Hrmmm.
I joined up at 20, and drank the kool-aid. I was a hu-ah MoFo for a while. I won't comment on my IQ (other than to say I think life might be easier if I didn't think so damn much), but when I went in I did so because I
wanted to do something hard. I wanted to be one of those gun-carrying guys who jumps out of planes, so I was (except my high ASVAB meant I was levelling bubbles rather than playing gunbunny, but there you go.)
Here's my take on it:
RECRUITERS: I liked mine. My opening line was "I'm going to join the Marines unless you can get me an Airborne Infantry slot with a two year commitment and more money for college than they're offering," I knew what I was getting into, and my ASVAB score helped him satisfy some criteria.
I was never lied to. However,
every other soldier I served with was pissed at his recruiter because he
had been lied to.
THE DRAFT: It's wrong to kidnap some kid, make him endure something like Basic/AIT, and then throw him into a combat zone to die for some cause he doesn't care about or (worse) is opposed to. It's not right.
You want to talk about defense of the homeland? That's different -- if we're invaded, we'll have no problem getting plenty of recruits (see 9/11). But I don't see the wars this nation has chosen to get involved in over the last 50 years as worth fighting, much less forcing John Doe (age 17) stright from high school into combat to get his legs blown off. The government doesn't have the legitimacy to do that, thanks.
GROWTH: Yep. Ain't nothing like Uncle Sam to make you grow up in a hurry. Much different experience than going straight from high school to college and grad school and getting caught up in all the nonsensical ideological crap. It's still crap, but the sort that makes you a better person.
THE IRAQ WAR: Iraq
was an enemy of Al Quaida. Bin Ladin hated Saddam more than us.
Now, we're there, and it's a cause for Jihad, bringing people to the fight who'd never been interested in Bin Ladin's outfit, because it's so easy to slant this as the US being an "invader." Hell, the numbers I've seen state that the number of tortures and government sponsored killings in Iraq is
higher now under the provisional government than it was under Saddam.
But that's OK, because we're there to make the place better.
Hint: those that are dying to fight us aren't getting their news from CNN. You should take a look at what they're being fed -- it's not any less accurate than what we're being fed, but it's got a different slant. Remember Bush's "crusade" comments?
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT: Dude, don't even go there. I'm allowed to say I think our foreign policy is 90% detrimental to the security and well being of this nation. We're
terrible at meddling in other nations' problems and making things worse. We always mean well, but the law of unintended consequences always seems to bite us in the butt.
I love my country -- no doubt. I have some very serious reservations about those who have led it for the last half century though, and I have the feeling that I'm being walled in -- that more of my "inalienable rights" will disappear with each passing decade.
I don't trust those that seek to increase the power of government domestically. T.H.E.P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act, eliminating the information sharing rules between CIA and FBI, the TSA, the department of Homeland Defense, TIA, government required spying on all ISPs and telephone systems, the new driver license requirements, the use of torture to gather intelligence (though wee have the decency to deport them to another nation first), the arrest and incarceration of US Citizens to be held without trial forever if the feds require it, the Kelo and Raich (sp?) decisions, ...
It goes on. My country is turning into something I don't recognize, and those that are doing it are also asking me to support a war that they won't tell the truth about (WMDs my ass, Tora Bora fortifications my ass, Iraq involved in 9/11 my ass, ...).
They don't get a pass when it comes to sending good soldiers into harm's way. This looks to be another Vietnam, where the mission never gets completed, and we've got tens of thousands of permanently injured soldiers who got that way for nothing.
I won't support it.
And you're wrong to tell me to "get out" for saying so.
THE REAL PROBLEM: The problem is that we don't learn. I wish we'd take
Washington's advice regarding foreign entanglements. Our charter says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
It's government's role to work for
us. We don't need to play world cop. We don't need to meddle in the affairs of others.
Yeah, Saddam was a bad dude. You know who should have fixed that problem?
The Iraqi People. Not us. The reason we've got so many problems in the middle east right now is because we
meddle rather than keeping to ourselves. If we were simply "the land of the free," where we worked to live better lives, make better stuff, play harder and better than the rest of the world, keep most of what we make, and defend to the death against anyone who would intrude, then we'd be the envy of the world. No-one would take issue with whatever we do, because it wouldn't involve them.
Mullahs in the Middle East might not like Britney Spears, but MTV is pretty easy to turn off. If they don't like the tyrants in charge in Saudi Arabia, however, then they've got to go up against US trained troops flying F16's...
