In response to an e-mail I received from a U.S. soldier a few years ago about an unnamed “false and cowardly article spreading foolish nonsense” that I had written back in 2009, I asked the question: “Are U.S. Soldiers Really This Dumb?”
Unfortunately, the conclusion I reached was that the soldier’s comments in defense of the military were not just dumb, they were “really dumb.” I also said that this soldier was “an embarrassment to everyone in the military” and that “if these are the kind of people that are supposedly defending our freedoms, then we are in trouble.” Soldiers like this, I pointed out, “are the ones who will gladly make widows and orphans on demand for the state—in the name of fighting terrorism and defending our freedoms, of course.”
A few weeks ago I received a note from a “cousin” of the soldier from a few years ago. He had only recently come across my prior critique of the other soldier.
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Unless I am forgetting something, this makes only the second time in about three years that I have received a critical e-mail from a current member of the U.S. military. Note that I said “a critical e-mail.” I have received many e-mails from active duty U.S. military personnel during the time between these two soldiers, but none of them critical. These soldiers generally speak about discovering my articles, LewRockwell.com, or Ron Paul and wanting to get out of the military as soon as they can. Many say that they try to hide the fact that they are in the military so they don’t have to endure people thanking them for their service or for defending our freedoms. Some have expressed interest in declaring that they are conscientious objectors. None of them defend the actions or the institution of the U.S. military, foreign wars, or the U.S. empire of troops and bases that is a blight on the world. In fact, as I mentioned in my aforementioned article: “Most of the e-mails I receive from veterans and active-duty military personnel are favorable to my anti-war, anti-empire viewpoint.” It is usually conservatives and Republicans who have never been in the military who chastise me for daring to dethrone the god of war they worship.
Here in its entirety is the recent note I received from the second soldier I mentioned. Like before, I will not subject this soldier to ridicule that would certainly overflow his inbox if I gave out his name and e-mail address.
Vance,
I must to take some offense to the article you posted back in 2013 with reasonable bias. I am a member of the US military however, that doesn’t mean I autonomously support the political agenda of our current leaders and simply find your article rude. I don’t necessarily find it rude because you claim that we are not hero’s or even that you would put us in the box of with cowards. I am mostly insulted that you would dehumanize us as though we belong to an inferior genome of human species namely a less intelligent one.
We all do our jobs just like a telephone operator at a credit agency, would you say that every single member of that organization is a blood thirsty debt collector bent on the sole destruction of the human on the other end’s spirit? Is their job honorable ? Absolutely not, but is it a necessary evil in order for them to provide for their family and take care of themselves without using the “system”? Quite possibly so, and just as they do their job we Marines/soldiers/sailors do ours and not with out suffering.
I feel the role of our military acts as the evil debt collecting organization or rather the debt resistor and attacking the soldier for his line of work is not so different than blaming and abusing the slave for the wickedness of his master. For we as Americans as a whole are essentially slaves of our government, not those in office, but what we have done as a nation to our world. No, what we have allowed our leaders to do to this world. If us “dumb” soldiers just stopped doing our jobs we would be tried by the government as criminals perhaps even deserters. If our military ceased to exist we could very well suffer total collapse.
So to discredit us as cowardice is essentially oxymoronic because we do brave bullets and bombs and go to war for your freedoms, whether or not you realize that we protect the American populace from itself, it’s own ignorance and differing it’s almost inevitable collapse.
Are the wars we fight evil? Yes. Is following immoral orders a sin? It’s very probable. Is it a necessity to defend the freedoms our America has provided us? Unfortunately, yes. .
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This note is crying out for some brief comments on it. I think in some cases that the writer might have used the wrong words to describe some idea or thing, but I will go with exactly what he wrote.
- I am glad that he is only taking “some offense”
- I am glad that he feels my bias was “reasonable.”
- I have never said or implied that all members of the U.S. military “autonomously support the political agenda of our current leaders.”
- You may not like something I say, but that doesn’t mean that I was being “rude.” If you want to see rude, just look at some of the vile and insulting e-mails I have received over the years from bloodthirsty conservatives, Republican warmongers, and red-state fascists.
- Although I plead guilty to saying that members of the military are not heroes, I don’t recall ever putting them “in the box of with cowards.”
- When I wrote back in 2013 that a particular U.S. soldier was dumb, I never said that all soldiers were dumb, less intelligent, or that they belonged to “an inferior genome of human species.”
- Debt collector’s are not a “necessary evil.” If someone owes a debt then he is obligated to pay it. Calling a debtor and trying to get him to pay his debts is perfectly “honorable.” Do some debt collector’s use less then honorable tactics? Certainly. But unlike being in the military, there is nothing inherently wrong with doing the job of a debt collector.
- Any suffering that “Marines/soldiers/sailors” experience is their own fault. They joined the military of their own free will. They know, or at least they should know, the toll that military service can put on families. They know, or at least they should know, that they might be sent into a combat zone and face death, dismemberment, or depravation.
- It is admirable to “provide” for one’s family, but not if one chooses to commit immoral acts to do it. Otherwise members of the Mafia would be great role models. And notice that I said “choose.” No one has to join the military; he chooses to do so.
- Guards at concentration camps were just doing their jobs.
- Which is it: debt collector or debt resistor?
- Soldiers enlisted in the military of their own free will; no slave volunteered to be a slave.
- The wickedness of the U.S. government is carried out by U.S. soldiers. The wickedness of slave masters is their own.
- Our leaders could do nothing to this world without the U.S. military to do their dirty work.
- It is better to be tried as a deserter than to commit criminal acts for the U.S. government.
- If our military ceased to exist, the world be a much more peaceful place and U.S. taxpayers wouldn’t be forced to waste their hard-earned money on the warfare state.
- As I mentioned before, I never said that soldiers were cowards.
- Soldiers “brave bullets and bombs” because they are dumb enough to join the military. They “brave bullets and bombs” because they invade and occupy other countries that they have no business invading and occupying.
- Bombs? What bombs? It is the U.S. military that drops bombs all over the world.
- No U.S. soldier went to Iraq (the first, second, or third time) or Afghanistan for the freedoms of any American.
- The American populace doesn’t need to be protected from itself; the American populace needs to be protected from the American government.
- If the wars that U.S. soldiers fight are evil, and following immoral orders is very probably a sin, then neither action is “a necessity to defend the freedoms our America has provided us.”
- God has provided Americans with many freedoms. It is the American government that has steadily eroded them and taken them away.
Be a smart soldier. Don’t reenlist.
