Posted on 03/06/2004 9:06:29 AM PST by sauropod
I read this article in the laundromat yesterday. I found it to be a powerful indictment on "Military Families Speak Out." It is not online at the American Legion Magazine Web site, so i typed it in. 'Pod
By Frank Schaeffer
I write novels for a living and never served in the military. My two older children did the expected: Georgetown and New York University. Our kind - higher-education-worshipping denizens of the North Shore, north of Boston - rarely enlist these days. In 1999, my youngest son, John, was the only senior graduating from his exclusive private high school to join the military. As I write, he is in the Middle East on his second deployment as a U.S. Marine.
After reading an opinion piece I wrote for The Washington Post - about the wrenching adjustment I made from ambivalence toward our military to proud support for my Marine - Gen. James L. Jones (then commandant of the Marine Corps, now chief of NATO), wrote to me, "There has been a 'disconnect' between the men and women who defend our nation and those who are the beneficiaries of that service." The "disconnect" to which Jones refers is illustrated by the contrast between most parents of military personnel and Americans who will not even allow their children's high schools to give their names and addresses to recruiters.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are required to give the names of graduating students to recruiters. Some parents find it unbearable that their children might be asked to even consider serving. In a New York Times article, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, says, "Students have a right to not be bothered by agressive military recruiters." School-board members in the San Francisco area said they were working to thwart the "dangerous" law.
Apparently some parents, failing to thwart the recruiter and their child's choice to serve, never reconcile themselves with their feelings about military service. An antiwar organization called "Military Families Speak Out" was formed in 2002 by parents and relatives of servicemembers. Speak Out claims to represent military parents against our liberation of Iraq. The Group's Web site is linked ot a grab bag of anti-globalization and pacifist groups. Speak Out exploits an emotional antiwar tactic: it prints letters on its Web site from frightened parents and children of soldiers pleading with the president to let their mommies, daddies, sons or daughters come home.
What are the factors contributing to the existence of groups like Speak Out? Fear is an obvious reason. But a number of other underlying factors exist. Class is one; the rise of anti-military and anti-traditional-male, politically correct ideology is another.
At one time, our military was drawn from a true cross section of society. Even the Ivy League contributed its fair share - until my generation came along. We were the "60s generation." Some of us served. Many, including me, did not. Vietnam was our excuse. I say excuse because since that war ended, the upper classes - especially the most educated - never regained any sense of moral obligation to serve, let alone the desire to see their children volunteer.
Harvard's memorial wall tells the story. It has many names form World War I and World War II on it, a few from Korea, a handful from Vietnam and none since. Now it's rare to find members of Congress who voluntarily served, much less their children.
The absence of the educated and wealthy elite from our military exacerbates the sense that something un-American and unfair is going on when "my kid" gets sent to war and "rich kids" do not. A country where fairly shared sacrifice is the norm might be less apt to breed groups like Speak Out.
What of the second factor, the rise of anti-military and anti-traditional-male ideology? Before my generation took its turn at the raising and education of children, oversolicitous, hand-wringing "soccer moms" wailing "Be careful!" were nowhere in sight. Winston Churchill and Gen. George Patton were heroes, and no one use the word "sensitivity" except when describing a rash to their doctor.
Patton would not recognize most of today's pool of potential male recruits. I say "male recruits" because while females serve and serve well, it is the role of boys in our culture that best represents our elite's change in attitude about service and, more fundamentally, about the traditional warror role of young men. I believe this shift has something to do with the climate that produces a type of military parent who wants the military to do anything but fight wars.
What kind of boy would be drafted into Patton's army today? Today's 17-year-old potential recruit - let's call him Gabriel (fictitious name) - is an obese, Ritalin-oppressed young man, soft as a Twinkie. The post-'60s, anti-traditional-male and anti-military views of our educated elite have played a role in shaping Gabriel. He only knows about what were once called "boyhood" or "manly" experiences via grotesque video games and other electronic adentures he vicariously undertakes from a snack-littered couch. If he ever got punched at school, the other kid was suspended for violence. If his teacher spanked him, she was fired or maybe jailed. If Gabriel ever read "Huckleberry Finn," he related to the robust protagonist the way a chubby goldfish trapped in a small glass bowl might gape incredulously at a 600-pound Blue Fin slicing his way through the open ocean.
Unlike teachers of the World War II era, too many of Gabriel's instructors see no virtue in martial skills, let alone military service. His teacher is most likely a politically correct, speech-code-sensitivity-enforcing do-gooder trained to make sure Gabriel does his best to behave like the girls in his class. Gabriel's teacher has commanded Gabriel to have "high self-esteem," for what reason or for what acoomplishment he's never been told. "Force never solves anything," he or she has told Gabriel. If Gabriel's teacher ever mentions the military, it is with a shudder and perhaps a condescending smirk.
