🚀 go-pugleaf

Why blame the soldiers?

They don't have any real choice in the matter!

Your friend,

<+]::-{(} ("Cyberpope," the Bishop of ROM!)
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        (Please quote with "gapope wrote...")
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In essentials, unity;
In non-essentials, liberty;
in all things, charity.  -- Baxter quoting Augustine
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"~Top Poster~" <Top Poster@poster.Con> wrote:
"P> Our soldiers in Iraq aren't heroes
"P> 
"P> 4/12/2004
"P> 
"P>   By ANDY ROONEY
"P> 
"P> Most of the reporting from Iraq is about death and destruction. We don't
"P> learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing. There's 
"P> Ernie Pyle to tell us, and, if there were, the military would make it
"P> difficult or impossible for him to let us know.
"P> It would be interesting to have a reporter ask a group of our soldiers in
"P> Iraq to answer five questions and see the results:
"P> 
"P> 1. Do you think your country did the right thing sending you into Iraq?
"P> 
"P> 2. Are you doing what America set out to do to make Iraq a democracy, or
"P> have we failed so badly that we should pack up and get out before more of
"P> you are killed?
"P> 
"P> 3. Do the orders you get handed down from one headquarters to another, all
"P> far removed from the fighting, seem sensible, or do you think our highest
"P> command is out of touch with the reality of your situation?
"P> 
"P> 4. If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?
"P> 
"P> 5. Are you encouraged by all the talk back home about how brave you are an
"P> how everyone supports you?
"P> 
"P> Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old civilian
"P> trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. But you can be sure our soldier
"P> in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives for us sitting
"P> comfortably back here at home.
"P> 
"P> Our soldiers in Iraq are people, young men and women, and they behave like
"P> people - sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes brave, sometimes
"P> fearful. It's disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage them to fight th
"P> war by idolizing them.
"P> 
"P> We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as if
"P> they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn't much
"P> voluntary about what most of them have done. A relatively small number are
"P> professional soldiers. During the last few years, when millions of jobs
"P> disappeared, many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted in the
"P> Army. About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq enlisted in the National
"P> Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought
"P> they'd be called on to fight. They want to come home.
"P> 
"P> One indication that not all soldiers in Iraq are happy warriors is the
"P> report recently released by the Army showing that 23 of them committed
"P> suicide there last year. This is a dismaying figure. If 22 young men and o
"P> woman killed themselves because they couldn't take it, think how many more
"P> are desperately unhappy but unwilling to die.
"P> 
"P> We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it's our fault they're riskin
"P> their lives there. However, we should not bestow the mantle of heroism on
"P> all of them for simply being where we sent them. Most are victims, not
"P> heroes.
"P> 
"P> America's intentions are honorable. I believe that, and we must find a way
"P> of making the rest of the world believe it. We want to do the right thing.
"P> We care about the rest of the world. President Bush's intentions were
"P> honorable when he took us into Iraq. They were not well thought out but
"P> honorable.
"P> 
"P> Bush's determination to make the evidence fit the action he took, which it
"P> does not, has made things look worse. We pay lip service to the virtues of
"P> openness and honesty, but for some reason, we too often act as though ther
"P> was a better way of handling a bad situation than by being absolutely open
"P> and honest.
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> --
"P> Socrates taught his students that the pursuit of truth can only begin once
"P> they start to question and analyze every belief that they ever held dear. 
"P> a certain belief passes the tests of evidence, deduction, and logic, it
"P> should be kept. If it doesn't, the belief should not only be discarded, bu
"P> the thinker must also then question why he was led to believe the erroneou
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
"P> 
-- 
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