The deaconess persists:
Well, the leftover hostilities from the 60s and 70s have certainly surfaced. Thanks for getting us started on a good note, any way. My heart breaks for those veterans who are struggling to cope with the task that was put before them. The rate of suicide among this group is unnerving. That some would wish to shame them for their service is equally unnerving.
I comment:
Stop creating and re-creating your own mythology. My heart breaks for the veterans who now suffer what they never should have suffered, had we not sent them where they should not have gone. My heart breaks for the veterans who can't get what they need from the VA. My heart breaks for the families of those in uniform today who don't know in what local war their loved one is like to die.
The deaconess writes:
I wonder what these same folks will say and do when ISIS is knocking on their door trying to treat their loved ones as others are being treated around the globe. The treatment of women and young girls is especially appalling, but let's just hide behind our unjust war claims and not support the use of our forces for good to protect the innocents.
I comment:
For heaven's sake, has the discussion sunk that low? I guess so, in the over-heated attempt to justify our reliance on military might.
Here is another view, from one who served as an infantry officer in Iraq.
http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-guest-writers/patriotic-pageantry-sanitizes-the-realities-of-war-1.1452731Why this reluctance to admit that as a nation we have been far too quick to send our men and women into combat elsewhere, that we have romanticized war, that we are fascinated with the technology of war, that we think our nation is strong because we are armed?
It does not detract from the service of those in uniform to look at the bigger picture. But it is part of the national myth that all we should do is look at the man or woman who went into combat and served bravely, rather than to look at the often stupid reasons they were sent into combat.