- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Please don't patronize me. I have no illusions about the glories of our military. What you seem to fail to understand is that no one I know signed up for this war. No one I know has said "Take me to Iraq please! I'd quite enjoy getting myself blown up." They signed up to defend this country which, in case you had forgotten, is still on the United States military's to-do list. There is a reason that they call it the "armed services." Our government may be wasting money and lives with its war, but the military's role is far greater and more important than simply that.
Does it take courage to protest a war? I sincerely doubt it. Not because I would characterize protestors as cowards but because I've seen so many absolutely clueless idiots jumping on the left-wing "My God war is teeeeerrible!" bandwagon not too long after voting for the very people who wanted to make that war a reality. Obviously it does not take courage to protest, it just takes a fad. We live in a free country. This is not Reformation-era England when anything said against the crown constitutes treason, and while the Bush administration may have characterized it that way, I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that you ever actually feared for your safety or freedom while criticizing the American government.
The natural tendency to rebel is anything but courageous, it is more or less a part of who we are. It is trendy to question authority. Have you ever been to a Hot Topic? Sticking it to the man has become so redundant and commercialized that they mass produce t-shirts about it.
So please don't characterize military personnel as mindless beefcakes who "sign up for the war in Iraq" while praising protestors who risk nothing (and typically accomplish nothing) by stomping around angrily.
The only people who deserve true praise in this situation are the ones who actually reach out to help others. This is not an issue of left versus right, Democrat versus Republican, protestor versus soldier. This is an issue of humanity, and we are all of us - soldiers, terrorists, protestors, politicians included - human beings in need of something that neither shooting ourselves up nor demonizing the ones who do the shooting is going to bring about.
