Chief Tango sends a link to an article that was in Foreign Policy but had too much pop-up BS for me to read the damn thing. So, Stars & Stripes gets the traffic. The article is written by Jim Gourley, who claims to be an Iraq veteran and advises his readers to not vote for veterans. Why? Well because f**k you that’s why. Here’s the short answer;
10. We are really bad at managing tax dollars. Not really. Most of us barely scraped by with broke dick equipment and made it work well enough to kill hundreds of enemy with bailing wire and 100-mile-an-hour tape. Real soldiers never got near government dollars, but officers like Gourley always had everything they needed.
9. We’re just as political as the politicians. Again, a lie. I can count the number of political conversations I had with members of my infantry units on two fingers in the two decades of service in that branch. Yeah, we voted. I became a Republican after voting for Jimmy Carter. I needed to police myself.
8. Being a vet doesn’t make us a morally superior candidate. Another lie. Have you seen the morally reprehensible members of Congress who lie to our faces on the floor of the House and Senate. Just being truthful once would make us morally superior.
7. Combat isn’t an accomplishment. Says the intelligence officer. Leading troops in combat against an armed enemy and bringing them all home safe made me more accomplished than any of my peers in college, and probably most of my professors. See, there’s the key word, Gourley – Lead. Look at the mess we’re in because there are no leaders in Congress or the White House.
6. We really don’t understand the average American. Um, we are the average American. We come from families across the country, in every high school, every grocery store, every MacDonald’s. We weren’t raised on special farms where the government grows it’s soldiers. What we don’t understand is why there are so many who feel entitled to government handouts, and why they’re so afraid of us. We don’t understand why crime is so high and the law enforcement agencies are so afraid to deal with that problem. When we did something wrong, punishment was swift and painful. We don’t understand why Americans are so slow to recognize dangers to the country and why we’re so willing to coddle our enemies. We don’t understand why civilians aren’t all at the recruiting station trying to make something of their sad, dependent lives.
5. Our life experience is limited. Yeah, life experience is limited – like the 22-year-old buck sergeant who was responsible for the lives and well-being of eight other men and a half-million dollars worth of equipment. As compared to the 22-year-old college grad who once was responsible for getting the keg to the frat house on Saturday night – and he was probably late.
4. We’re overrepresented as it is. The stupidest, most telling excuse of all. There was a time, arguably a better time, when nearly every member of Congress was a veteran. You know, back when they had a work ethic and were grateful to be alive and felt a duty to those of us who hadn’t returned to honor their memory by preserving our country.
3. We make a mess of the dialogue. WTF does that mean? Have you listened to the assholes who worry about islands that may tip over because there are too many Marines on it? FFS.
2. The parties are just using us as poster children. No, not the parties, the politicians. One comes to mind in particular – the fellow who “reported for duty” at his convention. Then there was the Senator who had for years been telling his constituents that he’d been to Vietnam when he hadn’t. And the Senator who said he flew in Vietnam combat missions when he was actually just a guy who ferried planes between Japan and Vietnam. But then, we honor fake Indians, too.
1. We actually do feel entitled! Probably because we’ve actually accomplished something in our lives before we turned 40 years old. We’ve bet our lives and our futures on an idea of liberty and freedom, instead of living off our parents for our entire young lives. When we go to college on taxpayer dollars, it’s because we earned it before hand. And used our youth as down payment on our promises.
Gourley is an associate of Tom Ricks, so I understand that he is willing to sell his soul for an opportunity to screw his fellow veterans. In fact, he writes how we’re hiding behind our service, but I’ll bet cash money, that’s the first thing he’ll hide behind trying to defend this intellectually vacuous POS. A Baby [LTC Robert] Bateman making his political bones on the backs of veterans. Good luck with that, Jimmy, I hope you choke on it.
By the way, if you look at Gourley’s LinkedIn profile, you’ll notice that he leans heavily on his military career. So, I guess it’s alright for an aspiring writer who intends to write anti-veteran screeds to advertise themselves as a veteran, somehow it qualifies him to be a writer. But politicians not so much.
