What If They Walked Away

As you know I write about the military. I write about the pride that I felt as a soldier and as a retired soldier and I write about the pride I feel as the descendant of a long line of soldiers and as an American citizen. Virtually every time I write a post I get at least several and sometimes many not so nice comments about soldiers and the military. I’ll expound on this below the fold.

As I said I get some not so nice comments and this post is for those who write those not so nice comments but those of you who write nice comments or even don’t write comments at all are invited to read this too.

We are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. Yep, we are imperfect. We have, from our inception, done really, really bad things and really, really good things. We have done bad things on purpose and bad things not on purpose. We have done good things on purpose and we have done good things not on purpose. In other words we have been doing a lot of things good and bad. (My token paragraph for those who use Bushian speak.)

Now our forefathers sat down in Philadelphia some 225+ years ago and drafted some documents that created the basic outline and laws of our nation. You know the constitution. They tried, based on their limited intellect to create a really good country. Since that time a lot of really, really good and really, really bad people have controlled and governed this nation. It has been kind of a mix for the most part but generally a little bit of both but leaning more to the good. (I know that some of you believe that a group of nare-do-wells control the whole thing and that may or may not be true, I just don’t know.) The point is that our founding fathers created this entity we call the United States and left it to their progeny to manage into the future.

Now I believe that in the this country regardless of who is elected or who is in office, or even if the nare-do-wells are in control, that we as a nation have an incredible amount of freedom and an incredible amount of access to information which allows us to remain informed and educated on not only our nation but also the world. We have an incredible ability to educate ourselves and organize and to choose our path in the world. Some of us choose to teach, some choose to drive a truck, some choose to pursue elected office, some choose to be firemen, some choose to be policemen and generally everyone chooses to be or do something. Some even choose to be soldiers. Some also, unfortunately, choose to not be or do anything, but that’s another story. We all seem to generally choose to be and to do something within the realm of this nation state we call the United States of America. Most importantly though is that we all have the opportunity to choose to make a difference. We who blog here on this site are choosing to voice our opinions. We are choosing to organize and cajole and to put forth our opinions and influence people to become active and activist in order to make a difference. At least I think that is what most of us are trying to do.

What I am saying here is that we citizens, both born and naturalized, all share in the inherited and adopted responsibility for this nation. We are not helpless sheep being led to slaughter. We are cogent humans with an ability to make change and whatever this nation was, is, or is becoming we are responsible for it and how we go about fulfilling that responsibility is of our own choosing.

Now, about those soldiers. Today soldiers generally choose to become soldiers. That is how they have chosen to fulfill their lives and to contribute to this nation. It is my belief that unfortunately we live in a world occupied by nation states and entities and people who would do us and millions of other people harm. It is, in my mind, a simple fact and because of that fact we must have a military. Now you may disagree with me on this point but I’m afraid that I still prefer that we maintain a military just in case you’re wrong and there really are people out there who want to harm us. You might say that I want to error on the side of “our” safety. It is also unfortunately true that when it is necessary to maintain a military you subject that military to the control of the government that you put in office. Yes I said you put in office. Remember the “we are responsible” bit I mentioned above; well if the people in office aren’t very nice people then it’s our fault and we put the military under the control of those not so nice people and it doesn’t matter if we voted for the person or not it is still our fault. It’s still our fault because “we are responsible” and we should have worked harder to get different people in office.

Now this is directly for those who write the not so nice comments trashing the military and soldiers. Soldiers join our military to serve and defend the Constitution of the United States. If they are sent to say Iraq by your President then it is your responsibility because it is your President. It is your government and it is your country. Get it? If you don’t like it you should change it. If you want the soldiers brought back from Iraq then you need to do something about it. Write your Congressmen. Write your Senators. Write your friends and relatives. March in the street. March with a group or march alone. Do something but do me a favor and don’t blame soldiers or trash them because they are in Iraq spilling their precious blood and leaving their limbs behind. It’s called citizenship. And don’t say you don’t do that on Dkos or MLW or MyDD or any other blog because you do. You are the people out there who don’t assume responsibility and find it easier to wax philosophically about how nation states shouldn’t exist and Marx said this or Lock said that or some other BS. It is what it is and that’s reality. You have one other option if you choose not to do anything and that is move to Iraq.

Now that we’ve established who is responsible for this great nation let’s talk about what happens if “They All Walk Away”. Think about it. What if every soldier, sailor, and airman walked away?

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety; is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

I would add this. The battle field is not always one of dirt and blood but it can be and is sometimes the halls of government.

Those Are The Sergeant Majors Thoughts On That.