SUPA FRANKY said:
That really got to me. Don't soldiers ever stop to think what there fighting for? I understand the "protect their love ones" argument, but were their love ones in danger to begin with? It just seems most soldiers across the world go and die and kill because someone had told them too.
Thoughts?
My thoughts? I think you need to take a deep breath before blogging your frustration aloud for the world to hear, and not because anything you said was ignorant, but because men who have served, for reasons which
a) you will never understand
b) they will never be able to make you to understand
and
c) they don't care whether or not you understand,
may take offense at it.
The reason for joining is pretty irrelevent... I will try to relate an experience to you as best I can, but I will not try to convince you of anything. Try and place yourself in the following scenario, putting aside your race, gender, and political affiliations.
You decide to enlist, for one of many reasons. There are financial benefits for you, your spouse, and your children. There are structural benefits, i.e. you just got out of school, have no idea what to do, have some pull towards something you can't even assign a word to, but it is pulling you away from the banality and utter loneliness that exists in the modern world white collar work place. Or perhaps you are looking for fun. Or perhaps your have a family member who died in service before you ever met them. Or perhaps you just liked the Rambo series more than your peers. Whatever.
So, you enlist. You go through the very stressful and high pressure recruiting and processing system, and if you are one of the lucky few who get the MOS (job in the military) of choice, you find some relief in knowing that the next 4-5 active + AT LEAST 3 reserve years of your life will have been under your control, even if only to the smallest degree.
Then, you ship. You are either more excited then you have ever been in your life about anything, be it your first concert, your first motorcycle ride, your first love, or your first brush with death. Your heart's pounding keeps you awake the entire plane ride. Many of your family members may have looked upon you with an expression you can only deride as pity, and it confused you, so instead of pure excitement, you second-guess yourself, you feel like you were duped into something by a clever salesman (which is EXACTLY what recruiters are), and you are a nervous wreck the entire ride to your location of Basic.
So, let's say you chose an Army Ranger option. You arrive at Benning, and Basic starts exactly like you thought it would. A lot of yelling and running and pushups and hurrying up to wait for a long time at attention or in line. You are either in decent shape and get by no problem, or you thought military strong consisted of bench press and squats, and are getting your ass smoked on an hourly basis. Your training progresses, and as you move through school with the same group, a few people drop... A few out a couple hundred strangers... whatever. You didn't really catch their names.
So you get through basic, no small accomplishment, but in the Army, well, you aren't exactly ready for any kind of real test just yet. But you chose the Ranger option, so your PT scores are all maxed out, you are pumped and ready for a real challenge. You run 5-6 miles a day at a 6 minute mile pace, just because it feels good. You get through jump school (easiest thing in the world), and you know some of the guys pretty good now. You start to learn their quirks, their senses of humor, who puts on deodorant, who has a girlfriend, who hunts and fishes, who seems introverted and writes in a journal a lot. You start to respect each and every one of them because you start to sense a feeling of not wanted to let them down growing inside you, and you sense they are feeling mutually towards you. Its almost like pride, but in others and not yourself.
So, you get to Ranger school after your MOS school and jump school. And immediately, all these guys with whom you now share a true friendship (read: you almost never speak unless joking, and if you aren't joking, you are talking about subjects that make the human heart swell or break... love, life, death, family) are suddenly sent, with over 60 lbs of gear strapped to your back, away from all the comforts of life you felt when you were young. For most of you, this is your first grown up experience, and it is terrifying. You eat one meal a day, if any, and you sleep a maximum of 4 hours a night, again, IF AT ALL, for over 40 days. After about a week, your body loses soreness, but you are constantly fatigued. Your vision is constantly blurred. Your stomach is always begging for food, and your instructors are just happy enough to eat your favorite candy bar, or drink an ice cold soda right in front of you, close enough so you can smell it. Hallucinations are now common, and you can see your teammates succumbing to their limits. Many of them, guys you would call your best friends, guys who were the toughest and strongest willed human being you have ever met, cry themselves to sleep, piss themselves, and quit, not even looking you in the eyes before leaving. Most of them, many with whom you made plans to meet up with back home, wherever that is, and grab and beer in some smoke filled bar in complete silence for a few hours, just to let your mind shake loose a little, or catch a movie, or meet their girl... most of them, you will never see or hear from again.
