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Our own Poetrooper penned this, and asked me to post it up. Agree or not, my only possible response to a master writer like Poe is, Aye-Aye. He’s recovering from a debilitating bout with cancer, and claims to be slow of thought and has difficulty stringing a sentence together. I respectfully disagree, but you, TAH readers, will have to make up your own minds.<\/p>\n
Separating Politics from the Military is a Fool\u2019s Errand<\/strong><\/p>\n
Poetrooper<\/p>\n
In reading the more than 250 comments to Extra Admin\u2019s post, \u201cNew Beginnings or Status Quo,\u201d I was absolutely thunderstruck by the multiple commenters expressing a desire to ban political posts and stick to topics of a military nature. What is so shocking is that so many of you who read and comment here have spent crucial parts of your lives as warriors right out at the tip of the nation\u2019s spear, a military spear to be sure, but more factually and more actually, at the tip of a political spear engaged in campaigns ordered up and designed to effect desired political outcomes. What is it about that reality of that political nature of your service that you do not get?<\/p>\n
\nTrue, we swear an oath to protect the Constitution and the United States of America but is that constitution not a political document, conceived and enacted by a group of politicians for the purpose of humanely governing and guaranteeing the continued existence of a political entity, this United States of America we so revere? There is no question that this same political entity has been since its founding under the control of politicians who in that almost two and a half centuries have directed our military forces into countless campaigns, both at home and abroad to serve the political needs of those in power. It wasn\u2019t generals and admirals who initiated all those conflicts purely for military purposes\u2014it was politicians, each and every time, doing it to attain their desired political ends.<\/p>\n
In 1965, it may have been Army generals who demanded my presence in South Vietnam to fight but it was politicians, a Democrat president operating with the support of a compliant Democrat Congress, who ordered those generals to do so. There in those stinking rice paddies and steaming jungles we faced an enemy we knew little about except that their political beliefs and ambitions differed from those of the politicians who had sent us there. Several years and 58,000 American lives later, those same Democrats lost their political nerve and their military will and just walked away, rendering those sacrifices and the dedicated service of millions of military participants meaningless, leaving our ally nation as a helpless victim to our vicious opponents. It was not the generals and admirals who lost their determination to defeat that enemy but a political entity, the Democrat Congress, which cut off funding for the troops as well as South Vietnam\u2019s armed forces, a purely political decision made by cowardly politicians.<\/p>\n
In the years since my war, it\u2019s not the generals that I have cursed but those craven congressmen. And in those fifty years, how many times have politicians ordered our military forces into deadly actions that again required the ultimate sacrifice, only to get political cold feet once again, and order withdrawal before our military can complete the mission? What\u2019s more, where do you think all those restrictive Rules of Engagement that so hamper our military efforts originate? That\u2019s right, from political brains in political counsels and for purely political considerations. Politicians fully understand that the military exists to carry out their political wishes; they fully grasp that the Founding Fathers put ultimate control of our military in their hands.<\/p>\n
So it is truly baffling to me how so many of you who have been ordered to war by these politicians, and whose children and grandchildren, now or in the future, do or will serve at the behest of similar politicians, seem to think that discussions of current politics and who these future politicians will be, have no place on this military forum? Good grief! If there is any place where politics should be a topic of keen interest it is on a milblog where participants\u2019 very lives have been determined by politics and if you are involved with the Veterans Administration\u2019s health care system, may very well still be so.<\/p>\n
Look, I understand that politics is everywhere nowadays and I get tired of hearing constant political commentary by talking heads as well. However, as members and representatives of our military and veterans\u2019 communities, we very much need to pay close attention and share our concerns as to what politicians are planning to do to this nation. I have come to love this site and its members since I first surfed in back in 2012 and was impressed enough to ask Jonn to let me be a part of it. And while my contributions have been diminished due to disease and age, TAH is my first stop when I turn this computer on each morning. So it pains me no end to say that for the first time in almost seven years here, this old man is truly disappointed in a few of you whom I thought were better thinkers than your comments about banning political posts reflect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thank you, Poetrooper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"