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Exactly. Lately I'm wondering why the US went there in the first place...

If you are working at Walmart, chances are that quitting = your kids dying of hunger. There are plenty of situations where people are really FORCED to work at jobs they may hate - don't assume that the military is the only one.

Not to mention that they chose to join anyway, fully knowing that a) they may be forced to do things they don't want to do, and b) they can't just decide to stop doing it. It's like sticking my hand in the blender and then whining because I don't have a hand anymore. That was MY choice and IMO I should just shut up and deal with the consequences of MY actions.

Now, if they were lied to or live under a rock and didn't understand what joining the military would mean - then I would suggest psychiatric help. Because who on earth doesn't know what joining the military involves?


1) They WILLINGLY chose to be put into that position. It's not like in Russia where you join as soon as you are of age and you don't get a choice. These people KNEW that they would be forced to follow orders - whether they agreed with those orders or not. They chose to join anyway. IMO, that makes them at least partially responsible for every single thing they do. Obviously, the politicians are much more responsible, but the soldiers don't get off so easily just because these were orders. And perhaps it's just me, but a REAL hero would rather get killed for desertion than kill innocent people. Every single person in Iraq who has participated in the killing of civilians is no hero because they are still there and still alive and those civilians aren't. Wearing a uniform doesn't make you a hero. Self-sacrifice to protect the innocent, on the other hand...

2) By your logic, soldiers shouldn't be respected for any of the good they do either. Want to argue that they are bringing freedom to the Middle East (whether they are or not is a different discussion entirely)? Pffth, that was just the politicians. Want to argue that they deserve respect for their actions in times of peace - like building sandbanks to prevent flooding and getting help to people hit by earthquakes? Pffth, they were just under orders. If you want to absolve them of guilt because they are just obeying orders, you can't have it both ways. The credit for the good things they do must also be removed and placed solely on politicians. At best, the military is nothing more than a killing force that can be used for good under the right leadership. Anyone who knowingly joins a killing force, thereby releasing all control of whether he/she is used for good or evil, is of fairly dubious morality, if you ask me.

Indeed, and that's a shame. But just because you've taken a job you might not want out of necessity doesn't mean I should have to respect you above the rest of the population.


But again, I don't see why this means that I should respect members of the military. Being trapped in a job you hate sucks, no question, but does it make you a hero?


Indeed. That's why I don't disrespect soldiers. I know that many were too poor to afford to go to college, or this was the best paying job they could get and they really needed the money, or they had some other problem that prevented them from getting a civilian job. Then there's the people who join because they experienced that fear we all go through when we graduate high school of not knowing what to do with ourselves. We're all under tremendous pressure to get a career and I can totally understand people being accosted by recruitment officers and seeing it as a way out of that.


600,000 Iraqi civilians have died so far (it might be higher now). You don't hear about them because they are just "casualties of war." The US soldiers, on the other hand, are "heroes lost." Obviously, the US media cares more about their own dying than when kill a bunch of "camel jockeys." Also, Fox News is firmly Republican and will not present information that incriminates the Bush administration. They consistently fudge the number of Iraqi civilians who have died.


You can't take a country by force. If you don't have the hearts and minds of the people before you go in, you will always lose. That's what's happening. US soldiers are being killed by terrorists who weren't in Iraq until the US was there. Iraq has never seen terrorism the likes of what has cropped up since the US invasion. Civilians (who are being killed by the US as well as by the opposing militia) are being killed at a rate far superior to what they suffered under Hussein's rule. The US carpet bombed a wedding. They bombed schools. They bombed sports stadiums. They bombed civilian neighborhoods. And each time, they just say "our information was faulty." Well.. imo they should double check before killing whole families of innocent people.


I'm really not. I am just reacting against the idea that if a soldier does anything wrong, they should absolved of all guilt because it was the politicians who sent them there - but then if they do something good, they should be worshiped as heroes. That makes no sense to me. You can have it either way - either soldiers are responsible for their actions, or they aren't.

I am also tired of hearing "they are there trying to protect freedom and make people's lives better." This sentence bugs me for two big reasons. The first is that it is the US military - how are they protecting US freedom in Iraq? IMO, the military ought to be responsible to its own people FIRST and foremost. Where were they when Katrina hit? We could have used all those people at home helping to rebuild and minimize lost life. But where were they? This, I will admit is not the soldier's fault. This is my complaint about the military in general.

