Just what SHOULD we thank veterans for?

[Obamarama]

This outstanding LTTE/Viewpoint published this morning in my local paper gives us all some pretty good ideas:

A recent Kalamazoo Gazette editorial made a suggestion about thanking a vet. The expected thank you, of course, is thanks for fighting to preserve our freedom, our way of life, for being brave, for defending us. But I can't give the expected gratitude.

-snip-

I don't believe in war and in killing people as a way to resolve differences or conflicts. I don't want anyone to join the military and kill in my name. Despite that, I'm still feeling the pull of the suggestion: For what can a person like myself thank a vet?

-snip-

Thank you for showing us what it takes to overcome that innate restriction to kill someone. Thank you for showing us what amount of demonization of the enemy it takes to kill the enemy. Thank you for demonstrating to us that we are capable of killing. Thank you for writing letters home expressing your love for your family. Thank you for taking the romance and glory out of war. Thank you for not raping that woman when you could have. Thank you for not contributing to a massacre when you could have.

-snip -

Thank you for sharing your candy bars with the enemy's kids. Thank you for the effort to readjust to civilian life. Thank you for bearing the scars of war. Thank you for listening to inane conversations about the glory of war. Thank you for learning the depth of depravity and the depth of love. Thank you for treating captured enemy combatants decently and humanely. Thank you for keeping yourself sane. Thank you for enduring curses and scorn. Thank you for being tough and for being soft. Thank you for going back to battlefield areas years later and helping in the reconstruction. Thank you for not committing suicide. Thank you for coming back home.

We need all of us to heal the wounds of war -- physical, psychological and societal -- to dissipate the fog of war; to rebuild the destroyed.

Can a similar challenge be issued to veterans and supporters of war? For what would you thank a pacifist?

The full text of this thought-provoking letter can be read at:

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-2/1142767656105740.xml&coll=7

[iamjoy]

1. Maybe It's A Yin Yang Thing

We need both - hawks and doves. Can we have pacifists if we don't have soldiers?

[gordianot]

3. Correct that is the essence of the dilemma.

Sometimes the lines blur.

"War is hell"

[Faygo Kid]

2. This is deeply thought out and well written.

Thanks very much for finding and posting this.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. good job on those last three sentences!

now work on the rest of it

[JeffR]

9. Please explain Iraq's plans to make war on our lands

Sounds like something we all need to know about.

[TahitiNut]

20. It'd make as much sense to thank the shovel for digging a hole.

The military does what it's told to do, for good or for ill. It is (presumedly) the will of the People, through the command of the elected leadership, that is served. Vets like me and every other gave service (like the shovel). Like the shovel, we may have been dulled, worn away, sharpened, or broken. That's all that need be honored. How we were used was up to the People. (See my post below.)

[auburnblu]

4. Remember the Tsunami

The U.S. military assisted with Tsunami relief efforts. Thank them for things like that. The National Guard is often called to help out with disasters.

I'll thank a pacifist for not causing further strife in the world.

[Minnesota Libra]

5. The military and the government are two different things so DON'T.......

.....blame our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, for something the government is doing.

I thank our military for their service REGARDLESS of whether I agree with the reasons for a war or not.:patriot:

[Gabi Hayes]

7. thank YOU for this great letter

didn't the German people in 1938 support their troops as they were Anschlussing mit Austria, then as they expanded their Leibensraum into Czechoslovakia, then, in 1939, as the Wehrmact defended themselves against the Polish invasion?

I'm so sick of mindless sheep 'supporting' this garbage

[Jackpine Radical]

11. What's wrong with "Liebensraum?" Sounds like a pretty good concept

to me.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. yer right

[Karenina]

16. Naaa, Duuu!

:rofl:

[Gabi Hayes]

18. Lebensraum? liebensraum? leibensraum? it's listed all three ways

?

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. "lebensraum" = "living space"

"Liebensraum" = "love space/area"

(lieben is German for "love".)

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Danke.

[sandnsea]

10. I tend to thank lawyers, silly me

Most of our civil rights were won in a court room, after all.

I do appreciate our Revolutionary War and WWII vets, but that's about it as far as actual war goes. I also appreciate the willingness to die, but sadly, most of the deaths were completely unnecessary.

[fujiyama]

12. I doubt

most vets are looking to get thanked, but I'm sure they do want to be sure their service is appreciated.

The military is made of normal people, called upon sometimes (and unfortunately too often with this pres) to do awful things by the government. However they do some great things as well, like helping out in natural disasters worldwide - like the Tsunami or more recently that mudslide in the Philippines.

[TahitiNut]

13. I posted some of my thoughts on this back in October ...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/30

The core of my opinion, posted then, is ....

