Well, in a sense, some, especially the first Iraq war, have - they’re just not interests you think we need to be sacrificing American lives for.
“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon” - Napoleon
We sell the glory and honor of war to young people who don’t know any better. We can’t afford to give them the raises they deserve once they find out that war actually sucks and can get you killed, so we pay them in pats on the back. Superatives like “hero” are the coins we pay soldiers with because there isn’t enough money on Earth to pay for some of the things that are asked of them once we have them in our service.
Every day? No. Can’t be filled with gratitude all the time, any more than you can be at orgasm all the time. But if he’s willing to call on the police for aid (even for investigation) when needed, then damn straight he should be grateful.
In general? Yes. A community with generally decent police is better than one without.
Yes, they should embrace the time-honored pacifist tradition of acceding to the whims of the aggressor. That worked especially well during the Holocaust.
I agree. The thing is that “decent police” IME has little or nothing to do with cops protecting me from criminals. “Decent police” means cops that aren’t on the take, aren’t brutalizing people, or generally being thugs with badges.
You do know that the officer’s corps requires a Bachelor’s degree, at a minimum?
I see a lot of messages on this board that are reducing servicemembers to caricatures of a movie villain’s henchmen. Soldiers are not automatons and do not “blindly” follow orders. You might be surprised by how much introspection and critical thinking goes on about what we do and why we do it.
Maybe your ideas would change if you actually knew a soldier in real life and talked about them like they’re human beings.
And it is highly selective because of the lack of need for officers as compared to enlisted. Example: I have a JD and scored a perfect score of the entrance exam (forget what it was called). However, my physical scores (running, pushups, situps) were mediocre. So my recruiter more or less told me that there was no way I’d make it through the selection committee despite my other qualifications. As of two years ago, the Army had no real need for officers. I doubt this has changed since.
And maybe your misconceptions of who we are would change if you knew that many of us have served or are still serving.
some people have a higher degree of respect than you for servicemembers all together. I don’t think it’s you missing something so much as them having something you don’t. Lots of people have a reason to feel that way, for example they (like me) know the pride of being in the service and knowing that going to Iraq whether you’re a cook or infantry you’re facing a risk that a lot of other people could not do… some have loved ones that died there… bottom line is there’s a lot of deep thought involved and all the explanations on this forum won’t get YOU there but there’s a lot of other people who are there because of what life has put them through or other reasons of their own. There’s the answer if you want it.
Jesus, this again? It worked about as well as the opposite approach worked in the Warsaw Ghetto.
And once again, pacifist =/= passive. No-one said pacifists have to accede to any whims of anyone.
I was in the Army, in Iraq, so I know. Soldiers are people, and as such, have basically the same probability of being a hero as every other person in society.
It’s the hero-worshiping, flag-waving, gung-ho groupies who create caricatures of soldiers in their minds. People are people. John Rambo and Private Ryan exist only in movies.
If the OP’s point is that the media likes to overuse button-pushing terms like “hero”, I agree.
But I’m willing to grant the use to anyone in the armed forces who is killed or injured in the line of duty.
BTW, I also believe that we should institute the draft; that we should not have a 100% volunteer army, and that avoiding the draft should be difficult. We’d get in a lot fewer wars, if everyone voting didn’t know whether a family member might be affected.
I was lucky. I was in the first generation not to have to register for the draft as the Vietnam war came to a close. The year before me didn’t have to be worried about being called up. My hat’s off to you vets who served. You’re all heros, in my book.
We water down a lot of words, but I don’t think we lose much by calling service personnel heros.
This is certainly true and I agree with you, but I’m 21 and some of my friends were drafted out of high school and went to Iraq, and you better believe most of them thought they were fighting for our freedom. The military is fairly good at convincing (read: brainwashing) kids of that sort of thing. So even though I don’t believe the war in Iraq did anything at all to help keep me “free,” I’m not about to tell that to my paraplegic friend, or my friend who lost her brother. It’s disgusting that they were manipulated in this way, but if it makes them feel better to be called heroes, I’m okay with that.
I’m not saying all, or even most, soldiers should be called heros. I’m going to do my job whether people believe in me or not. But I take umbrage with the posts that claim “all” soldiers are automatons or that all soldiers are “the exact opposite” of heros. It would be nice to be judged as a person based on my accomplishments, rather than a false stereotype of what people think a soldier is, without assigning false motivations for why I chose my job, and without being made a scapegoat for the failures of policymakers.
I was in the military (albeit drafted). I was “hurt” doing my job. I was not then nor am I now a hero.
Middle school teachers, now they are heros in my book.
Agreed. People should be judged by their accomplishments, not the category they belong to.
I’m as opposed to calling all soldiers automatons and murderers as I am to calling them all heroes. They’re mostly just regular people who wanted a decent job, college money and perhaps the adulation of their peers. Some do get an ego boost from the “serving my country” and “defending freedom” jingoism, but I don’t hold it against them.
When is the last time a U.S. militaty member “risked their lives” for me? I will spot you the assasination of Osama Bin Laden. Other examples, please. And I do not consider them dying to keep the military industrial complex aflot “for me” since I am not a weapons contractor.
But at least half of them come from current and former military, and they should know. I’m happy to agree with them.
Has it occurred to you that using terms like hero is part of the brainwashing and manipulation?
Right. The ones that finish college are made officers.