As I started reading Baldilocks' post In Search of a Survival Plan, I was thunderstruck. By a completely unoriginal idea.
The concept of the Vietnam War—rather than the actual war itself—was shaped by the media of that time and today’s overwhelming Democrat, leftists, "anti-war" media is attempting, with some success, to shape how the American public thinks about this war.
I've talked to my mom extensively about her generation. I guess it's not hard for me to understand that many people her age think all wars are Vietnam. They lost friends, they sat anxiously and waited to hear the lottery numbers, and they unfortunately participated in America's only half-assed war. I'm sorry they had to go through that. But Iraq is not Vietnam.
When the Guif War started, I was in 7th grade. I saw it on TV and ran to my room, scared out of my wits. I wrote in my diary OH GOD WE'RE AT WAR and went on to write that we would all die. It's hard not to laugh at myself now, since I know I was imagining trench warfare and blitzkrieg. I had no concept of war. Heck, I still have no concept of war, try as I might. I've talked extensively with my husband and his friends, trying to get a sense of what they did in Iraq. But I have managed to figure out one thing, the thing that hit me when I read Baldilocks' first paragraph.
If Iraq really is as bad as the media says it is, why don't I know any soldiers who concur?
Why does Red 6 say that it was "the best year of his life"? Why did my husband's unit softball team love to get together and rehash their "so there we were" stories? Why does my husband think that going to Iraq was the most important and meaningful thing he's ever done? And why does he feel so down in the dumps about being home? If Iraq really is a quagmire, shouldn't he feel relieved?
The soldiers I've talked to think that Iraq was meaningful. They think it was fun, boring, and scary all at once. They think they were helping both Iraq and the United States by being there, and they were proud to serve. Some have already gotten their fill and others are itching to get back, but they all believe a soldier should soldier.
So why don't I feel like the media or the general public groks this?
I think it's sad that my mom says she feels like she has to defend my husband because he wants to continue to contribute to the War on Terror. She says that her friends and extended family simply cannot comprehend that my husband and I are not horrified by the thought of Iraq. And we're just not. If he raised his hand today and volunteered to go back, I'd be extremely proud of him, because I think the only way to win this thing is to see it through to the end, and I'd rather have someone as smart and capable as my husband to lead the way.
My husband is strong enough to go back, and I think it's important enough to let him go. That's why it's so frustrating that the TV is filled with Cindy f-ing Sheehan all the time. That body count and gloom and doom reporting is demeaning to the soldiers who want to see this war through to the end.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the media is as uninformed as I was at 13. Their reports read like a page from my diary, where the sky is falling and we're all gonna die. But "if I got my news from the newspapers also I'd be pretty depressed as well." Thank goodness I have soldiers to give me the straight story.
Maybe some journalists should come have dinner with us and Red 6. Except I doubt he and my husband would let them in the front door...
Posted by Sarah at October 28, 2005 10:17 AM | TrackBackthis is my last comment on this blog. you need a reality check sarah. go to walter reed or bethseda and ask the troops there if it was as redsix said "it was the best year of my life" i'm positive you'll get a much different answer.cheerleaders for young men and woman winding up in caskets or wheelchairs need to stop and think aboutit .goodbye boiler technician thrid class thomas mullin
Posted by: tommy mullin at October 28, 2005 03:43 PMBye, Tommy. I'm not really sure why you bothered to read my blog in the first place, since you obviously don't agree with me and since you aren't going to change my view of the world. But best of luck elsewhere...
Posted by: Sarah at October 28, 2005 04:18 PMTommy, because of the Men & Women fighting to protect freedom you have a bed to sleep in tonight, and you are free to voice your opinion.
Those who have given the ultimate scacrifice and those that have suffered from loosing an arm, or both arms, a leg or both legs or an eye or maybe both eyes, whatever their cost, should cause you to never take for granted those sacrifices. You should also be grateful for your liberties and Freedom. You would have none if it weren't for those who believe in fighting for it.
Guilt. It's what makes the left go.
Guilt that we Americans have more than the rest of the world, guilt that whiltes are generally born into more affluent and supportive families than non-whites, etc.