<snip>
It is imperative that we always comprehend the bargain of military service in terms of the transaction itself: What does the person give and what does the person expect in return? Virtually without exception, military service is the almost total surrender of one's individual liberties and subordination of one's personal choices to those of the military and political leadership, assumed to reflect the will of the People. There is almost no person in military service who does not recognize this, no matter how vaguely. "Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die."

This cannot be overemphasized. It is the very soul of military service, without exception. It is not the mission - they have no choice in that. It has nothing to do with 'defending freedom' (except in the people's and leadership's choice of goals) and everything to do (from an individual perspective) with the surrender of freedoms. Whether or not our military 'defends freedom' is solely and exclusively the responsibility of The People! That responsibility cannot be abdicated in a democratic society.
<snip>

This is, after all, the very meaning of the word "service" - something that fewer and fewer seem to comprehend.

[American Tragedy]

14. Thank you for not raping?

With all due respect, that reminds me of nothing so much as when Chris Rock was ranting about some guys bragging about how they had never gone to prison. "You're not SUPPOSED to go to jail, ya stupid motherf***er! What do you want, a cookie?"

[DrDebug]

17. I think it's more important to feel compassion & empathy for the soldiers

First all a lot of the boys in Iraq did not have a choice to fight in that war. Of those that did, because they believed in the cause, there are many who would feel a lot different about it now. And some still believe in the justification and we need to respect that.

The life for a soldier in Iraq is not a happy life and most will be frightened and if it comes down to it, it is not a battle of who is right or who is wrong for the soldier, it is a battle for the soldier to survive and make sure that his buddies survive. This may sound very harsh, but both the Iraqi insurgent and the American soldier will share one characteristic when they are engaged in a battle and that is that from that point on, it is not about ideology and it is about why they are there, but it is just about survival and doing whatever it take regardless on whether you are right, just or wrong, because those are irrelevant luxuries.

The world is such that soldiers are a necessary regardless of wanting a world without violence and war. The world is such that for many boys or girls the army was the choose they made to escape a life where they had no opportunities, no function and the mary was often one of the few options open them.

So don't judge the soldier too harsh, because his world is entirely different and also the anti-war protesters have to learn, because we alienated the soldiers in the Vietnam war. We should not alienate them in this war. They will have committed crimes, they will have killed innocent civilians, but most of them did it because that was the world they were operating in. However the soldiers are not the real people to blame for the Iraq war. The blame should go to those who put those people in that situation knowing that atrocities happen during a war and. So it is the political warmongers who are sitting in the comforts of their offices and planning their wars for profit which are troublemakers, but not the soldiers in Iraq.

[Pastiche423]

22. "And some still believe in the justification and

we need to respect that."

Pardon me? Why do we (btw, who is we?) need to respect the brainwashed troops for killing innocent men, women, children and babies? They have done NOTHING to us.

Your statement does not compute w/me and I hope it never does.

[DrDebug]

23. Fine, but I don't play the blame the soldier game

It is very easy to make judgement about people who made a choice based on something which they didn't see as a lie. It's easy to blame the soldier who was fed the lie and believed it, but the moment he is in the battlefield then for him it is about survival and nothing else. Blaming the soldier for the action of politician is what happens time and time again and allows the politician to get away with it. I happened in Vietnam as well. None of the politicians were held responsible and the blame was switched to the veterans and they'll do it again. People like Rumsfeld will not be held responsible for the atrocities which were committed by his decisions.

[Joey Liberal]

25. Nobody is blaming the Soldiers

Yes, it is a bummer when we see our troops cheering for Bush when he visits their bases (the ones he hasn't closed yet). But nobody blames the troops. Bush has been a failure as a "wartime President". Perhaps if Bush hadn't gone into Iraq (based on lies) and stuck with the original mission of fighting Al Qaeda and getting Bin Laden, we wouldn't be having this debate:)..........

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. Unfortunately, war is sometimes a necessary evil.

This isn't to say that war is acceptable, or even excusable; just that some (although by no means most) wars are necessary, and must be fought--that, indeed, sometimes war is the only answer. Had the Allies not fought against the Axis in WWII, had the Union not defeated the Confederacy, had Charles Martel not stood against the Saracens at Tours, had the Spartans not won victory against impossible odds at Thermopylae, had the Athenians lost to the Persians at Marathon, the world would be a vastly different place (and likely not for the better). Of course, you'll notice that every instance I cite represents a war against aggression, not a war OF aggression.

I'm not a pacifist, but I also don't believe that war can be justified unless in self-defence, in response to attack or invasion (and I most certainly don't believe in "pre-emptive" war, or military conflict as a tool of foreign policy).

[KAT119]

26. Polarities/dualities e.g war & peace ONLY live in the mind-not the Soul...