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Mr. Patterson,
Your psychic abilities need tuning. In your intellectual arrogance, you miss much, and suppose quite incorrectly. You don't know me as an individual, you just see me as an agent for a system that you despise, and seek to vilify me for having any association with it. Your insults fall harmless on me, for I understand your frustration. I imagine if you and I sat down, we would have similar views of those old men you speak of.
I believe we should have a draft, and the first people to go should be the direct family members of military age of the executive and legislative branch members who deem the war a necessity. It is a medieval notion, but I think leaders should lead from the front, and put their own in equal danger.
Sir, I grasp the indignity of war, I have studied it, taught it, and lived it, have you? I have looked into the eyes of dead and dying men, helpless to intervene in any meaningful way, boiled with anger and frustration, not only at our enemies, but the leadership who placed us in the situation, and I have wept openly at the tragedy of it all.
War by definition is a failure of civilization, but unless you would like war to be a total descent into savagery, you might want to consider having people in military service whose greatest joy in life is not being, "Yet another little boy who loves playing with guns."
Despite being quite capable with weapons, I own none, and for the record, I support certain forms of gun control. Aside from zeroing my weapon, I did not have the appropriate opportunity to fire my weapon during my tour of duty. There were times I could have, and would have been totally justified, but would have shot an innocent person. There are times I wish I could have shot back at those that were shooting at me, but it doesn't always work that neatly.
You may have missed the portion of my writing where I said I was strongly against this war. However, as a soldier who has made a committment to the Constitution of this nation and the principles of that document, my integrity did not allow me to duck out of my responsibilities while I still proved capable. I did not go back to the war for you, comic book notions of heroism, or for a deep seated loyalty to the cause. I went because I have served with my unit since 1989, these are my friends and colleagues, and I would not abandon them at the moment we were called to service. I do not consider myself a hero, although I am frequently and earnestly labeled one, and have received shiny plaques and bits of tin and ribbon to say I am one. I do consider myself a person who stays true to my values. Militaries do not function based on the individual whims of its members. Those that do often fail horribly and are merely mobs.
I do not believe the decisions were inevitable, I believe they are a result of the people chosen to make them. I disagree with the leadership of the nation, but I also volunteered to serve my community, state, and nation. I accepted the rules for that service. We as a nation of rules and laws, and our established system of government--with all its flaws--produced a decision and a course of action, ill considered as it might be.
I as an individual did not agree with the war in Iraq, but within the framework of what I believe is an unjust war, I believe there is an important place for voices within the military to bring sanity to individual moments of chaos. The officer who stands down soldiers from firing at an unruly mob, the leader who designs his check points to minimize the chance of accidentally firing on innocents, the conscientious soldier who goes out of his way to improve the lives of the Iraqi people, beyond the dictates of the mission. While millions may go to war, there are moments that come down to decisions of individuals face-to-face that can make all the difference.
You sir would like the world to be all neatly black and white: I can be the good guy, and stay home to tend my garden, or be the bad guy, and go to war to kill and maim. I have lived within the shades of grey, and I reject your idealistic and simplistic notions.