The smirk was momentarily replaced by a howl of terrified dismay when 19 hijackers killed 3,000 Americans one bright morning. Suddenly Gabriel's teacher's progressive tolerance of everybody and everything - except traditional males - evaporated. Gabriel, his teacher, and maybe even Gabriel's parents looked around, as if waking from a dream, and fervently hoped there were a few good men and women selfless and strong enough to shoulder an 80-pound pack and sling on an M-16 to defend the rest of us.
There were. Not all young men and women are "Gabriel," and even some who once were, volunteered to be mentally and physically "readjusted" by their drill instructors from "nasty civilians" into America's finest warriors.
We went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military performed brilliantly. But the war was not over in 15 minutes. It wasn't cut to the pace of a TV commercial. Disney had not supplied a happy ending. Our elites did not like to see our military force used. Our war was fought on the ground, not with cruise missiles. Our attention wandered. Some military parents grew impatient. When where their children coming home? What the hell was this word "sacrifice" supposed to mean?
How far will Speak Out go in bedding down with the rabble of America-haters that inflict themselves on the rest of us through the worldwide peace movement? Would the founders of Speak Out have walked out on the Columbia University associate professor [Nicholas DiGenova] who, according to The New York Times, told thousands of students and faculty at a "peace teach-in" in March that he would like to see the United States suffer "a million Mogadishus"? Maybe members of Speak Out don't go that far. But, as the parents of military men and women, they sure have some strange bedfellows.
Like myself, most military parents honor the fact that our children took an oath to serve. Most of us are more patient than members of the chattering classes who write editorials about how our American policy is failing in the Middle East. Most of us know that even if it does fail, we must still try to transform the breeding grounds of hopelessness, terror and oppression into places where freedom and human rights are given a chance. Most military parents know that World War II lasted almost five years. Germany took 20 years to reconstruct. We still have troops in Korea, Japan and Germany. We know that the Middle East is a complex mess and that the chaotic "crescent of instability," stretching from the horn of Africa through the Middle East and all the way to Indonesia, cannot be allowed to continue breeding violent anti-American terrorists.
My Marine has my absolute support, even though I feel sick at the thought that he could be hurt, or worse. I pray my way through each day and many lonely nights. He is engaged in a noble undertaking. I think most military parents feel as I do, though maybe the press doesn't quote us as often as it trumpets the fears of a few oversolicitous hand-wringing military "soccer moms" (and dads) wailing "Be careful!" as their sons and daughters try to defend us. I hope such parents come to understand that they are putting our children at risk by making us look weak and divided to terrorists who already dismiss us as soft.
Yes, no, and yes, respectively.
I would rephrase that to say "is to be alive and free from sycophants and tyrannical governments."
You just got it backasswards.
You, sir, have nailed it. The protected are soft, because the protectors are rock hard.
This is good.
However,there are two glaring omissions.
Firstly,for one so "educated", why did it take the actions of a son to enlighten a Father.
Secondly, the author overlooks plain everyday cowardice. Nowhere does he factor in that human trait.
Joining the Guard in 1960, I was never called up for a war situation. We were close to it several times - and stood in full gear to go - as part of our leader's show of force when dealing with foreign trouble. A number of other Guard units were activated during that time -- all prior to the real build up in Vietnam. I don't regret missing the Koren or Vietnam wars, but I do respect those who served then and now.
We, and the parents of solders, must remind ourselves that those who do join, know full well that they may be called on to serve in combat and be exposed to the dangers therein. However, my prayer is that they are ordered into danger only when it is necessary. At this point in our history, it again appears necessary!
God bless them all, including their families at home.
Bingo. Upper class America has somehow completely obliterated 4000 years of elite leadership of the warrior class - duty today is "get your law degree"; in the past young men were expected to prove themselves in physical combat. Nancy boys were not tolerated, let alone voted into political office.
If Gabriel ever read "Huckleberry Finn," he related to the robust protagonist the way a chubby goldfish trapped in a small glass bowl might gape incredulously at a 600-pound Blue Fin slicing his way through the open ocean.
Outstanding imagery; right on the mark.
Amen.
HOOAH!
"You're not happy unless you're going Mach 2 with your hair on fire".
- Top Gun
Fear not - others will ensure your safety, no need to get your hands dirty; it's always best to leave such things to the bold.
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight...is a miserable creature with no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions and blood of better men than himself" - J.S. Mill
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