I don’t hate people who are in the military, and if the scenario in the OP ACTUALLY happened, “The Screamer” overreacted. However, I do question the judgement of military personnel. Also:
- Military personnel aren’t gods. People need to stop treating them like they’re above reproach or judgement.
- The military is a volunteer force. No one is making anyone join, so what they do is entirely on them. No one else can be blamed.
- The military, from top to bottom, is about one thing: Killing. Killing people who’ve never harmed you at the command of people who don’t care about you.
- “Just following orders” doesn’t absolve you of guilt.
This is a case of where a desire for too much worship of structure/social cohesion and too little independent thought and behavior goes to cause problems. Harm (killing, hurting another, etc.) should never be rationalized. Our society loves to rationalize away the horrible things we invoke upon each other though… makes living life a lot easier when not having to deal with the negative outcomes of reality, lol.
1) If that really happened, then I feel bad for the soldier & his family. That’s just downright disrespectful and rude. I do agree with the OP that even if youd on’t support the war, that’s no reason to treat troops like shit. The infantry probably didn’t sign up for that job because they wanted to fight in glorious combat (though i’m sure that describes some infantrymen). They signed up, more likely than not, becuase they grew up in poverty and had no other real options to make something out of themselves and get a job that doesn’t involve trafficiking narcotics or criminal gang activity. That’s the sad reality of it. The low-level troops join out of socioeconomic desparation, and you can’t really fault them when there aren’t very many other options out there for someone without an education.
2) I certainly don’t advocate glorifying military personnel or treating them all like heroes. There are certainly some jobs in the military I would describe as brave and heroic, and I would thank these people for their service. EOD, for example. Regardless of what you think of the war, there are bombs being used, and those bombs harm not only military personnel but also innocent bystanders and civilians. Even if you disagree with the war, anyone who is willing to put their life on the line to disarm a bomb in a battlefield is a fucking brave soul.
But for the most part? I definitely dont’ think we should blindly “support our troops” and glorify the military as some sort of paragon of patriotic jingoism. We shouldn’t blindly praise soldiers as heroes. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean you have to hate them. Like I said above, a lot of them join because they have no other options; my dad is the perfect example of this. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to respect or thank these people or praise them as heroes, but rather you should sympathize with them. Sympathize with their lack of other options, sympathize with the fact that they’re just trying to get by and make a living, and sympathize with the fact that their government, their employer, treats them like expendable pawns whose life is replacable and irrelevant in the long run.
You don’t have to support or praise the troops, but you should most definitely sympathize with them.
(Source: the-unpopular-opinions)
