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catnhatnh

(8,976 posts)
Sat May 26, 2012, 01:46 AM May 2012

On Being a Soldier and Memorial Day

Seen a lot of posts today with a bunch of different viewpoints. One complained that people confused Veterans Day and Memorial Day and that Monday was only for the dead. Another more patriotically inclined called soldiers "heroes" and had replies calling them "dupes" and "Cannon Fodder". But the thing I least saw was any comprehension of the humanity that composes that mass of of young men and women who for varying reasons swore an oath and had their lives changed irrevocably.

They swore an oath for a thousand different reasons and with a thousand different hopes. Now always they swear it voluntarily but in the past some did it under compunction. But it didn't matter, because they were all fed into the same machine they called basic training. I know this because I took that oath in 1972.

I ain't a combat vet. I never met a combat vet that thought he was a hero. I've seen civilians and REMFs whine that they wish they'd seen combat. I never met a combat vet that doesn't regret it. Combat means killing and IF you survive it means seeing friends die. And for a normal person that means a lifetime of regrets and nightmares.

I'd be hard pressed to remember the last time you could take an oath, serve four years, and get out of the service in full peace time. Maybe the late 70's, but not in the last 30 years. Taking the oath since then has meant at very least that friends deployed and faced gunfire. It means that even if you skated like me, there is somewhere a little cemetery where a little flag will fly over a friend Monday.

So about Monday. Act as you will. As a non-combat vet I know we talked about getting back home and summer picnics. And I'm guessing combat vets liked the idea even better. Friends of 40 years ago skated less well than me and you can find a few of their names etched in black rock. They are heavy on my mind this weekend and after 40 such picnics it gets no easier.

We ALL did what we had to and we all paid a disparate price. And maybe that is what the holiday is about. Solidarity with all soldiers, not only those dead, but also those who walked with them and bear that also. Bless the beasts and past young warriors. Mostly because most of them deserve it.


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On Being a Soldier and Memorial Day (Original Post) catnhatnh May 2012 OP
Thank you for saying all these eloquent words, my dear catnhatnh... CaliforniaPeggy May 2012 #1
what is "full peacetime"? hfojvt May 2012 #2
All Gave Some, Some Gave All sevento47orpi May 2012 #3
civilians give some too, and sometimes all hfojvt May 2012 #4

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
2. what is "full peacetime"?
Sat May 26, 2012, 04:17 AM
May 2012

I graduated from high school in 1980. I feel like I could have gone straight into the military, put in 20 years and retired twelve years ago without ever seeing any combat, or serious risk. I mean some marines were killed in Beruit, some in Mogadishu and 294 were killed in the 100 hour war in Iraq in 1991. But in the same twenty years in which less than 5,000 troops died, over 800,000 people died in the US in car accidents, including two high school classmates (I don't know if I would sall them friends, although we went to school for several years. I always liked Sandi and had a huge crush on Kim, but I doubt if we ever spoke to each other (such is high school)) a college student of mine, a university classmate, and a girl I knew from the grocery store where she worked and I shopped.

A couple high school classmates committed suicide and so did my freshman roommate (many years later, perhaps traumatized by the way he bullied me) Another woman from church, her son died in a ski accident, many people had heart attacks despite being in their late 30s, early 40s. Another high school classmate died of some exotic disease he was born with. Another was electrocuted on the job. In twenty years some 200,000 to 300,000 Americans die in gun violence on American streets.

It's not like death is unknown in the civilian world. I suppose with the military being a 24/7 job in group quarters that there is more bonding going on. Such bonding seems like an extra benefit in some ways, although a guy I know gave a presentation about his time in Vietnam and he said when they came back home they went their separate ways and he never saw or heard from any of those guys again.

Death in the military may be like being in a bus that overturns. People die that you were sitting right beside and it very much could have been you. Whereas in the civilian world, when Kim died in a car accident, I was not a fellow passenger in that car (although there were 3 survivors as well) so that death was a little further away from me.

When it comes to Memorials though, I cannot forget the little memorial I saw in Oberflacht, Germany. There was a statue of St. Michael with a sword in his hand and two columns listing the casualties - of WWI and WWII. From the names, it was clear that every one of those casualties was a distant relative of mine on my mom's side. But is there really anything all that honorable about giving your last full measure of devotion to defend Nazi Germany?

To some degree, this day is to honor the war machine and those who take part in it. I'd rather throw a shoe into it.

At some point, humanity should learn that, in the words of Jeanette Rankin "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." and that even with a conventional war, "the only winning move is not to play." That we could stop playing this self-defeating destructive game if more young people refused to do what they are ordered to do.



 

sevento47orpi

(12 posts)
3. All Gave Some, Some Gave All
Sat May 26, 2012, 04:48 AM
May 2012

Last edited Sat May 26, 2012, 06:12 AM - Edit history (1)

As a vet I don't dwell on the past I would rather fix the problems in our Government and our so-called leadership that continues to put our military into harms way not for keeping the nation free and safe and all that other nationalist BS but to protect corporate interests.

That is the REAL problem.

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
4. civilians give some too, and sometimes all
Mon May 28, 2012, 03:05 PM
May 2012

and that is the problem - honoring those who kill or die when ordered to, whether the kings cause is just or not.

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