It's what makes liberals tick. White, liberal guilt.
And now we have guilt that there are Americans who volunteer for military service, who fight and die, while they would never consider it.
Of course, to cope with their guilt that others are brave enough to serve, liberals (e.g., Democrats, the media, etc.) do all they can to make sure that our involvement in the conflict comes to an end. When it does, they won't have to think about how brave some Americans are, and how "not brave" they are.
I'm not in the military, either. I feel this guilt just as liberals do. The idea that men and women and killed and maimed for something that is very difficult to tie back directly to our national security is something difficult to reconcile yourself with. Men and women signed up to defend our homeland, and it's not always clear that this effort in Iraq (less so in Afghanistan) meets the reason these folks volunteered to put their lives on the line.
But I understand and acknowledge the guilt, but my response is different. It's not self-loathing, like a liberal's.
I know that your husband, Red Six, and every last man and woman who enlists in the military, are better than me.
I may be smart, I may have a good job, but no matter what I do, I know that there are men just like me who are putting their lives on the line, and doing their duty in the name of freedom. My self-worth is downwardly adjusted in the face of the greatness of the men and women who serve in combat. It's natural though.
They're better than me, and I can reconcile myself to that.
Liberals, however, cannot. As a result, they just want to make sure they never have to face the reality of their guilt, so advocating that we pull out or never should have gone there to begin with does the trick for them.
Posted by: Sean at October 28, 2005 09:18 PMI would be honored to have you and your hunband, who is not Red 6, be my neighbor. Please, please, please.
Posted by: Gil at October 28, 2005 09:57 PMSean:
There's a lot of sense in what you say. Liberals judge the world in concepts like Justice, (In)Equality and Victim-Oppressor. I happen to think these are valuable social-political constructs, but then I am a liberal. The problem is a profound culture gap in perception. Soldiers, their (general) socio-economic backgrounds and the hardships they bear, neatly fit into liberal definitions of victim, injustice and inequality. We shouldn't blame liberals for that, just as we don't blame non-Indians for failing to consider cows as holy. It's an issue of fundamental differences in perspective. I think of 'soldier' and 'victim' as antonyms, but as a NYC liberal, I doubt I could have reached that understanding if I hadn't been a soldier myself.
Do I think our military men and women unfairly bear the burden and human cost that non-volunteering Americans don't? Yes. But. Our military men and women are in the right and non-volunteers are in the wrong. Too few people understand that, and it's hard to explain to folks who haven't been part of the tradition.
Liberals like to pretend that any resort to violence is declasse. They lack the comprehension that some people cannot be reasoned with because they want us dead. They consider ANY violence to be a failure. It is bad enough that they hold such stupid views, it is worse that they stop real people from doing what needs to be done.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at October 29, 2005 02:57 AMWalter, violence should always be a last resort, at least if you have an IQ over 70 it should. I did my time in the military, and when I was there I would do what I was ordered to. Now I don't have to take orders if I don't want to (if I want to keep my job that is a different story). I thought at the begining of the FUBAR Fustercluck that Iraq has become that it didn't pass the veracity test, I now know that thought was a correct thought. So we should get the hell out, let the three main faction begin their civil war and only when the rest of the neighboring countries beg us to intercede, should we contemplate returning. That is exactly what we did with the former Yugoslavia, why not here, the paralells between them are stunning.
Posted by: Bubba Bo Bob Brain at October 29, 2005 05:45 AM"This is my last comment on this blog. you need a reality check sarah. go to walter reed or bethseda and ask the troops there if it was as redsix said "it was the best year of my life" i'm positive you'll get a much different answer.cheerleaders for young men and woman winding up in caskets or wheelchairs need to stop and think aboutit .goodbye boiler technician thrid class thomas mullin
""
I presume you include the amputees who have not only re-enlisted but want to return? The injured who regret that they are not with their unit??
That some injured are unhappy and bitter about their wounds is just human nature... If I'd lost a leg, arm, eye, or other body part.. I'd be feeling the same way or worse..
Lots of soldiers and ex-soldiers feel differently.