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A peacenik looks at Veterans Day

November 11, 2005

When you’re generally anti-war, you meet a lot of anti-war people who are also anti-military. This is (pun intended) an indefensible position; soldiers, even generals, do not decide when to go to war and once they are sent, their decisions are often micromanaged by people who seem to have little regard for their chances of safely doing the job they were ordered to do and then coming home intact.

I know little about my grandfathers’ Navy service; I gather one was quite a hero and the other served well.  My father was a Seabee, who drove a truck through WWII and said he later regretted not learning more from the tremendously capable machinists and construction specialists he knew then.  My brother was in the Navy in the ‘70’s and my sister recently finished 20 in the Marines.

I have visited the Vietnam memorial; it is mercifully free now of the anti-soldier plague that complicated the effort to bring that conflict to a halt.  I could only stand quietly and look at the wall, then ascend the hill to the sculpture of three weary soldiers.  Made of bronze, they seem lifelike in looking dead on their feet.

When one conceives of a war as misguided, and opposing the war as a patriotic duty, an invisible line is laid out which must nevertheless be walked as carefully as possible.  Our politicians need to be held accountable for how easily they (in perfect safety) could puff up their chests, talk tough, and ‘let slip the dogs of war’.

Diplomatic and economic solutions require the patience of a Zen master, the wisdom of a sage, and tremendous salesmanship to a voting public that prefers easy answers.  As elections loom, politicians crave the appearance of ‘man of action’ even if it is the wrong action.  Has anyone noticed that it us usually the politician who was never in battle who is quickest to open the cage?  It is they, and not the soldier, who deserve hard questions, and occasionally ridicule or even contempt.

The question of loyal opposition to a war belongs entirely in a different post.  Here, I only want to say to those who wear the uniform, or who ever wore it, an unqualified “Thank you.”

Categories: defense, Politics