I think that it’s entirely right and proper that operation names should be picked to emphasize the seriousness of the endeavor. Nobody wants our soldiers to take part in “Operation Bunnyhug”.
The problem is that recently naming has verged into the cheesy. A solid, dignified name like “Overlord” isn’t good enough anymore. Instead we get pumped up, hyper-patriotic names like “Enduring Freedom”. It’s like putting sequins on the flag. Tacky.
Agreed.
I’ll confess: when I went to Arlington and saw how many of the graves (a fair proportion) were for peacetime veterans or Pentagon desk jockeys who died at 80 in their sleep, or for their wives, I was . . . well, unreasonably ‘let down.’ Now, I do believe military burials are entirely appropriate for those who serve in any capacity, and intellectually, I don’t begrudge that. But . . . those markers just weren’t as moving as the ones that indicated or implied death in the theater.
But it doesn’t take much to signify or evoke this fact, and the concomitant reflections and empathy – and going beyond what’s necessary is either painting the lily, or wallowing in bathos, politics, or jingoism.
As with my example of “In Osten,” which was plenty sufficient to make me envision what those poor suckers might have gone through at Stalingrad or wherever, “Joe Bloggs, 1980-2005, Iraq,” pretty much says all you need to say (and perhaps the maximum you should say) to inform a family member or grateful civilian of what Joe did and under what conditions.
Adding a bunch of crap adjectives and slogans imparts neither incremental information, nor incremental honor (and if the concern is that “Flanders” or “Bastogne” or “Iraq” isn’t enough to signify to historically-illiterate Americans just what the relevance is, then the silly operation names won’t do any better a job of explaining this either).
Actually, it has. My uncle Johnathan, who died in an automobile accident back in '99 (he was DUI, so fuck him) has “Operation Desert Shield” on his marker, seeing as he was not present during Desert Storm, and thus did not qualify for “Persian Gulf War.” The only difference now is that the VA is offering this added inscription for free (oh yea, and that these wars haven’t been ‘named.’) Perhaps veterans ten, twenty, thirty years from now will have (instead of Operation Enduring Freedom) have something like US-Taliban War or US-Afghani War (in the same line as the Spanish-American War.) Until a generally recognized name is found, “Operation Enduring Freedom”/“Operation Iraqi Freedom” will have to do.
Not so. Its just that now with the end of full scale campaigning, that each action (which would have been called a battle in a foreward campaign) is called an “operation” as opposed to simply a manuver or an action.
Didn’t at one point the DoD just use random words to name operations and campaigns?
Agreed.
I think to my grandfather’s tombstone. It reads Andrew Francis Mang, Colonel, US Army. Korean War-Vietnam War-Persian Gulf War. Then his DOB/DOD. I assume that someday mine will read Franklin Jenner-Mang, (whatever rank I leave at,) US Air Force. Allied Force-Iraqi Freedom. Doesn’t have the same “feel” as my grandpap’s, but it still shows my duty to my country. Same as the guy who’s tombstone simply reads World War II, or Operation Urgent Fury, or Operation Restore Hope (mind you, the last one is a bigger fuckup because we lost it after we won it.) In the end, its a family’s choice (or the serviceman’s wish) as to what his marker reads. If it holds the name of one of America’s discraces, that doesn’t mean that it discraces the serviceman who lies underneath it.
I respectfully disagree with you there. Some folks do need to be told why the death of a serviceman is honor worthy. I think about idiots like Fred Phelps, who doesn’t care for the honor of America’s fighting men. I think about folks like Wallace Terry, a Vietnam veteran who created a false oral history and discraced his fellow fighting men for his own personal gain. And I think about the folks who simply wouldn’t know what the meaning of “Vietnam War” and “Died January 31, 1968” means. Now, if your gripe is with the Administration and it’s PR team, that’s fine. But please remember it’s still providing a service to families which would probably have paid for it anyway.
Not in the least. Remember, at that time, each soldier of the Wermacht, the Waffen SS, sailors and Marines of the Kreigsmarine, and the troops of the Luftwaffe were supposed to be supporting the “master race.” That these men fell in battle to the subhuman scum that was Bolshevek Russia was not, at the time, something to be proud of. I understand what you mean to say, but your analogy is suspect. Differences in culture, nothing more.
~Mang
Rjung. That was beyond cheap. I don’t agree with Sheehan’s mother, but to use the death of Spc. Sheehan to take a shot at the president is discrespectful to the fallen.
The distinction sometimes made between given and new information might be considered when considering the wording on headstones. With regard to such summarising linguistic devices as these inscriptions, it is sometimes argued that another kind of summariser - the newspaper headline - provides given information, providing the means for the transition of a text from new, or indeed news, to background assumption (or “common sense”). (This view may be disputed on the grounds that the information in headlines should be considered to be new, since headlines typically occur at the beginning (or “head”) of a text, where all the information is new.)
Whatever – the ideological work of any text (what I’m currently writing, an announcement from a Moderator, a phrase on a tombstone) can hardly be denied. The importance of given information (presuppositions, assumptions etc) is that it is ideologically the most potent part of the communication, since it has the status of not-in-dispute knowledge aimed at, and often effective in, uniting participants in the communication act. This is very much what such captions (they deserve to be called little better in my opinion) on headstones are about.