And, while all of this is occurring, you either don't think at all, or you have to convince yourself daily of why you are hear, or why you shouldn't drop out. Even the thought of going back home without that tab on your should is the most unbearable form of shame you can imagine. And, mentally exhausted, you are constantly ordered to patrol, to maneuver, and to lead - to make decisions, tough, critical, impromptu choices that will either secure an objective or end with the death (read: you will witness the end of your friends, and will have that event thrown back in your face by instructors for the duration of the course, and by you for the rest of your life) of your buddies. And finally, just when you think your body is done, and you can't handle it, by some miracle, you make it to the end. Most, if not all, of the students will have lost 10-30 pounds, and all will be mentally different for the duration of their lives. Some will be great at disguising it, others will simply stare at nothing for hours on end (to the bewilderment and alienation of their family and friends), letting the trauma settle over them.
And now you are a Ranger. And nothing else matters. You still love your family and your dog and your girlfriend and your pickup and your first edition of For Whom The Bell Tolls, but you realize those are all things that could potentially be gone tomorrow. If you awoke and all that was left was your pants and a pair of shoes, you are still a Ranger. And you see that same realization in the eyes of the other Rangers. And you silently acknowledge it every time you cross paths with a Ranger. And then you train some more. For years.
And finally, for reasons most of you could care less about, some suit and tie earning six figures (stacked against your 20,000 a year, if you are lucky) in DC decides you need to go to war. All you know is, those men with whom you starved and sweat and bled and laughed and cried with, those men who are closer than the closest of biological brothers, will be going to war, too. And that's all you care about. You don't care what the name of the country is, or who the bad guys are, or what status your Humvee is in, those details will be addressed when necessity calls upon them. Right now, all you know is, your brothers are going to a place where their actions result in the life or death of themselves, and yourself, and there's nothing else.
So you're in war now, and its hot, and its loud, and it smells like the worst kind of smell man has ever been forced to breath, and you volunteered for it. You stay in the field for days, you eat whatever you can, you shit outside your trousers whenever you are lucky enough, and you wipe your ass with your hand. Your feet are bleeding, your underarms and crotch feel like they've lost the top millimeter of skin from a wire brush, and you push it all away. Your senses are sharp. You are a machine.
Your first friend dies. You see him get hit, and you drag his torn body, which falls apart in your hands as he screams right next to your ear, the loudest and most gut-wrenching sound you've ever heard. Your hands are caked in your brother's blood, the worst trauma you've ever endured. And he goes, and you and the rest of your brothers are in shock; the man with whom you've spent the last few years of your life with, with no more than a few days in between seeing each other, is gone forever, and his last screams will never leave. And you keep losing friends, and it wears you down, but you tie it off, you keep shutting down small parts of who you are to keep going, but quitting would not alleviate the stress, it would only amplify it, and you would let your remaining brothers down, a thought worse then death. You've all been to hell together, and you returned alive and intact, a few fingertips or earlobes or toenails notwithstanding. And this goes on for years, until you finally come Home.
Home, the most beautiful thing in the world. Better than heaven. A warm blanket covering you and fending off a bitter cold that knows no equal. And, you get home, and you read or hear someone remark about how some dipshit, a class of human that exists in every single sector of our infrastructure and organization, said or did something reprehensible, and you hear this individual refer to you and your brothers as "fucking morons", or "baby-killers", or "rejects", and you either smile and shake your head, or you just shake your head. Either way, it doesn't matter. They won't ever know. No amount of words will ever make them understand the electrical and chemical signals your brain sends to the front of your eyes, or into your ears while you sleep. No amount of college degrees, or time spent in the library, or trips to wikipedia will ever truly show them what it is we do, and why it is we do it. And they'll keep talking, and maybe they'll piss one of us off enough so that we try and shut you up, but regardless, you will never know. You may be shamed into silence, but you will never fully grasp the code it is that you slander. And you never have to.
Sorry for the long-winded first post, I promise they will rarely be so... forceful.