The second part of the sentence that bugs me I apply more to the individual soldier - you KNEW going in that you could be used for both evil or good, at the whim of your politicians. You may have trusted that you would only be used for good, but you KNEW that you might not be. So if you truly only wanted to do good, why didn't you join an organization that only does good? The peace corp, for example, or the Red Cross. Both of these are peaceful entities that do ALL the good stuff the army does without any of the bad. This fact leads me to the conclusion that these individuals chose the military over these groups for a reason - the reason being either that they didn't care if they would be used for evil - or they like being used for evil.


This is another argument I truly hate. They CHOSE to join - it had nothing to do with me. Not a single member of my family went to Vietnam - why? Because we CHOSE to stay home as conscientious objectors - even when the government didn't recognize our right to. That, imo, is being a hero. Standing up to your government in the face of arrest (many members of my family spent long periods of time in jail for refusing to go to Vietnam), not because they were too scared to fight but because they were fighting - they were protecting our rights and our freedoms and our way of life - something the soldiers in Iraq are NOT doing. It's thanks to people like my family members that politicians are so terrified of the draft even today - 50 years later.

So to tell me that they signed up for MY benefit so that I wouldn't have to is bullshit. All that's doing is delaying the inevitable. Were they TRUE heroes, they would have refused to go and stood by my side when the government tried to force us to.

EDIT: Just to be clear because I am often accused of being a "coward" for not wanting to fight - I am a Quaker. That means that I am religiously not allowed to physically fight. Secondly, if the war were a just one, I would gladly lay down my religion and do whatever I could (I probably still wouldn't fight just because I am still a Quaker, but I would likely try to get a nursing degree or something so that I could still help). Every single member of my family alive and of age at the time fought in WW2 - the women were nurses in the front lines, the men were soldiers. We believed in that war. We believed that fighting could truly bring good to the world. But the Vietnam war had nothing to do with the US, it was clearly an unjust war. So we refused to fight there. That's what real heroes do - they stand up and they refuse to be used for evil - even if it means getting shot or thrown in jail by your own government.

In all the wars the US has been in, the only ones I can agree with were the Civil War, and WW2. The war in Iraq was not a war to begin with, it was said to be a way to help Iraq dispose of its dictator. The Gov't may make the decisions but the people who knowingly join the military help put it to action. Iraq is now a terrorist zone because of the US infiltration. The people of Iraq are suffering and propaganda is turning the world against them. I truly have never felt more pity for a group of people since I read about the holocaust, and to be honest this war is spiralling into that same level of brutality. I really hope the next president for America will put a stop to this unjustness and try to rebuild what they have destroyed.
However, the veterans of the Civil war and WW2 have earned my respect in bucketloads. They are truly heroes.

1) No, not at all. Most of the people I know that have joined the military do it just for the benefits of it, not because they want to protect the country, and usually do everything they can to avoid actual combat. Also, they tend to be self-important little snobs when they're done with it. They think they're better than everyone else because of that damn uniform.

2) The reason members are put on a pedestal is that some of them actually have to face the possibility of dying for what they're doing. Of course, so do people in numerous other jobs, like cops, but cops go after anyone that's doing wrong, versus soldiers, that kill people for having a belief that differs from popular opinion in this country.

Also, this isn't the only democracy in the world. I wish Americans would realise that.

I respect someone based on what I know of them. If the person is a complete stranger then I will assume that they are nice enough to be respectable, unless given evidence otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty, I guess. Usually. biggrin

As for troops, people respect them for the stereotype. I appreciate their effort, despite my dislike of the war. My abovementioned rule of respect applies to troops as well. There are only two real reasons I can think of that would make a person want to join the army. A) They wanted the benefits that come with it (college aid and the like) and ended up getting dragged off to fight or B) They honestly want to fight for their freedom and the freedom of their loved ones. The first group I just think 'Haha, dumbass' but the second group is what everyone seems to think that all the troops are.

And yes, I'm sure that there are other reasons for a person to join the army, but these seem to be the most logical.

It's understandable to not appreciate all of the troops or whatever, but it appears that whoever messaged you so many times on facebook was a little nuts. Hate mail seems a bit pointless.

Troops are just people. Many of them particularly unlucky to be at war, but nonetheless still just people. Nothing more, and nothing less than the rest of us.

Threads always seem to die when I post... sweatdrop