Incidentally, I find the whole business (and war is a business) of war being reduced to and by means of “titular honorification” (sorry about that piece of jargon, but it does express the concept rather well, I think) contemptible. Plain headstones - “Died in Iraq” – most suitably honour the dead. Anything else slapped on a headstone is done to serve the ulterior motives of the power-hungry politicos, and is an affront. These people compound their many failings by manipulating a climate where debate is likely to be stifled by amorphous and yet powerfully-held thoughts of the need to respect the dead – not to mention, by manipulating a country which has a bit of a weakness, in my opinion, for anything draped with the flag. A weakness that is often manifested if not in the abolition of thinking, then in the abolition of full expression.
If it’s being done against the wishes of the next of kin, and the article says that happened in a few cases, then that should stop. Otherwise, I don’t have a problem with it. The family should be able to memorialize their dead loved ones however they see fit, and including the name of the operation/conflict the soldier died in…I just don’t see a problem there.
Considering that Bush has no qualms about calling Mrs. Sheehan a threat to freedom, I think it’s just tit-for-tat.
NOTHING can trivialize the death of soldiers – not even the callousness of those who try to use their gravestones for propaganda.
I understand that certain “actions” and “operations” have been given code names. But giving an entire war a name that is well-publicized among the civilian population seems relatively new to me. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t remember an entire war so named before the first war in the Persian Gulf. I’m open to correction.
What happens if freedom does not endure in Iraq? What happens if the country dissolves further into civil war? What happens if there is freedom, but only for the men of Iraq? How sad will “Operation Enduring Freedom” look then?
No, it’s the Pentagon that is offering the inscription for free. They are the ones with funding.
Hadn’t been for GW, Spc. Sheehan wouldn’t be “fallen”.
And please note: the Bushiviks haven’t the slightest qualm about exploiting the “fallen” to support their own ends. They would very much like to advance the notion that only those who oppose them are offering disrespect for our troops. That you offer support for that notion is a matter for your own conscience.
If dissing Bush’s manhood, or his mamma, or his Sunday school teacher would mean one less futile casualty, I won’t hesitate for a moment. I can afford a bit of dignity lost, while GW has none left worth respecting.
Yes, and they still do. I have been privy to some secret programs, and let met tell you the names are DUMB STUPID. You know why? Because they are CODE names. These are not codenames, they are publicity.
And Mrs. Sheehan called President Bush a liar and a trator. That’s tit for tat. You remain an ass because you used Spc4 Sheehan as a tool. That was disgustingly cheap and disrespectful, especially as you’ve come up with stuff which was far harsher and yet retained dignity. The tit for tat equivalent of your shot would be, say, for Bush to suddenly flip open his wallet and have Specalist Sheehan’s photo in it.
Luci, that’s fine by me, but what rjung said wasn’t a slam on the President in the sense that he said “Bush has a small dick and talks funny.” He took a cheap shot and used a dead American soldier as the bullet.
Zoe: I stand corrected.
Flight: That’s what I thought. When I was over in Iraq, I thought some of the op-ords had some really fucked up names (Operation Frog Elder? WTF?!)
“Operation Enduring Freedom” is propaganda where it doesn’t belong, plain and simple. These names have been getting sillier and sillier for about the last twenty years.
Coming in 2006: “The Whack Iraq Attack - Sponsored by McDonald’s Big Mac”. Stop by your local McDonald’s and get a free Moqtada al-Sadr punching bag.
She’s a citizen of the United states. He’s an elected public servant. That means he answers to her (and all the other citizens of the nation), not the other way around. It’s no different than a boss chewing out an incompetent employee.
Well, I suppose George can be thankful fpr small mercies. At least the woman’s not calling him a liar, a bigot and a moron.
And neither am I! I would never suggest that GW is a bigot.
And how does that change the fact that you’re a animal, a rabid fucking dog who feels the need to take a bite out of your target de jour no matter who you shit on in the process?
How’s about that putting a face on your little joke, asshole. You take a hero’s death and turn it into a poorly crafted joke. This is the face of your little pun. Take a look, you worthless fucking dog. Whether you agree with the President or not, whether you like his policies or not, doesn’t change the fact that this is the face you spit on.
Actually, he was only dissing GWB2. Show me a list of all the dead from our Iraq endeavor and I’ll call them evidence of GWB2’s fuck up as well.
Did you actually read his post? Was it dignified, in the sense of say “Fuck you (insert insulting name), its your fault that 2000 of our boys and girls are dead.” Or even something like Reeder’s old screed? Nope. He threw a joke (wink included) with a dead soldier as the punchline. I’m assuming you wouldn’t crack wise when using these men and women as evidence, would you?
I wish you could get as outraged over the deceptions, greed, miscalculations, hypocrisy, and shallowness of the current Administration as you do about what you describe as a “joke.”
What incredible irony.
Honoring the dead has nothing to do with respecting the President. I didn’t have to be respectful to Johnson or Nixon when they lied in order to honor a dead friend, did I?
GWB is beneath contempt. And he is not preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. I’ve never seen a President do more damage. And if you don’t know that, it’s because you are one of those who are so easily lead by pretty propaganda words like Enduring Freedom.
It is not freedom that endures for the women and men that lie buried under those inscriptions.
I respect the office of the President. It’s been occupied by some extremely smart and honorable guys. (Washington, mainly).
I will even go so far as to say that I believe GWB has some “good intentions” in mind for Iraq (much as these have been skewed and exploited by Wolfowitz et al.).
I certainly respect these guys.
Without slamming any of the players . . . I just think the tombstone thing is a bridge too far in the propaganda war.
