She didn’t explicitly mention soldiers or military currently “at war”. That is why I bolded that segment of the quote.
You were careful to use that term yourself however. Why?
Because that’s why the stickers mentioned in the OP popped up again in 2002-ish, as they did in 1991 in Gulf War v.1.
RickJay, arguable point taken.
Because it’s cheaper than actually funding the war?
And muuuuuuuuuuuuch safer than you know, actually fighting the war themselves.
Look at the death rates of US soldiers who are in conflict zones, then compare them to those of most large cities, especially those where guns are rife. If you are a US soldier, you’re safer on the frontline in Afghanistan than you are in Chicago on a Friday night.
If I ever get a vehicle, my bumper sticker is going to say “Support the non-violent party goer.”
Nothing like exaggerating the myths which are floating around.
[QUOTE=Nawth Chucka]
Military persons who continue a military career past the first few years do so knowing what it will be like; military spouses do not have a full picture of what’s involved until they’re married into it. I know I didn’t. And probably wouldn’t have done so if I knew then what it would be like, how I’d have little to no control over many basic aspects of my normal life.
[/QUOTE]
See, this is what I mean. It sounds like you think army wives corner the market on sacrifice. As the wife of a clinical psychologist-in-training, I can relate so much to your sentiment (though my husband had no idea what it would be like either.) I’ve moved three times in the past 4 years, have no idea what state I’m going to be living in next year (I’ll find out in March where we’re moving to in July.) We can’t have children in such unstable circumstances even though I would very much like to start a family and have been waiting for years. The isolation is unbearable at times. I haven’t seen some of my closest relatives in two years. I assume a certain degree of risk working in a neighborhood where the estimate of being a victim of a crime is 1 in 14 and the rates of PTSD rival that of Rwanda. I don’t see how helping children with mental illness (which he does) or working in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Philly in order to help young people and immigrant families (which I do) is less important, or our sacrifices any less meaningful.
And I’m not trying to single myself out, either. People make sacrifices like this all the time. It’s part of being in a relationship, or making a choice to do good in the world. This is not a concept exclusive to the military, or any particular set of people. It is a universal human experience.
Oh, and just to respond to the ‘‘while we are a nation at war,’’ thing - totally depends on the war. Some are just and noble causes, some not-so-much. I don’t think you can generalize that all soldiers in all wars are always more important than the work of the average American.
Nawth Chucka, I do appreciate you sharing your perspective. I’m not trying to be combative, just offer an alternative view, and these are thoughts that have been brewing for a while. I just wanted to expose them to light and see if they hold up.
Oh my. You must be very young. It most certainly did happen. My husband was a Medivac helicopter pilot in Viet Nam and people called him a “baby killer” when he came back. Wow. Talk about revisionist history. I’m stunned that anyone questions the extent to which the military was reviled in the late 60’s-early 70’s.
And did anyone ever spit on him, as is so often claimed?
Conversely, I find it difficult to say “support our troops” without conveying the unintended, underlying message that I support the war.
While I agree that the current wave of constant Deification and the fawning hero-worship of US military troops (all of whom volunteered for service, presumably being intelligent enough to know both the risks and rewards) is often WAY over-the-top and in many ways harmful to both soldiers and civilians alike, to hear a poster above claim with a straight face that she, as the wife of a guy in grad school, is suffering just as much anxiety, privation and uncertainty as a wife with a spouse on active military duty is one of the most bizarre, self-involved, pathetic things I have ever read on the Dope.
No one in this thread has ever made such a claim.
[QUOTE=MPB in Salt Lake]
… to hear a poster above claim with a straight face that she, as the wife of a guy in grad school, is suffering just as much anxiety, privation and uncertainty as a wife with a spouse on active military duty is one of the most bizarre, self-involved, pathetic things I have ever read on the Dope.
[/QUOTE]
It is a good thing she didn’t say this, then.
And this is basically why this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned my feelings about this. Because people will almost certainly take it the wrong way. I really don’t know what to tell you. I tried to be as respectful and clear as possible.
No need to apologize. I understood exactly what you were saying.
While I think those in the military are doing amazingly heroic things, as mentioned in a post above, they volunteered for this job. Nobody forced anyone to enlist (unlike back in my day with the Draft) and they most certainly have a clue where they are probably going to be deployed.
You never see a “Support our Firefighters/Police/EMT’s” or any number of other dangerous jobs.
And I do believe that families with heads of households who are doing community service, or teaching, or working in hospitals in poor, violent urban areas, are often under a lot of stress. Do they have bombs blowing up next to them? No. But do they have thugs in gangs, gun fights, dangerous neighborhoods, deaths and sad/scary stories to tell? Yes.
If you were eligible for the draft you surely have a greater life experience than I. So, you must have intended hyperbole because yes, there are ‘Support Firefighters/Police/EMT’ stickers, not to mention the flood of ‘NYFD’ stickers post 9/11 that implied support of that department. Did you know thisand thisshow police and firefighter support, respectively?
My father put one on his car while my brother was overseas.
Sure you do. Just go to any small town in America. Volunteer firefighters get the same treatment more or less and so do police officers to a lesser degree. They damn sure do in my hometown and a recent false scandal in the fire department caused most citizens to rally around them just like soldiers including bumper stickers. Volunteer firefighters have a good case for being true heros because they don’t get paid and it often costs them money to do what they do.
I can see the point that soldiers get over the top heroism treatment and agree with it in a way. My younger brother is a Coast Guard officer who signed up for their Special Ops duty. He got badly injured in training and almost didn’t live the through the secondary infections. He probably will have some degree of permanent and serious damage from it. I don’t don’t think he is a hero though at least for that. It was all voluntary and he got hurt in training rather than real duty. He just got cleared to go back into training after being in and out of the military hospital for months. If he gets hurt or killed the second time around, I don’t know whether that is closer to heroism or stupidity and I told him that. He just likes the cool stuff he gets to play with in that role.
However, I still say that the current treatment of all service members is just a wall that is put up to protect service members from the same type of treatment that they got in the past and it is effective that regard. We didn’t have a large-scale foreign war between the early 1970’s in Vietnam until Gulf War I. We were the good guys in Gulf War I and citizens stepped up to make damn sure that they saw and heard of nothing like any type of ill-guided abuse towards service members that occurred during Vietnam. They made it public with things like ribbon campaigns, parades, and award ceremonies. It is extreme backlash against the irrational among us but it is effective.
If you think there aren’t people that would be happy to condemn and abuse individual soldiers to this day no matter what their role, you are naive. We have some on this board and even recent threads in Great Debates with people saying exactly that.
Being called names isn’t the same as spitting or assault. And as TokyoBayer pointed out, people have looked for evidence of the latter and failed to find any. And I’m over 40.