Warrior
Drawing From the Guts
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
We belong to the ages. My Dad (God bless his soul) and I chose in a certain decisive moment of our lives to join the profession of arms. He , of course, decided in an earlier more different light for different reasons than mine. Nevertheless, it necessarily bonded us to generations of men and women who again for various reasons decided that they would devote their productive lives in the science and art of managing violence. Every tribe or nation that came since the Biblical saga of Abel and Cain had their own such men and women - their own military.
Whether it was Hannibal's army , the Samurai, the navies and land troops of the emergent colonial powers in Europe, the 1776 Revolutionaries, Hitler's Nazis, the Red Army, even Liberation Armies of global regions wishing to redefine their geography, - every group of people created this armed group for the main purpose of defending their people's way of life.
Naturally a military culture would grow out from these men and women reaching a zenith with Prussian Army and the concept of the military State , a precedent to Nazi Germany. But more significant than that is the predictable observation in all of those armies of the frontline soldier's abeyance to the Commander and the Commander's responsibility of giving out a clear-cut battle plan (read mission) to make for a mean (lean) fighting machine.
Even the US all-volunteer military is no different when it comes to the Commander-frontline soldier relationship, which really does not translate to the popular joke picturing grunts with muscle between their ears. As it is with every army in any part of the planet, there are significant numbers of idealists who enter the military with skills as intellectually demanding as required by the nation's leading universities. So, these people are just as politically informed and have the same cynicism as the civilian population. The concept of insulating frontline soldiers from the political debate as one would like Supreme Court judges in these heady days of savvy media advertising is at its best wishful thinking, but there is a self-imposed mode that comes about when you join the ranks. It's as if all the luxuries of throwing out all your emotions as a civilian which you took for granted begin to vanish as you don that helmet and lock that rifle. It's just you, the enemy and your mission as laid out by the Commander. When the mission is handed out, the debate is over and the finer points of the plan that the Commander and his staff have sifted are accepted as a given. Does that mean the frontline soldier is an automaton or is there some kind of brainwashing going on that we really don't know what we're doing? Tell that to Al Qaeda as they have their own thing going as we have ours, but that hardly is really the case ,at least not with the armed forces I've joined (forgive the bias). In general,the soldier's perspective as a human being hardly changes. Even in the implementation of the mission, excesses are recognized and attempts are made to correct them, as in the My Lai massacre, just to pick one example among many. Everyone in the same armed forces becomes a brother or sister (they all become buddies) and when they're wounded or die in battle, we grieve and honor them as Vikings of old have honored their dead in Valhalla. One enemy tactic to demoralize troops is to display the bodies of our slain comrades with beheadings and genital mutilation or just plain hung them up for the crows as was done in Fallujah, or in southern Philippines. More than just the callous desecration of those corpses, it's the dishonor brought to their efforts and productive lives that pique us.
So it comes as particularly distressing for a frontline soldier to hear his buddy's mom say that her son's death was dishonorable because the war was wrong. All wars are wrong, ma'm, but your son, my buddy, died defending his mission. He died honorably. For a soldier, the only dishonor that comes while fighting a war is when we run away or go AWOL. We grieve with you, ma'm , but we honor him.
Regarding this War, and all the facts and factoids that have been interwoven into it since it started, I believe I've been consistent with my earlier posts as to how the tactics used have weakened the long-term goals sought out ("democracy spreading in the Middle East") and history has borne out those views. For whatever its worth in one post, I've expressed, in generalities, a correction. Link I believe the perspectives in viewing this War at the time it was being planned versus the time when forces have been committed are different since it has made the political-military equation in the region shift dramatically. So the judgement regarding the pre-Invasion and the post-invasion phase of the Iraqi War are different.
The ideal military relies a lot on a vibrant and vigilant citizenry to exert their energy on what it doesn't have the luxury of doing, which is, to actively participate in the political debate as to how to fine-tune the national policies that direct it. Among these policies is the not to be underestimated electoral process in choosing the Commander-in-Chief. Whatever the military is engaged in or is doing right now, it has a direct bearing on the political leaders we all voted into office. For the civilian populace, it may just be the economic and national security issues that may be palpably of concern. (gas prices, employment, terrorism,etc.) which they can sit out till the next election. For the military, the elected leaders have always been a blood-and-guts issue. For even if and as you vote a looney as a Commander-in-Chief into office ,civilians could just sit it out but the military could all bleed and die following his/her valid orders while waiting for the next election because that's what we do. Therefore the choice for our political leaders should never be taken lightly. I know it's not natural, but when you get to vote the next time around, don't think about yourselves alone, think about us too.
