DeleteWe've kicked POOR people when they're down - as Sven points out below; our narcissistic and lazy society kisses up and kicks down consistently, and if you're some poor sonofabitch whose PTSD lands you out of work and on the dole we'll happily club you and throw you in the county lockup. We've done that since the days of the Bonus Army and before.
That's revolting, but that's our system.
What's a trifle more irritating is our mindless tongue-bathing of GIs. I try and remind my IRL pals that all GIs are the same irritating people you went to high school with only they wear the same colored clothes. It's not like we enlist to stop the Evil Empire; we're just jokers working for a living and some GI Bill cash at the end of the day.
Do some people end up having to fight like crazy monkeys? Sure. And We the People should hesitate before "thanking them" for seeing things they very likely would rather not have seen and doing things they'd probably done given the choice.
But the vast bulk of us are just plain vanilla Yanks, and it does us, and the public at large, little good to make us into some sort of bizarre brazen idol.
I never liked that "thank you for your service" comment from people I hardly knew or don't know at all.
DeleteI always preferred a "Welcome Home" greeting instead. When I tried to explain or 'vetsplain' that, I got thousand yard stares and a look in their eyes that said wtf does this guy have a TBI from his service. But if you say it to a vet of a certain age you will always get an astronomic smile and a "back at ya".
FDC, read Fabius Maximus in the comments on his Veterans day post. Veterans are routinely given stiffer sentences after they are convicted of committing crimes than non-Veterans. The rationale is that veterans are more dangerous criminals because they are trained killers (which is ridiculous).
DeletePluto: So...THAT's why the ex-military finance officers got such longer sentences after the Great Recession! I always wondered about that..!
DeleteOk, kidding aside...first, Fabius Maximus? Seriously? I stopped reading that joker after his third climate-denialist post. C'mon.
Second..."stiffer sentences...committing crimes"..? That would be crimes of poverty, no? Robbery, theft, drug offenses? Yes?
So...poor people. Again. Poor people.
If you have money you can be a veteran and as fucked up with PTSD as you please, and you will do just fine.
But be poor? And, yes; your ex-service-status WILL be used against you.
Andy - I'm 100% with you on your second paragraph. But I have to shamefacedly admit to both you and Pluto that I take a veteran's discount wherever I can. Even though I understand that the retailers are getting it back by raising all prices so non vets end up paying more.
ReplyDeleteRegarding wounded and suffering vets, never forget that it was Republican Senators and Congressmen that blocked passage of the:
-Wounded Veterans Job Security Act;
-Disabled Veterans Home Accessibility Grant;
-Homeless Veteran Reintegration Act
So much for the political hacks that likes to call itself the Party of Patriots.
It's extremely confusing to see a country trying to write extra welfare laws for veterans. I understand that began with the GI bill. It's on this scale uniquely American fr all I know.
DeleteThe rest of the developed world thinks that the government should help the job security, the disabled and the homeless AMONG ALL CITIZENS and simply tries to do it well enough FOR ALL OF THEM.
It will die out here soon. Veterans organizations here in the past have always been powerful lobbying groups able to muster millions of votes. So Congress paid attention. But they are losing membership. Many local chapters are dying out. Soon Congress will not even give them an office visit.
Delete