Rhodes News

 

I posted a photo of the “Marlboro Marine” as my Twitter avatar last week.  The photo is of James Blake Miller, taken taken by Luis Sinco, of the Los Angeles Times, during the Siege of Fallujah.  In the photo, Miller’s  face is covered with filth and fatigue, with a thousand mile stare only hinting of the horrors he has just witnessed.

I make no secret of my Army service on my Twitter account, but neither do I advertise it in my profile.  I rotate my avatar to suit my mood, and usually I simply post a picture of my ugly face.

I chose the Avatar, not as a bragadocious attempt of self aggrandizement of my own Army service.  In fact, while I have technically served in a war zone, the amount of actual war action I’ve seen is rather pathetically sparse, and too embarrassingly minimal to mention.  I chose the avatar to honor the soldiers who serve on the front lines of the CENTCOM war theater.

The unintended consequence of displaying this avatar was that many among my Twitter audience chose to identify me as a self-congratulatory war-veteran tough guy.  So in order to more precisely illustrate my point of honoring our soldiers, I then switched my avatar to a photo of a different soldier, whom the camera caught as he was obviously grieving the emotional loss of war.  Incidentally, he was a black soldier, and then when the Tweet topic switched to the subject of race relations in America, I was accused of intentionally masquerading my white race to that of a black man.  You can’t win trying to please everyone.

 

But back to the issue.  Most shocking about displaying these avatars is that one extreme Leftist “pacifist” accused me of being what he called a “military coward.”  A “military coward,” he explained, is someone who is too cowardly to resolve conflict peaceably, and who recognizes no other method of conflict resolution than violence.   This point of view demonstrate such complete and utter ignorance about our service members that it is laughable.  Further, his perspective completely dismisses the suffering of these soldiers and their families, both on the battlefield, and post-trauma back home.   Worse, the term “military coward” actually indicts these soldiers as moral criminals of humanity.   Indeed, he said, we are not simply cowardly criminals for merely serving, but for even volunteering for the military in the first place.

This guy, and I’m sure there are many more like him, has a completely distorted view of our nation’s soldiers--the best and most professional in the world--and to the reasons why we serve, and why we fight.  Most troubling, it that his contempt for soldiers further suggests a possible delight in American war casualties.

Personally, I can say that as soldiers, we enlist, not because we are patriotic--although that is certainly part of it--but rather for reasons that are quite honestly more self-serving.  We are attracted to the military because it offers us something we want.  It might be college tuition benefits, or the part-time income the Reserves or National Guard offers.  Or it might be a technical skill-set we pursue such as a medic or radio technician, or the exciting training, the tremendous physical challenge, or the bonding that the military brotherhood provides.   Or we enter for the leadership experience--you can learn management working at Walmart--but there is no better place to learn leadership than in the military.

Some enlist because they are seduced by the false romance of war.  Even in that respect, I would hardly call our soldiers “cowards” or “criminals”--foolish, or naive perhaps.

This attitude among the anti-war Left, that our war heroes are “morally bankrupt,” is quite inaccurate.  It assumes that when war breaks out, that we thirst for the blood of war, and that we can’t wait to separate ourselves from our families a year at a time, that we want to march onto the “glorious” battlefield, fight in a strange and alien land, and possibly die there.  Alone.

Indeed, the true pacifists of our American culture are not unarmed citizens marching through the streets carrying “NO WAR” placards.  No.  The true pacifists of our culture are are our own warriors, carrying out their duty.  Because no one understands more than they, the cost of war.  They are ordered, and they go.  They might even personally object to the war.  Still, under tremendous personal hardship, they silently march on because it is their duty.   They knew of this duty full well when they took their oath.

That is the deal we made.  We joined the military service for many of the self-serving reasons I mentioned above, and in return, soldiers agree to go to war when called.

These so-called “pacifists” who vilify our war heroes, also fail to understand another basic element of our warrior ethos.  That is, that when we go to war, we do not fight for the cause.  We do not fight against terrorists, or for lofty ideals, or for words such as “Liberty” or “Freedom,” or for whatever ends are dreamt up mere men sitting in the Oval Office or the Pentagon.  We fight for the unit.  We fight for each other’s survival.  We’re all in it together, and our one and only mission is to keep each other alive.

And what is the cost we pay for being “military cowards”?   Personal harm and injury is the least of our cost; not even the risk of the ultimate sacrifice.  The real personal trauma we suffer is that of seeing our best friend lie as a pile of mush in the middle of a lonesome road.  The horror, the nightmares we suffer for years beyond our service.  The disillusionment of the effort,  the alienation we feel back home, and the inability to adjust.   The high post-war suicide rates we suffer.

And these so-called anti-war “pacifists” in our society who dare call us “military cowards” and “moral criminals” believe, as soldier, we actively seek out this misery?

In today’s military, it has become so easy to declare yourself a conscientious objector.  Upon a unit’s orders to war mobilization, one must simply notify one’s commander in writing, announcing conscientious objector status.  The commander is too busy readying his unit for war, and will process an administrative discharge.  It’s less hassle than prosecuting under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.  There is no longer a court martial or even Article 15 hearing.

Such a protest is called “courage”?  And who would listen?  Who cares?  If you are truly against the cause of the war, then better to go to battle, serve your duty honorably, and then come back to voice you objections loaded with a heavy backpack full of ammunition we call credibility.  “I’ve been there!  We’re wasting money and lives!  Bring the troops home!”  That is a true patriot in the American tradition.

So now we’re back to veteran Marine James Miller, the image of my first Twitter avatar, the courageous Marine with the thousand-mile stare.  After the photo was published on the front page of hundreds of newspapers across the country, Miller was made an unintended hero, and he himself felt embarrassed by all the attention.   Like the hundreds of thousands others who served, Miller suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, which ultimately broke up his marriage.  After his discharge from the Marines, Miller did voice his personal objections to the Iraq War.  He publicly went on record saying the entire effort was a waste.  He then applied for several jobs in law enforcement, but because of his PTSD psychological profile, he was labeled as too “unstable” to be in position of authority with an assigned a weapon.  Never mind we trusted him with rifle loaded with ammo in Fallujah.  Unemployed, and living off a meager veteran’s disability, he joined a motorcycle gang that has a reputation for run-ins with the law.

Miller represents a microcosm of the immense tragedy of war.  We learned many lessons from Vietnam, namely the dangers of a prolonged conflict and the importance of a clear exit strategy.  Must our citizens also relearn the lesson not to blame our soldiers who fight for the out-of-touch Belt-way decision-makers who sent them?

“Cowards”?   “Criminals”?  “Morally bankrupt scourges of our society”?   If anything, our front line soldiers are victims who must suffer not only the brunt on the battlefield, but must also carry their suffering to their grave, for the horrors of war are never forgotten.

But we, as civilian members of our society, regardless of our personal views of the cause of a particular war--or even our personal views regarding War itself--we have a duty--an obligation--that we owe to our soldiers.  That obligation to them is that we must never forget that our front line soldiers are much more than mere victims.  They are the best among us in our society.    That we must never forget.