As much as I admire the military I wonder, what if there was another national service program with equal high standards that also serves people. Maybe a program for people who want to serve the country but not in the military? We have teachers, firemen, and police officers but those are not national.
Now my cousin in Denmark, which has a draft, but he was an objector but still was able to serve in another program. He was mostly a guard and guide at a national museum.
The closest thing I can think of is the Peace Corps. As I understand it they have a sort of boot camp where they are taught some basic skills.
Basically could we have a program where we could honor those “veterans” for their service?
The reason we honor veterans is they literally risked death for us. Historically, that chance was quite high. Over 10,000 men and women were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and something like 100-200k of them were traumatically injured and will have some level of permanent damage to this day.
The general public isn’t going to feel the same way about somebody who dug ditches in the Peace Corps or something. And I generally agree with their sentiment. There’s a finite amount of meaningful “honoring” to go around, and it should go to those who risked their very existence for the rest of us. (I was in the service, but I’m not a veteran. I feel this way about my basic training classmates who did go to fight)
The US gov’t and some state gov’ts have service programs already (AmeriCorps, for example, has been around since the 90s) and when I meet people who’ve worked in them, I thank them. I’ve also met a handful of military veterans who did not deserve honor, so IMHO military service doesn’t automatically confer it.
Are former Coast Guard members considered veterans? If not, they should be. I know people like to make fun of the Coast Guard, but they deserve a lot of honor and respect.
I have several friends who are Coasties, and they work very hard in dangerous conditions.
Yes they are.
As to all the honoring thing – in the current generation the US culture had a sort of “overcorrection” about how it regarded the veterans among us, partly out of guilt at how it handled the post-Vietnam period. As a number of vets may tell you that’s nice and fine but they could exchange fewer “salutes to the troops” for more and better trained staffing at the VA. But overall, yes, they get unusual recognition because theirs is an unusual level of service.
I don’t get the “they literally risked death for us”. Iraq and Afghanistan, like Vietnam before that, were unnecessary wars. We threw trillions down the toilet and destabilized an entire region for what? Retribution for 9/11? Nation building? Hint- nation building hasn’t worked yet and never will. Okay, I get that a lot of young people joined the services and were willing to risk their lives for us, but in reality they weren’t risking their lives for us, they risked them for politicians who sent them on a fool’s errand.
I get that Vietnam veterans weren’t greeted with parades and such and some were actually mistreated. But I think we’re going way overboard with the overcorrection. These guys got the wrong end of the stick and were drafted into a shooting gallery and I’m sorry for those that died and glad for those who returned. But to retroactively lavish endless praise on them is overkill.
You could retroactively apply that argument going back to the Revolutionary War. Pretty much every war America fought in since then could either have been avoided or the number of soldiers who had to die could have been drastically reduced. Fact is, those soldiers did a brave thing for us, and we should honor them - even if that brave thing was totally unnecessary, it’s not like the soldiers sent themselves into harms way. If enough poor rural kids didn’t “volunteer” for the college money (which they must have to avoid living in poverty the rest of their lives, what a choice), there would have to be a draft.
I mean a few highlights, the War of 1812 was a waste, the Spanish American war was fought under false pretences, the Civil War could have been avoided for a fraction of the cost by purchasing the slaves, America got a bunch of soldiers killed near the end of WW1 basically for nothing, and America could have simply stayed home and developed the A-bomb and the B-29 to avoid nearly all American casualties in WW2.
Those who deserted or evaded service showed courage and bravery, too, doing so at considerable risk to their careers or liberty. Standing up for your convictions can show courage, as much so as blindly obeying commands. A stable and enduring peace was won in Vietnam not by good men who obeyed, but by good men who refused to.
Draft dodgers faced only prison, without a high chance of death. So society doesn’t see them like that. I mean, I tend to agree with you. The “hippies”, in retrospect, were basically right about everything. The war was wrong. Weed is great. LSD is probably great. VW vans as campers are great. The man was wrong to fight the war and imprison so many people. Free love is probably pretty great. And so on…
I don’t know why Bill Clinton so commonly gets all the credit for AmeriCorps when parts of the program had already been around decades; AmeriCorps VISTA, the program I served, was created in 1965.
I’m sorry this sounds condescending, Bob, it truly is not meant to.
Armed Forces members do risk death for us. Just joining raises that risk some amount if only because of the “job description”. The necessity of ordering a soldier or sailor or marine or airman or (I think) even more regularly a coastie into harm’s way is irrelevant. The fact is that they are ordered into danger by a government composed of people we picked, to act on our behalf, so that you and me and ugly-joe the crazy guy down the street don’t have to go, or live in fear, or be conquered by someone a lot less nice and understanding than the crop of crap we have currently.
As far as nation building not working ever, I disagree. I would say it hasn’t worked this time (looking to Iraq) because we didn’t do it the way we did it the last time. I’d say Japan was a pretty successful try at nation building. But if I am recalling what I was taught correctly, we occupied Japan for something like 30 years while we did it. Where as, with Iraq, we basically came in and knocked 'em around a bit, slapped some bondo on the dents, applied a shiny new coat of crap-assed spray paint and left. Not really nation building.
Right, the VA does have very specific definitions of what duration or type of service beyond initial entry training makes you a veteran under the law (and which requirements themselves vary across time with amendments in law and regulation); but there is no requirement to have served in battle.
Thank you for serving!
The answer to your question is in your cite; AmeriCorp was created as an initiative in 1993 under Clinton and incorporated Volunteers** I**n Service To America into that initiative, renaming it AmeriCorps/VISTA.
As a Navy vet I have to say the Coast Guard absolutely gets my respect. What they do on sometimes itty bitty ships in harrowing conditions makes what I did on an aircraft carrier seem easy.
And for all the news about the faults with the VA my experience has been exemplary. I love my local VA clinic.
I agree with much of what you say. If you sign up for duty and are willing to put yourself on the line, that’s admirable. I don’t doubt that they would die for our freedom, I just quibble with the idea that they *are *fighting for our freedom. For the Coast Guard guys who risk their lives to assist private and commercial seamen, I have all the respect in the world. Do I support the troops? I don’t know what the hell that means. I want them to have the all the assistance they need when they get back, whether their wounds are physical or mental. I want them to have training and tuition assistance for their transition to civilian life. What I don’t do is support the wars they are currently fighting. Nor do I subscribe to the notion that “we can’t do anything about (fill in the blank) as long as there are homeless veterans”. Sure, I want to help the homeless vets in any way that we can. I just don’t like people using them as political props and as excuses for being selfish when it comes to other needs.
What I find frightening is this constant barrage of patriotic correctness and hero worship of the military. There’s a line between patriotism and fascism, and I think there are more than a few who would gladly leap over that line.
I agree. This expectation that everyone admires the military, and the military “porn” really get to me.
I wish that people could put their talents into a non-violent program, maybe working on all that failing national infrastructure, instead of picking up weapons.
Well said. As a retired war vet, it is disturbing to me to see every event turned into a patriotic wankfest. The loudest saber rattlers (as always) are those who would never think of putting on a uniform, but “Yeah, let’s go kill those fuckers!”