I saw him, he gave a good speech, I was somewhat inspired, but not fired up. The idealization of military service throughout the convention made me somewhat nauseous.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the military is there. It serves a vitally important role, and is a sometimes disgusting, sometimse dangerous job.
However, I can’t help but hear an implied message that joining the military makes you a better person, and being shot at, and/or taking a bullet makes you an even better person. Frequently ignoring that the people in question are usually dishing out some bullets of their own. And that these bullets scrambling someone’s internals, if they’re effective. Is this some sort of trading self-improvement with your enemy?
I have a very conflicted view of the military, obviously. How much responsibility do individual soldiers have for the actions of the military as a whole? No more so than any other citizen to my mind. The soldiers are doing a job, the broad parameters of which are not theirs to choose. The individual soldiers conducting the abuses at Abu Ghraib are responsible to the extent that it was by their own choice that they did what they did. (I will certainly cut slack for indirect strongarm tactics, which I suspect were involved).
When going to CMU, I seriously considered signing up with ROTC, so that I wouldn’t end up suckling my finances from the parental teat. I decided against it, because I wanted more autonomy that I felt that path would allow. And the whole homo thing didn’t help either. Note that at no point was this a “morality of maybe killing other people” decision.
What do I think of an individual’s decision to joined the armed services? I can see a few basic motivations. 1) A desire to protect/serve one’s country. Something worthy of respect, and gratitude, but not adoration. 2) A form of employment. It’s not a great job, the pay sucks, and one may well end up risking their life. There are definitely benefits (tuition, most notably). This is not as impressive a reason, but self improvement is a good thing. 3) A sense of connection/belonging/self-image etc. I find this reason more exhasperating, but comprehensible at least. Not really laudable, though. 4) So they can blow shit up/kill people. I have a hard time imagining such a mindset. I’m not even entirely certain such people really exist, I kinda hope not. Obviously, not laudable. I’m probably missing a few, but I think you get the idea.
Choosing to serve, for the sake of the greater good, is commendable. or at least a good intention. I question how much the armed services actually work towards the greater good, though. As passive prevention of engagement, great. As active intervention? I am more skeptical. Nobility may lead one to enlist, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who enlists is noble.
People in the military are just like people who aren’t in the military. The reasons are as varied as the reasons that people have for whatever job they choose to pursue.
Yeah, as I was constructing my little taxonomy, I was realizing it was anything but comprehensive. There are some truly unique features of the military. High risk of job-related death, one of few jobs where you may have to kill people, in fact several people, subjecting oneself to an entirely different set of laws, etc, etc.
It was more an attempt to explore the mindset, and figure out why this bugged me so much, than an attempt to pigeonhole the members of the armed services.
Interesting thoughts… I have to admit, I did not pay direct attention to the convention, but given the fact that we have a (too?) large portion of our military deployed right now, the focus on the military is understandable. (Which I don’t think you were debating.)
As to whether you are a better person for it… I would say that it depends on what you get out of it, just like any other job. Some people are certainly more suited to the military life, and need and/or get to like the discipline, sometimes to their detriment when they finally leave the service. Some strongly believe it is the best way to serve their country. And for others, it is simply a job to pay college bills or the like. I have friends in all categories.
For my part, while never having served though, like you, having thought about it and deciding not to after a little investigation, I feel better with having a President who’s actually been in combat because I believe that will make them more reluctant to commit our soldiers to combat for… well, let’s say “non-critical” reasons. Defining that is, of course, the sticking point, but from talking with friends who have been in combat, some of whom have killed people, anyone who is simply an “armchair warrior” (a label that occationally fits me, I admit, through or related to wargaming) really does not grasp what’s happening out there during a fight.
It is generally said that military personnel support the Republican party, since the Republicans generally put more $$ into the military. From what some of my friends have said, that was true in 2000, but (in these personal cases… and I can’t say it’s true for all, I’ve only talked with a couple) the person who’s “been there” is getting their votes in 2004.
I did watch Kerry’s speech, so while I know what you’re talking about, I think I have a different view on what was being done with the hyping of Kerry’s military service.
There were basically a couple primary reasons for them doing so, and I don’t think any of them have anything to do with military people somehow being “better” than people who don’t serve.
First is the fact that we currently have soldiers serving in a war (albeit, a non-Constitutional one, given that Congress never declared it… but that’s a topic for a different rant). Kerry is saying, by relating his experience in Vietnam, that he knows what they are going through, and therefore can make decisions based on personal experience, rather than solely on the basis of the advice of others.
Second, the whole deal was a direct counter to the constant Republican barrage of accusations calling Democrats “soft on terror”, or being “liberal pansies.” This is probably the type of stuff that gets under you skin, since I know it kinds of gets under mine. The idea that somehow one has to be willing to fight in order to be strong. What made me feel better about this part of the deal, though, was the combination of the knowledge that Kerry protested the Vietnam war, following his service, and that he specifically said he would never send troops into harm’s way without concrete evidence of imminent danger.
A secondary goal, though, was to indirectly compare how the two candidates deal with their responsibilities, and their sense of duty to the country; on the one hand, we have a President who served in the National Guard, and whose payroll records (which they actually did find recently) show that he didn’t show up for a couple months. On the other hand, we have a person who not only showed up, he volunteered for service in a combat area.
Granted, I’m not unbiased, and I’m far from non-partisan, but when I heard the soldier whose life was saved by Kerry in Vietnam, I thought to myself, “That’s a person who would not have sat still, dumbfounded, for seven minutes when told, ‘America is at War.'” I suspect that giving that kind of impression is a great deal of the reason behind the hoopla over Kerry’s military service.
I did not watch any part of the DNC, so I offer my comments here solely in the context of the ambivalence you expressed regarding the military. Now perhaps I have merely bought into military propaganda and sentimentalism, but I think it’s worth not underestimating the first motivation you listed: desire to protect and to serve one’s country. Given that even if these soldiers seek only employment or belonging or violence, they do so at the risk of their lives and in the service of their country, the pageantry and patriotism that we conjure during certain holidays and events doesn’t seem excessive. The lionization of soldiers in our society doesn’t even enter into most citizens’ daily lives. Contrast the role of the military in our society with those imagined by writers from Plato to Heinlein, which specifically enfranchise only those willing to serve the state.
I am against the invasion of Iraq and vehemently against the Abu Gharaib abuses, but for these atrocities I blame a specific administration and specific military personnel. I can’t find it in my heart to blame the soldiers getting blown up left and right, who are as much victims of this administration as anyone else.