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Edited on Mon Jan-12-09 02:54 AM by byronius
Why is it, whenever I watch a WWII movie, I get all choked up? Seriously, I get teary-eyed and emotional, fists clenched.
I spend a lot of time studying the American military. Never been in it. But I love it.
Why? Because in the long reaches of history, it represents something new and rare. Democracy is a brand-new idea, as human history goes; precious, delicate, expensive. The American military is primarily responsible for it still being alive. That is a Flat Truth.
Lots of Bad Moments. Under poor leadership, high and low, the US military has done some awful things. I can cite them as well as anyone; Abu Gharaib is virtually a perfect example of what horrors can happen when an unelected criminal civilian commands.
However, I would like to state something I feel very strongly.
'Flying Leathernecks' is a John Hughes film with John Wayne starring as the commander of a Marine flying squadron. Hollywooded out to the max, to be sure. Lots of real footage of aerial combat over the Pacific, interspersed with LA backlot types in fake planes with fake grease smeared on their faces, who probably went home to drink martinis and hang out by the pool afterward.
I can see through it, though. Two hundred thousand-page histories later, I know enough to know that some small part of that film is true. So many actual human beings, individual Americans, drove themselves to the breaking point, and to their deaths, to preserve not just US interests, but the interests of the human race, and the Planet Earth.
Within the span of human history, World War Two was a turning point. A critical moment, when the human population of this planet made a choice. For so many, it was bitter. Men wracked by fear and doubt, just trying to survive, pushed back an inevitable force, and changed reality. I can't truly understand what they went through. Agonizing death, alone, never to see the faces of their children. Good people, surrendering their existence for an idea; for someone else's future. Some lived, but could never really come home, because the scars ran too deep.
There are very few examples in human history when people fought not to conquer, not to dominate, but to defend liberal values from the predations of dominators. Very few. Franklin Delano Roosevelt can be said to be quite responsible for this particular turning point; against the loud shrieks of the fifty Republican Senators and Congressmen who took seven million dollars in gold from Adolf Hitler to keep America quiet and subordinate to the cause of the Third Reich, he fought with every means at his disposal to make a stand that should inspire people everywhere for the next ten thousand years, wherever they go, and whatever challenges they face.
We've recently suffered an eight-year setback. The American military has been put through the wringer, and hung out to dry by a poisonous, treasonous ideology that perverted everything it stands for. For all we as civilians are going through right now, they've been through and are going through worse. We've turned the corner, and good civil leadership has returned, but the scars they bear will last their lifetimes. It has been a truly sad debacle, one that threatened to erase the very meaning of this nation. A Close One.
Nonetheless. For every Grainer, there are a hundred Tillmans. The US military at heart is competent and brave, humane and intelligent. I'm glad we've rescued them, and ourselves, from Dark Utopia. Barack Obama will restore what has been lost, and make good on the Original Idea once again.
Because there are armies, and then there is the US Army. They are two different things, like night and day. Civilians commanding well-trained, well-cared-for professional soldiers whose primary purpose is to defend democracy and further the cause of a free and fair-minded human race -- that's a new thing on Planet Earth. A Goddamn Excellent Thing, I say.
I honor it. I love it. I intend to do everything I can, for the rest of my life, to make sure they are never ill-used again.
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