Maybe someday, we'd all be replaced by robots or cloned androids as those sci-fi movies like to depict, then life wouldn't be so hard. Or would it?
Whether it was Hannibal's army , the Samurai, the navies and land troops of the emergent colonial powers in Europe, the 1776 Revolutionaries, Hitler's Nazis, the Red Army, even Liberation Armies of global regions wishing to redefine their geography, - every group of people created this armed group for the main purpose of defending their people's way of life.
Naturally a military culture would grow out from these men and women reaching a zenith with Prussian Army and the concept of the military State , a precedent to Nazi Germany. But more significant than that is the predictable observation in all of those armies of the frontline soldier's abeyance to the Commander and the Commander's responsibility of giving out a clear-cut battle plan (read mission) to make for a mean (lean) fighting machine.
Even the US all-volunteer military is no different when it comes to the Commander-frontline soldier relationship, which really does not translate to the popular joke picturing grunts with muscle between their ears. As it is with every army in any part of the planet, there are significant numbers of idealists who enter the military with skills as intellectually demanding as required by the nation's leading universities. So, these people are just as politically informed and have the same cynicism as the civilian population. The concept of insulating frontline soldiers from the political debate as one would like Supreme Court judges in these heady days of savvy media advertising is at its best wishful thinking, but there is a self-imposed mode that comes about when you join the ranks. It's as if all the luxuries of throwing out all your emotions as a civilian which you took for granted begin to vanish as you don that helmet and lock that rifle. It's just you, the enemy and your mission as laid out by the Commander. When the mission is handed out, the debate is over and the finer points of the plan that the Commander and his staff have sifted are accepted as a given. Does that mean the frontline soldier is an automaton or is there some kind of brainwashing going on that we really don't know what we're doing? Tell that to Al Qaeda as they have their own thing going as we have ours, but that hardly is really the case ,at least not with the armed forces I've joined (forgive the bias). In general,the soldier's perspective as a human being hardly changes. Even in the implementation of the mission, excesses are recognized and attempts are made to correct them, as in the My Lai massacre, just to pick one example among many. Everyone in the same armed forces becomes a brother or sister (they all become buddies) and when they're wounded or die in battle, we grieve and honor them as Vikings of old have honored their dead in Valhalla. One enemy tactic to demoralize troops is to display the bodies of our slain comrades with beheadings and genital mutilation or just plain hung them up for the crows as was done in Fallujah, or in southern Philippines. More than just the callous desecration of those corpses, it's the dishonor brought to their efforts and productive lives that pique us.
So it comes as particularly distressing for a frontline soldier to hear his buddy's mom say that her son's death was dishonorable because the war was wrong. All wars are wrong, ma'm, but your son, my buddy, died defending his mission. He died honorably. For a soldier, the only dishonor that comes while fighting a war is when we run away or go AWOL. We grieve with you, ma'm , but we honor him.
Regarding this War, and all the facts and factoids that have been interwoven into it since it started, I believe I've been consistent with my earlier posts as to how the tactics used have weakened the long-term goals sought out ("democracy spreading in the Middle East") and history has borne out those views. For whatever its worth in one post, I've expressed, in generalities, a correction. Link I believe the perspectives in viewing this War at the time it was being planned versus the time when forces have been committed are different since it has made the political-military equation in the region shift dramatically. So the judgement regarding the pre-Invasion and the post-invasion phase of the Iraqi War are different.
The ideal military relies a lot on a vibrant and vigilant citizenry to exert their energy on what it doesn't have the luxury of doing, which is, to actively participate in the political debate as to how to fine-tune the national policies that direct it. Among these policies is the not to be underestimated electoral process in choosing the Commander-in-Chief. Whatever the military is engaged in or is doing right now, it has a direct bearing on the political leaders we all voted into office. For the civilian populace, it may just be the economic and national security issues that may be palpably of concern. (gas prices, employment, terrorism,etc.) which they can sit out till the next election. For the military, the elected leaders have always been a blood-and-guts issue. For even if and as you vote a looney as a Commander-in-Chief into office ,civilians could just sit it out but the military could all bleed and die following his/her valid orders while waiting for the next election because that's what we do. Therefore the choice for our political leaders should never be taken lightly. I know it's not natural, but when you get to vote the next time around, don't think about yourselves alone, think about us too.
Maybe someday, we'd all be replaced by robots or cloned androids as those sci-fi movies like to depict, then life wouldn't be so hard. Or would it?