Well where as I appreciate your feelings, they are of little consequence at this point in time. The deed has been done and just so you understand my position, I didn’t vote for the blundering idiot that is presently in charge of our country either time nor did I vote for the philander who resided in office before him. But to abandon men that our country sent to fight a war that was based on the flimsiest of evidence would a very cowardly thing to do. Cowardice, like lying, is something I don’t do. It would be a wonderful thing indeed, if our current president shared my resolve.
::sniff:: I see how it is, B.E.G.
To the Red Cross/FEMA comment: I second that you’d be wrong about that. When Hurricane Ivan hit Pittsburgh (!), the flooding was tremendous. Who answered that call? Me. My unit. I cancelled my plans with the girlfriend, didn’t go to that party, didn’t see the friend that was in town. Instead, I guarded Houston, PA from looters looking to take advantage of all the residences with swollen wooden doors that couldn’t be shut. That was a 36 hour shift. I think I made $70 that weekend for that. That’s just one example. Every time there’s a severe storm or something, we’re there. There is no way FEMA or the Red Cross matches what your National Guard does.
To the teacher comparison: I don’t think you understand exactly how little we’re paid and the committment it takes to stay with this. I’m both a teacher and a soldier, so I feel that I can say this. A teacher can quit his/her job, a soldier can’t. Every few years, we get to make that decision, not every day. Deployed to Iraq, I made less than $35,000 a year, including all the add-ons. A teacher goes home to his/her family at the end of the day. I didn’t see anyone I knew for over a year. Not to mention, I could’ve DIED!! So THAT is the reason you should thank your servicemembers and think of them as a notch above teachers. As to why you should SAY that out loud, nobody ever debates if teachers have a moral job or if they should even exist. No one calls them evil by virtue of their job. In our country today, finding a friend in the general public is a difficult task. Announcing your support is a meaningful gesture.
Thank them for what? Their actions in Iraq confer no benefit to me. They’re not protecting me from anything and they volunteered to be there. I feel sorry for them and I wish they weren’t being exploited and wasted the way they are, but that’s not my fault. I feel no animosity to anyone over there, but what has the occupation of Iraq given to me that I should be grateful for?
My late brother in law served honorably and well. I met a lot of military people through him and my sister; most of her surviving friends are retired military. I liked most of them and respected and even admired some of them but I can’t say that I ever felt gratitude to any of them. I think most of them saw themselves as at least potential defenders of America and felt that people should be grateful to them for that. Following that logic, we should be grateful to the policeman who tickets us and the fireman who holds up a boot for us to throw money in. It just doesn’t strike me that we owe gratitude for a service that isn’t actually rendered.
Once again, Iraq isn’t all the military does. They also fight in Afghanistan, serve garrison duty in Korea, man all of our destroyers, carriers and subs, provide aid to tsunami and cyclone victims in SE Asia and hurricane victims here. They also do lots of things I really have no room to list.
When I was in, I supported operations that helped bring that genocidal mess in Bosnia to an end.
So out of all the military does, you would withhold your gratitude because of your political opposition to a certain mission, one these soldiers did not choose or vote upon.
I said above, that is pretty shallow. Your choice to make, but I think that choice frankly reveals a lot about your priorities.
I am also thankful for, and have verbally thanked, the police officers and firemen that I’ve met. Generally, the reason to thank them is obvious: they served me. But I also thank them in general because they are performing a difficult and often dangerous job that I would not want to perform. I guess the thing is, I know that a lot of people don’t thank them or treat them poorly because they don’t like them or trust them, and maybe I’m trying to balance things out a little. But they have served me and they serve my community. That’s worth a thank you and it costs nothing.
Aww, I didn’t mean to leave you out. Thank you, **IntelSoldier ** (I should have realized by you username that you were active duty as well) 
… and all the other military (and non-military) guys and gals that participated in my thread.
I should also add, Diogenes, that part of your own National Guard is in Kosovo right now, helping maintain the peace there.
Don’t you think this is a worthwhile thing to do? How do you feel about soldiers from your state doing this work?
None of that confers any benefit to me, so I have no reason to be grateful. Respectful, sure, but gratitude implies that they’re giving something to me persoanlly which they aren’t.
When I was in, I was a cook. It never occurred to me to think I should go around demanding thanks from random strangers.
Politics has nothing to do with it. The military has given me nothing that I owe it any thanks for (well, maybe my USAA benefits).
Take your sanctimony somewhere else. I served too. I didn’t ask for any thanks. When did you guys start feeling so entitled?
Good for them. I also have a brother-in-law (a guy who I like and have formed a good friendship with) in Iraq right now. I’m sending him care packages. He’s a good guy (even though he’s a Republican). I feel just fine about what thos guys are doing. My issue is not that I think they’re doing anything wrong, but that it has nothing to do with me. Why should I be grateful to people who haven’t given me anything?
Well, your BIL is in Iraq and therefore not doing anything for you, so why the care packages? Obviously, you’re capable of thinking beyond what directly benefits you.
Where on earth did you get the idea soldiers are demanding anything, much less gratitude?
Same question. Who are these “you guys” who have started feeling entitled?
From the gratitudecampaign.org site:
As far as I can tell, the guy who came up with the Gratitude Campaign idea isn’t military and the military in general has nothing to do with it.
Diogenes, it’s amazing that it’s all about you. You can’t even be grateful that the military has served your country.
- I served too.
- No has yet told me what they’re doing for me personally that I need to be grateful for.
