Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Tie A Yellow Ribbon

Keeping with the ceremonial "end of combat operations in Iraq" events (aka Operation "New Dawn") of late, I thought it appropriate to share some feelings I've had over the last few years regarding attitudes I've encountered about military service. I realize that this post is potentially a hot button item, and I might piss more than a few people off, but well, that's what I do best, so here goes.

Obviously, I am part of a military family. Actually, I always have been. My father was an Army officer for the better part of my childhood, and I dated and married a man who was enlisted Navy for 19 years, and for the last two has been an Army officer. Now, whether I consider myself an "Army wife" is a whole other story, but that's a completely different blog post...
I will be completely upfront here, in saying that Adam's and my sacrifices due to the current wars have been relatively minimal. We have only had two separations due to deployments, the first of which put Ads in a non-combat zone for five months in 2003, and the second mobilizing him for over 6 months to Iraq, where he carried out administrative and legal duties in a fairly safe office setting (although his office building was shaken by mortar shells on a daily basis). While I always feared for his safety during the deployment to Iraq, we were able to speak almost everyday, and he was able to assure me that he was not "in theater" (in the combat zone) like many servicemembers, and was comparatively safe. Moreover, Adam not only returned from each deployment unscathed, physically and emotionally...more importantly, he came home to me alive.

That said, being in the service (and from my perspective, being married to someone in the service) can be really hard. The knowledge that months-long deployments are on the horizon; the bureaucracy of the military being such that many decisions are not yours to make, but are made for you; the lack of stability for active duty personnel who can expect reassignments (aka moves) at least every two to three years, if not more frequently. But, it's a job, one that people take for various reasons, and most service members are proud of what they do.
I have been surprised by how some of my liberal-leaning friends question the motive behind Adam's service, as if he (or I) should have to explain why he chose to be in the military. Over the years, several people have come at me with, "I just don't get it...why is he in the military anyway?" or "He left one branch to join another?? Why would he ever stay in the military if he didn't have to?" It boggles my mind that the civilian sector of America (that includes me, by the way) can complain endlessly about long work days, boring tasks and annoying bosses, and yet nobody questions why they chose their line of work. Yet, when Adam or I mentions the frustrations associated with being in the military, the immediate response by many people seems to be "Why don't you just get out?" The Left has long been accused of being unsupportive of our service members (which, to be fair, was the case during the Vietnam War, but in recent times the tone has changed to "Against the War, but Support the Troops!"). But, to some extent amongst my own friends, I don't see the support. Many liberal friends box all servicemembers (and their families) into one category--conservative, narrow-minded, uneducated and uninformed about the world. Forget the fact that our military comprises people from every state in the nation, from all different ethnic backgrounds, all religions and all party affiliations. Our folks in uniform (and their spouses) have associates, bachelors, Masters, PhDs, JDs, MDs, and DVMs, to name a few. Just because they serve (and might have different viewpoints about the world or politics or the war) it doesn't mean they "just don't know any better." It's interesting that these friends seem to think that since Adam is educated and knowledgeable that he shouldn't feel a need to serve; perhaps military service is just for the poor unfortunate souls whose financial or educational vacuum prevents them from doing anything else? Funny, but in many ways, to me these friends are the ones who seem sheltered and a little naive. It's one thing to work your 8-5 job, come home, cook dinner, watch tv and go to bed. It's quite another to be in a combat situation for fifteen consecutive months, or to be the spouse at home who is holding down the fort and simultaneously worrying about your soldier overseas. Let me be frank; I am by no means trying to play the martyr here. My life, while challenging on occasion, is not even comparable to the lives of many military families. But I will say that I have come to see one- and two-week separations from Adam as small potatoes compared to what we've been through in the past.

People choose this life for many reasons--money, opportunity, a way out of a bad life, family history of military service, pride--but I think it's pretty ugly to imply that the motives are based solely on misinformation or misguided machismo. The general attitude that some of my leftist friends exude is that being part of the military is inherently bad. While I'm no gung-ho military person myself, I'm quite sure that working to secure and defend one's nation (and we have a long history of veterans who have done this very thing over the decades) is no worse than many, many other professions.

