I'm not sure if the author has known any one in the military or any veterans. My father, brother, and grand father were in the military. My uncle is in Kuwait right now. I have so many friends who are in the military. Most of these men and women joined fresh out of high school. They joined to support their families. They joined to make a living when there weren't many other opportunities. They joined to protect their families and friends from hostile forces and a failing economy. They did not join to murder or to rape and neither did most of their brothers and sisters who've lost their lives in war. I don't feel it is our right to judge the souls of generations of soldiers who died believing they were protecting freedom. Whether war is right or wrong their intentions were in the right place.
Some people will always take good things and turn them into bad things - I live in tampa where there's a big airforce base, I grow up with military families, my grandfather was airforce, my best friend - they are all awesome people - don't let a small silly group get you down! :)
ReplyDeleteI joined to murder, though I'm sure you would call it "to protect ... families and friends from hostile forces" and sure, I thought it might serve that end. That I decided to kill people when I had virtually no understanding of the dynamics of geopolitics says something rather unpleasant about me, I think.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing that is without question, when one joins, they do so fully aware that their purpose is to facilitate killing. Whether they call this "murder" depends upon definition.
(and of course, the usual definition really used is "acts of killing I disapprove of or which I have not been told are 'necessary' or even 'courageous')