Well said MSgt.
I'll add that many veterans realize how much their country 'values' them when they're on the way out of the service. . . you're spoon-fed moral boosting crap, given awards and laud praise and honor for 20 years; actually sacrifice sanity, life, and limb - and in the end: you're more likely to just be given the shaft for it all anyway because you've been deemed 'unnecessary' or 'around for too long' as the strain on you finally catches up to you.
. . . so is the lesson my husband's learning. And to hear his bitter recounting of what's wrong with 'our Great American Nation' in the last few weeks has been quite painful for me to sit through.
But - one such revelation he's made is that we're really not all that Great - we've had to brainwash ourselves in believing we are so we can garnish continued support every time we want to 'go it alone' - and he's cited that every militarized 'success' we've had has only been when we banded together with other nations to achieve a specified goal.
He and I should get together.
Personally, I don't have any bitterness towards retiring. It's not like I was drafted for the last 20 years. I volunteered and signed a contract. I've got free medical for life and plenty of other VA benefits to take advantage of. I figure it's like any other situation people go through. Once you retire and stop making money for the company, are they supposed to care about you? Granted, a military career full of training & depoyments tend to pile on physical and mental hardship that stays forever and damages future opportunities and relationships, but you have to take advantage of that VA and force them to do what they are supposed to do.
I understand his bitterness. Quite clearly in fact. But, it pays to step back and examine just for your own sake of peace. My bitterness is two parted. I don't like what the Marine Corps has become during this deployment frenzy over the years. Deployment schedules and spreadsheet inventories of gear and personnel have taken the place of actually caring for the Marine. The other part, is due to my studies of history giving me a better understanding of my experiences over the last two decades, I have a pessimist streak towards our politicians. Our leaders seek to "serve America", yet prove often that they do not care about Americans. I accept that our government has to do what it has to do sometimes against the grain. Governments can't afford to be dictated by morality alone and citizens, who bare no responsibility beyond personal interests, have the luxury of unfairly criticizing. But since I have great appreciation for bold leadership, I can't stand it when politicians deliver speeches to the masses that avoid the truth of what we do. Our first mission as a nation is to protect interests that allow us to prosper. Just like any other nation. People confuse our national morality with that mission because, since we have been so powerful and wealthy, we have been able to afford to usually travel that theme in the course of our mission. But the preaching, delivered by suits from behind their political pulpits, always seek to ease the burden of the mission by exaggerating our good will. Because they do this, Americans eventually get disillusioned when they discover other real motives that never needed to be hidden in the first place. This makes the mission harder and thusly applies further burden on the guy behind the gun who gets to feel forsaken by his government and people as he deploys.
Truth matters. Our problem is that we have no faith in each other to appreciate that we, as a people, are capable of accepting it. We truly are a nation of great moral value. But we forget the truth of our general morality everytime a politician buffers the complete truth of our efforts by exaggerating it as the sole motivation. It makes people believe that we have none as politicians then turn around and exaggerate humility, thereby implying grevious and henious acts and validating the world's unfair finger pointing.
So true about our track record. We tend to do things in a big way. It's as if we are all "Texans" at heart. Since World War II we have been bulls in a china shop. We are the elephant in the room. Europeans may be fond of pretending that we aren't who we are, but when that elephant moves, the entire room knows and feels it. I believe it is our unprecedented power that has hurt us. It has allowed our leaders to imagine that we can do anything....
1) Almost 50,000 extra men died in the Korean War just because instead of ending it when China wanted, we injected a moral clause and continued for some 14 months over the subject of re-patriation (a first in history). We were largely went alone in that war (Europe was still licking its wounds) and the end result was a Korea divided in half to this day.
2) Vietnam was inherited from the French, but our lone mission there merely ended in abandonment with mass genocide as a result. When it came to the Gulf War, we had the entire world reacting and we managed to tie a yellow bow at its conclusion (even though it was premature since we threw ourselves parades while Iraqis went on to be systematically tortured and slaughtered by the dictator we forgave).
3) We dragged NATO forces into Bosnia despite UN concerns. When it came to Kosovo, we convinced the French to help us with the bombing, despite the UN labeling our action illegal. And the end result of our efforts in "Yugoslavia" has been to make it safe for gun runners to shift their wears around until one day we "free" them enough to re-ignite the tribal slaughter.
4) Afghanistan has been a mess. And despite the critics voice, it was always Afghanistan, not Iraq, that was another Vietnam. Since people will point out that Afghanistan has been more of a Gulf War type Coalition that defies the generality, I would point out that it has been a mess because our lone dictating of direction reflects our lone efforts in other parts in history.
5) And Iraq? That's the icing on the cake on why it is important to have a committee of force to agree upon various ideas.