And, being the equal-opportunity critic that I am, I have to speak of my conservative friends, too. Even before the war began, I felt like there was a huge uproar from many friends on the right to "go over there and kick some ass!" Listen, I lived in New York City on September 11, 2001. I had a view of the burning Manhattan skyline and I watched as the towers fell. I feared for many friends' lives and I held a dear friend who walked the thirteen miles from Manhattan, over the Queensboro bridge, to Flushing that day. I watched Adam call into the New York Naval Militia to see what he could do to help, and I saw his face as he told me what it was like to serve at Ground Zero while smoke, human remains and debris permeated the air. Trust me. I got it. But it felt like the immediate zeal for revenge had no calculated thought behind it. As my boss hung up posters around the office of eagles carrying U.S. flags over silhouttes of the Twin Towers with titles like "Going to Kick Some Ass", my heart sank. I knew we were entering a time of war; I knew we HAD to. But it's like people forgot that war claims casualties on both sides, far more than were lost in the World Trade Center. The zeal that people had about impending war seemed to be a misguided sense of domination. How could people be excited about the idea of entering into a time of war? Did folks really think that a war with insurgents was going to be quick and easy? How could people not predict the reality that we're currently facing, eight years later?
Throughout the eight-plus years of the war, I can't count how many people have lectured me about how good the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been (despite the lack of WMDs in Iraq that supposedly justified our invasion there). People who have never had to sacrifice a day in their lives to support it. Never served a deployment, never been separated from family, never worried about not coming home (or having a loved one not come home). One pro-war friend even suggested signing up to go into the military "once things settle down a bit over there." If the war should be fought, why wasn't this friend willing to enter the fray during the most dangerous of times? Another friend who is an adamant supporter of the war, and who served previously during peacetime said he'd "thought about re-enlisting to help out now that we're in a time of war, but I've got kids now, and I just can't see being separated from them." So, it's okay to just let other people leave their families behind to go fight the war that he supports? It's really hard for me to hear people tell me how righteous these wars are when they have nothing invested in it. Ted Koppel, former host of "Nightline" did an op-ed piece on this very issue last month, entitled "Burdens of War Unevenly Shared in U.S.". He expressed his concern that most Americans, whether they support the war or not, are not shouldering the burdens of it, either financially or otherwise. I agree. In this country, more people are concerned with what the Kardashians and The Real Housewives are doing than they are with the sacrifices of their fellow citizens. For most people, Veterans' Day and Memorial Day are just holidays off from work to pull out the grill and have a cookout. For those who have served or the families that have lost a loved one, the days mean so much more. Look, I'm not expecting everyone to enlist and serve in the military, but I guess that it's really hard for me to swallow conservative, pro-war rhetoric from someone who doesn't have to sacrifice for the very issue they're espousing.

So...what am I really saying here? Hey, I'm a bleeding heart liberal who is against war in most cases. I have even had some preconceptions of my own about who servicemembers and their families are, prejudices that I am constantly learning are ridiculous the longer I'm immersed in the military community. But I strongly support our troops. Whether or not you believe that they are overseas "fighting for our freedom," the truth is that they are voluntarily putting their lives on the line on our behalf, and on behalf of our nation, something most of us are not willing to do. Their spouses and children are shouldering the hardships of life without a loved one for several months at a time, several deployments over. Or, at the very worst, they will have to deal with the loss of a loved one for good.

So, perhaps the next time a list of names of those killed in action comes across your television screen, don't flip to the next channel; read each and every name, because those people who died in service to their nation deserve at least that much. And the next time you see someone in uniform, don't make any assumptions. Don't assume s/he is only serving because of ignorance or lack of education. Don't assume that s/he is a gun-toting, testosterone-filled bully who just wants to see some action. But also, don't assume that they are a proponent of this war, and happy to be deployed, away from their family, for the umpteenth time. Maybe they are just a regular person, working their job, doing what they have to do. And maybe you could just thank him/her for their service.

Our force is a diverse collective of many honorable people. Toss your assumptions to the wayside.

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