RE: Do you think American soldiers are put on too high of a pedestal
January 17, 2017 at 9:49 pm
(January 17, 2017 at 11:51 am)Crossless1 Wrote: Vets certainly deserve our thanks. But it seems to me that the best way we can thank them is to properly look out for them in the first place. And that means not allowing ourselves to be led into questionable wars of choice; not sending young men into combat with inadequate armor; not short-changing their families who struggle to hold things together in their absence; and not just paying lip service to the services and care they need when they return home.
God: this^ X 100.
I have a friend who's a lifer, and we keep in touch. He's been to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times. The idea that he and other soldiers are sent to fight for anything less than an absolutely necessary reason infuriates me. And for that I'm a "libtard."
Fucking assholes. My friend's been wounded in combat, but his real damage is emotional. He's a normal, stable guy until he gets too drunk and calls me. It's so fucked up, and I feel so horrible for him, and it makes me so angry. Yet, there are conservative internet fire teams who just can't wait for any American but them to go kick some ass somewhere.
I believe so firmly that we need a peace time draft. Iraq either wouldn't have happened or it would've been done "right." Our army functions like a private goddamn toy for powerful hawks to play with while at the same time appeasing their drooling constituent's need to boost their self-esteem off of something they're not willing to do.
Conservatives often strike me as bereft of the knowledge of the depth of human suffering. And I think it's because as a whole, Americans are so well shielded from it. There is no one in living memory who's seen an American city utterly leveled by a foreign army. Americans have never heard air ride sirens go off in the middle of the night. We've never been starved and murdered en masse. Not since the mid 19th century have American civilians been herded from their homes and put into the camps* by foreign soldiers---and even then, those soldiers still spoke the same language. How terrifying must it be for those whose entire family is suddenly put at the complete mercy of a group of foreign soldiers?
At bottom, they don't seem to get that other people exist. I don't know how else to put it.
*I didn't forget about the WW2 Japanese internment camps; it's just outside the scope of my rant.