Monopolies hurt and kill opportunity. We have been a monopoly on the world stage since World War II, which happens to be the last time we ever received unconditional surrenders from an enemy. Since, we do not really enlist the guidance and suggestions of others, we have only ourselves to fall back on. The problem here is that we are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, those who would seek to suggest and guide have also perfected ethnic cleansing and genocide on their continent through the centuries and given us such hits as World Wars and Cold Wars. They look down upon us and take advantage of us. On the other hand, we are extremely young and we inherited a world we hardly knew in the 1940s (and still don't). We stumble about in the dark. Given this fact, it is to our credit that we have made so few mistakes so far, but we do tend to stumble and trip along the way because we fancy ourselves as independent workers. We preach about being a part of the global community full of allies, but the truth is that we do not trust them enough to be a part of their club. They know it. We know it. This is why Europeans percieve NATO as American and we NATO as European.
But, we are a part of a more exclusive club. And it's not themed around democracy. It was the English speaking nations that invaded Europe on behalf of Europeans. The international language of business is English. It is the English speaking actor/musician that rules the global mainstream culture. It was Charles de' Gaulle of France that preached of the unity of continental Europe, excluding the U.K. The three nations that bare the brunt of casualties in Afghanistan is the U.S., U.K., and Canada. And it was the English speaking nations that came closer together over Iraq. But there has been back lash over the existence of this exclusive club. Had "greater" Europe placed more effort into supporting the mission to rid the region of Saddam Hussein as thy did tearing us down, would there have been a global theme of ingnited anti-Americanism? This English speaking club has placed us on the outside of a larger team effort, which paves the way for us to "go it alone" more often than not. It makes things harder for us, but I see this as a global failure and less of an American one. The global theme is centered around "stability" at all costs. It's why we created the United Nations. It assisted us in the wake of global war and during the Cold War. But today, we struggle with the idea of the dictator long after true instability - world wars - has been made next to impossible. Long after the Berlin Wall came down, we seek ancient international laws that cater to a non-globalized world when kings, kaisers, and tsars (dictators of old) were more free to affect neighboring countries and regions. We had decided, over the course of the last half of the 20th century, that following immoral international laws (made legal) is moral and we actually struggle with the subject on whether or not to support people or dictators. We have followed in the immoral mainstream foot steps of the world for so long that we now buck the system. And since much of the world declares a very loud "how dare you" attitude towards us, we think worse about ourselves and imagine that they must be right.
A globalized world consumed in democracies (since 1900) should not be seeking to follow the rules set by the monarchs of old. A world full of awareness and supposed high morality should be intelligent enough to recognize that dictators didn't bring true stability and prosperity to the West. Wheher we admit it or not, we have gone to far down the path that keeps us believeing that dictators in other regions are actually in our best interests. That the misery and oppression of others are paramount to good order and discipline for the rest of us. We are so afraid of regional instability (world wars and disasterous effects to economies) that we encourage immoral acts of apathy and support to monsters.
It's easy to get consumed with bitterness. I struggle with it myself these days. But we have to step back and remind ourselves that the extremely high bar that we have set for ourselves cannot be reached. We have to survive in a world that hides bad morality, purely selfish intentions, and apathy behind a series of international laws that are viewed as moral. I believe our track record proves us to be of higher morality. After all, how many nations of our power ever created organizations (League of nations, United Nations) to share power? Perhaps there is more jealousy than anything amongst our global critics because we have found ways to not abuse our power completely. Either way, our leaders no longer represent our national theme and plenty of Americans have been sold a bill of goods that have them confused about what that even is thanks to the exaggerated preachings of politicians. Our historical mission has been clear. And it didn't and will not always be themed solely on perfect morality. We only lack to knowledge of our on history. But we cannot go it alone. The world saw European powers go it alone in constant odds until it culminated into World Wars. Going it alone is not the right path. But niether is foolishly and blindly following along with the mainstream as they cater to the instability that "stability" creates. We need to slow down and the rest of the world needs to turn the corner. France's mission with Libya was a step in the right direction. They looked more American than we did.
ntoHpkcw1EJ:www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/strategic-energy-policy-challenges-for-the-21st-century-complete-text-of-the-report-by-the-independent-task-force+energy+challenges+in+the+21st+century&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgPiyWd-kdPtlvusqyxa-BerdVeIUFokHuuK_yCuNcSjfgohNRA3dP8hC1iRiObdDd3upopLlvylUX01NlyfOJR6e8D2XXZCevqnXBqQrxJjS4x6-9ISBPNC66CpyLXe0I3vRLA&sig=AHIEtbRRsekdrJLVmBS22Zj65dtMCp0dXQ