{"id":1361,"date":"2008-03-20T09:48:19","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1361"},"modified":"2008-03-20T12:01:54","modified_gmt":"2008-03-20T16:01:54","slug":"a-word-about-military-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1361","title":{"rendered":"A word about military service"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a general theme running through a lot of the criticism I’ve encountered the last few days, that theme being that some military service has more “moral authority” in the discussion about this war against terror. That the voices of some veterans are more valuable than others.<\/p>\n

I admire people like Lt. Nixon at LT Nixon Rants<\/a> – even though politically we’re miles apart, he’s able to successfully make a credible argument on the subject of the war without demeaning any veterans. Others, however, are unable to do that. One veteran who had not even served in any war, placed more value on his own opinion than mine because he’d served since I retired (in 1994, if anyone is interested and unable to click the “About” link above).<\/p>\n

I had a run-in with IVAW members yesterday and when I mentioned that I had trouble hearing them because I’d lost most of my hearing in a war, their response both times was “What war were you ever in?” as if only their experience has value.<\/p>\n

And the thing that got me to thinking about it happened back in November when I read Clifton Hicks’ letter to the Veterans for Freedom<\/a>;<\/p>\n

How come nearly every single one of you people that I\u2019ve seen or read about are Lieutenants and Sergeants? When I look at your little war pictures and read your poorly written bio\u2019s my vision is overflowed with images of lazy, incompetent, cowardly Officers with a handful of brain-dead NCO\u2019s to do their dirty work, as usual. I wonder where you boys all served?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The implication is; if you aren’t Clifton Hicks, your service doesn’t count. (Ed. Note:<\/strong><\/em> Hey, Cliff, m’boy, we were two feet from each other at Winter Soldier, I didn’t say a word to you no matter what I thought of you or your service – that’s the kind of stand up guy I am<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I had trouble dealing with a lot of the things I had to do in war when I first came back. I found solace in the strangest of places – in Civil War diaries. I discovered that all veterans of all wars have a common experience that others can’t understand. Not psychologists and certainly not some chic with hairy legs.<\/p>\n

Some wars were tougher than others, but the effect that wars have on people is always the same – whether your war was four years of slugging your way across the Pacific or 100 hours of slugging your way across Kuwait.<\/p>\n

Since my awakening, I have surrounded myself with war veterans – from across the spectrum of World War II veterans to veterans of our current war. From paratroopers who jumped into Normandy to meatcutters who went across Germany in the back of a deuce-and-half. From Huey crew chiefs in Vietnam to tunnel rats. Many times I discovered that I have more in common with warriors from previous wars than I do with people whom I’ve known my whole life but never left our hometown.<\/p>\n

Well, what I’m saying, I suppose, is that if these IVAW guys want to attract us to their point-of-view, the last thing they should be doing is demeaning our own experiences and that commonality in the experience of war that we share. Yeah, us older guys are out-of-shape at the moment, but in our day we kicked ass, on and off the battlefield. To judge our accomplishments on something as superficial as our current appearance borders on childishness. And it adds nothing to the discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a general theme running through a lot of the criticism I’ve encountered the last few … A word about military service<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-crowd","category-society","category-support-the-troops","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}