Permission to Speak Freely, Sir

[AGENDA21]

I am sorry that high school and college kids no longer have to face a couple of years of mandatory military service. That may be a strange thing to say for a guy who protested the draft back in the '60s. Maybe it's the inevitable aging process. Or maybe it's the perspective you get from the higher altitude of experience.

What got me thinking about this were the extraordinary statements being made by recently retired U.S. generals. Those who have never served in the military don't understand how extraordinary it is for career military officers to say the things these guys are saying about their former civilian superiors.

I hit Marine Corps bootcamp on July 7, 1965, a wimpy kid from suburbia. The first thing we were told was that we were the lowest forms of life on earth -- and that meant lower than civilians. I was to learn as time went on that this was not just drill instructor blather. It was a genuine, deeply ingrained belief that permeated the highest ranks of the military for civilian control. We were repeatedly told that the lowest civilian we met on the street outranked the highest grade military officer. And that was not show. They believed it, not just as a principle, but a sacred trust.

Those who never served will likely see that as corny, empty rhetoric, window dressing, quaint -- at best. But those who did serve know of what I speak. We get it. That's one reason I bemoan that two generations of kids have since been spared a stint in uniform. It changed my life in ways I now understand and appreciate in ways I could not back then.

http://www.alternet.org/story/34937/

[ret5hd]

1. so what would happen if...

a lowly civilian (say, an inner city 30 year old black woman from cleveland) ordered the highest general to withdraw from vietnam? or iraq?

[tocqueville]

2. in theory she does that through a ballot box

but if it doesn't work she can rally millions of others and camp on WH lawn

the problem is that neither work today, because people have lost the sense of priorities

[drm604]

4. That was my first thought also.

It doesn't seem like they could possibly literally believe what the OP claims. Sorry to the OP but I do see it as corny, empty rhetoric; quaint window dressing, etc. Unless some street person can order a strike on Iran or order us out of Iraq then I don't see how anyone can literally believe that street person outranks the highest grade military officer.
If they believe in it as such a sacred trust then why do they constantly try to mislead us as to the facts?

[DS1]

3. It must have switched in the 26 years between when you went in

and when I went in, because civilians were in 1991 people things who became only significant if you had to pick them out of your axle mounts. Maybe if you had some time, you'd scrape them off your boot. And so on and so forth.

[madokie]

5. september 7, '67 somewhere I missed this day in training or something

I was tried to be beat down but wouldn't. I remember how I was taught that I was a good person who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if need be, to be proud. How I could be anything I wanted to be, encouraged to help the downtrodden, the lesser, for they were my brothers and sister too. I had a total 23 weeks of bootcamp different experience I guess. Peace bro' and thanks for serving and still believing in the cause. The cause being the United States of America.

[Elidor]

6. Shorter Stephen Pizzo:

Everyone should be made to feel like a maggot at least once in their life. It builds character and gives perspective.