- When you se the word “gratitude,” then there’s no other way to take it than personally. It implies that the military is give somethiung to me personally that I need to say thank you for, and they aren’t.
Friendship and sympathy. Thise things do not have to entail gratitude.
I was talking about military personal who are posting in this thread with self-righteous lectures about why they’re entitled to gratitude.
Try to keep in mind that for people like me, this attitude is very nearly incomprehensible. I do not consider blindly following orders to be something that deserves honor or respect–and certainly not gratitude. People following the perfectly legal orders of their governments have led to some of the most evil acts on this planet. Legality is derived from governments and thus from politicians–sometimes good but sometimes venial, powerhungry, and corrupt. Morality comes from yourself. The military leaves no room for morality and I cannot respect that. I certainly have no gratitude to spare for that kind of attitude. I could not continue to work for an organization that I felt was doing things that were morally wrong, as I believe the war in Iraq is.
And frankly, if I am supposed to be judging my government for the things they do wrong, shouldn’t I also thank them for the things they do right, rather than the members of the military themselves? If servicemen and women are not responsible for the wrongs committed in Iraq, in Vietnam, in any other country you would care to name, then why are they responsible for the good that the military has done in disaster stricken countries or in peace-keeping capacities? They are just following orders. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. People deserve to be judged on what they do, on the decisions they make–not on how good they are at doing what other people tell them to do.
Don’t get me wrong! This does not mean that I hate the military in general or its members in particular. I can tell you don’t agree, and I doubt we will ever agree on that, so let’s just leave it at this: I respect people in the military, as I respect everyone in this world who has not done something to lose that respect, but I don’t feel grateful to them either. That simple.
The only way to support the troops is to do everything in your power to bring every last one of them home. Everything else is bullshit designed to make us feel better, not them.
Dio you’re letting this get too personal. I know that you’ve pointed it out already, but don’t allow yourself to be drawn in like this. I have the utmost respect for you and others who have served, and allthough I have never served in the military you can be sure I know what it is about. It is about brotherhood. Team work. Personal sacrifice for the good of all. I learned it the hard way, in gangs, and by fighting like a dog in the streets. Makes no difference how or where I learned but I’m telling you, my brother, no man is an island. We must all get along. End of story. I feel for you because I know you are a father and a soldier and above all, a man. Just one man. Just like me. No better, no worse, all equal under the sun and equal as we stand on this great world of ours. Each one of us a piece of the puzzle that is life. I know you don’t believe in God but He unites us. He made the puzzle. Without Him it makes no sense. I’ll shut the hell up now, as this isn’t the forum for it. Peace to you, my brother. Stand still and revel in yourself. You are unique. The ONLY one of you.
A lot has been said jokingly about grunts and being a bunch of Dums Dums, especially by those in the military themselves, but it’s not true that being in the military is about “blindly following orders”.
I dunno. I consider the U.S. government an authority, and I view the military as an extension of the U.S. government.
I think there are a couple of points to keep in mind here.
First, a lot of people who join the military trust that their government shares the same values that they do. They enlist perhaps because they view military service as the most profound expression of their values. To say that the military leaves no room for morality doesn’t seem fair – it embodies a morality that many people share and has been a bonding point for countless U.S. citizens.
I’m unlikely to share the same moral viewpoint, or at least not feel it’s perfectly expressed through service in the military, so I am unlikely to enlist. But just because it embodies a different morality than I have does not mean it follows no moral code at all. To be willing to do what you’re told implies that you have placed a profound moral trust in your superiors, not that you enjoy being told what to do. To a lesser extent the same thing gets played out daily in the hierarchy between employer and employee, mother and child, etc. There are bad bosses and abusive mothers, but in general the need for hierarchy is understood and respected, because it is the most efficient and humane way for society to operate.
The second point is, it might be a good idea to look at the big picture. I hate the war in Iraq. I hate war altogether. But I am also aware that the military is not just about killing people – it is about preventing war and it is also about humanitarian service. I am trying to view the lousy foreign policy of this moment in the broader context of U.S. history and the function the military has served throughout. We live in an imperfect world–the state could not exist without the military. The Iraq war, or Vietnam, or any war that has been fought throughout history, is but a small piece of the greater picture. Nobody pays attention to the military during peace time, but it is there, building communities, providing humanitarian aid, largely being ignored but essentially serving as a vast body of people willing to trust that their country will use them in the interest of the greater good. If you hate the war in Iraq, or U.S. foreign policy (as I DO, I cannot stress it enough), then blame the government, not the individuals who believe that their government will make the right decision.
Re: the OP:
(link broken, so I’m not intentionally giving money to people who may be posing/hiding behind our honored dead)
Q: Who are these people?
Who is Scott Truitt? Who serves on the board of directors / owns gratitudecampaign.org? Most service people I know are having a tough enough time paying bills, let alone producing a multi-million dollar network-grade commercials (another type of ‘gratitude’ that always seems to get ignored both before and after election day).
So, who paid for this? What purpose does the spending of this money and the releasing of this commercial serve in May of 2008? And why not in 2007 or 2006?
Have their owners/ major shareholders/ contributors served on any political re-election campaigns in the past ten years? Whose?
I’ll pat people who serve on the back, but I feel like I respect the memory of the dead much more by making sure that no one is falsely wearing the uniform and smearing their faces with dead soldiers blood just to make political headway in an election year.
Rachel Maddow, This Story Is Calling You…
This is a whoosh, right?