{"id":51959,"date":"2014-06-22T12:55:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T16:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=51959"},"modified":"2014-06-22T13:20:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T17:20:28","slug":"cpt-benjamin-summers-on-hero-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=51959","title":{"rendered":"CPT Benjamin Summers on hero worship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captain Benjamin Summers is an Aviation officer at Fort Campbell, KY and he felt a need to tell us in the pages of the Washington Post<\/a> that not all veterans are heroes;<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, a growing chasm between military and civil society has raised the pedestal upon which the United States places those who serve in its military. Too much hero-labeling reinforces a false dichotomy that\u2019s commonly heard in our political discourse: You\u2019re either for the troops or you\u2019re against them. We badly need to find ways to bridge this civilian-military gap to cultivate a more nuanced appreciation of service and to produce better policy in Washington. <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

[T]he widening civil-military divide intensifies the aura that attaches to military service, especially when the country is at war. Over the past decade, veterans did many things that the general public didn\u2019t do and doesn\u2019t necessarily comprehend fully: deploying, being away from home for a year, serving in war zones. During these years, it\u2019s undeniable that veterans have received a hero\u2019s embrace from their nation….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know the Captain probably has the best of intentions, and that he’s trying to make the public debate over the future of the military in the country a bit more clear, but he’s not being helpful, especially when he writes in the Washington Post. Let me explain to the pup about my perspective on the issue.<\/p>\n

I say “pup” because he’s not old enough to remember the post-Vietnam Era when the complete opposite was true – whether you were a Ranger in the bush rooting out the Viet Cong or you were a sailor floating off shore, and never saw a single Vietnamese tree, the American public thought of you as a “baby-killer”. Despite what the Left would have you believe, there were soldiers returning to this country to a shower of spittle.<\/p>\n

There was no discussion of veterans getting the benefits they deserved. The war was over and no one wanted to talk about them. There really were homeless and substance-abusing veterans, and no one really cared. The Veterans’ Service Organizations shouted about the problem, but no one was listening. Some of the VSOs didn’t even recognize them as real veterans. Families were divided over their service. Hollywood portrayed them as lunatics who played Russian Roulette in their spare time. One movie used a legless veteran whose wife was cheating on him with a 4Fer as the villain. <\/p>\n

No beggar on the street would tug at your purse strings with a sign that identified him as a veteran. Being a veteran was worse than being a homeless bum in that particular America.<\/p>\n

Our military budget was slashed to the bone with no debate, so that we trained to fight with Korean War-era equipment and weapons. When I got promoted from E-4 to E-5, my pay shot up $22\/month. We practiced assembling on the drop zone by jumping from the back of a duece-and-a-half as it drove down Sicily Drop Zone because there was no money for the 82nd Airborne Division to jump from aircraft. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, just the other day, the “for or against the troops” thing saved the A-10 Warthog from the scrap yard for another year. I’d say that was a good thing…for the troops, those ground pounders who you admit really are heroes.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, the pendulum is swinging wide in the opposite direction as it did after Vietnam, but you tell me, which direction is better in regards to our national defense? The American public that doesn’t go to war will never understand those who do…there will always be a divide. But the way it is now is a damn-sight better than it has been in our history. So, just leave it be, young buck.<\/p>\n

And, the Washington Post is not your friend. The Post and their readers don’t need your help to bring the troops down off the pedestal. <\/p>\n

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain Benjamin Summers is an Aviation officer at Fort Campbell, KY and he felt a need … CPT Benjamin Summers on hero worship<\/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":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51959","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=51959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}