The guy obviously has some emotional issues he has to work through. We’ve all been supremely pissed off by people in politics and the things they’ve done, and we’ve said things.
The difference is his military chain of command and that he had a world-wide platform, which we don’t have. He spoke too soon after the events. I guess if he had given it a week or two and weighed his options, things would be a whole lot different.
PTSD?
Exactly. And those were the things that I pondered as I wondered how to negotiate my stance on this.
I really tried to imagine what it would be like to have the full power of the government/military coming down on top of you. And he could have PTSD, I don’t know the man. But I will say, the more and harder I considered it, the more embarrassed I became for my own knee jerk reaction, and the more sympathy, even in light of his remarks, that I felt.
My whole life, I never gave a thought to military personnel as liberals, conservatives, Leftists, Rightists, whatever. Never. Granted, I knew Leftists existed, but...like many military personnel, they kept their nose out of politics, like every military person I knew growing up and serving.
It simply wasn’t done. If you were military, you had a job to do that precluded politics. You just did it. If you had political views (and everyone does) you didn’t discuss them except in private conversations.
But over the last 30 years, that appears to have changed. It became open. And military leaders became politically aligned, even publicly so.