I’ve gotten some reactions back about my blog that I wanted to respond to.
Please be aware I am not looking to start an email flurry here; I just wanted to expand on the point I was attempting to make in my blog. Nor am I accusing the people who wrote me of being “wrong” or of holding “bad opinions.”
They’re opinions.
Faulting someone for having an opinion I may not agree with would be like faulting them for the color of their eyes.
Nor am I looking to change anyone’s minds – or opinions. I just felt I had to touch on some things that have been said to me
Please read the whole blog.
If you still feel at the end of it that you need to email me, do so then. Not in the middle of it. (I truly assumed that what I wrote about in my prevous blog was pretty tame.)
Also note: I am not that the reactions to my blog are wrong or bad; they’re the opinions of the speaker and I respect them.
I don’t subscribe to the ever popular thing of, “You’re welcome to have your opinion – as long as you agree with me.” I’d rather have someone disagree with me and retain their personal beliefs / values / opinions than feel they have to shift into mimicking what I’m thinking and feeling. Or feel they need to get me to mimic them.
To sum up: it’s not my intention to change minds or feelings about the war or other things touched by it. I just want to introduce a view through another perspective, one that may not have been noticed before.
Support of our troops overseas – in peacetime or wartime – should be unconditional. Not a political thing.
The war itself is a political thing, but the men and women serving in the military are not themselves a political thing.
It’s possible, I think, to give them our unconditional support while disliking the war. The fact that they’re serving during wartime, volunteered during wartime, happened to be in during wartime, and even continue to serve (like the men who served two or three tours in Vietnam – voluntarily) does not mean they support the war.
Nor does supporting our troops – and continuing to have a Support Our Troops magnets on our cars does not mean we support the war.
The fact that the conditions over there are bare, frustrating, and at time greatly lacking in bare necessities – creating an even deeper sense of being homesick and cut off in those men and women from their families, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands wives – is why they need our support.
Now more than ever.
It shouldn’t be about “If this President is elected, I’ll support them with my thoughts / prayers / good wishes for health and returning home safety, but if another one I don’t like is elected, I won’t.”
Now – wait.
Those of you who alluded to that, mildly or outright, I ask that you please keep reading before you email me again.
I’ll repeat here – I’m not saying you’re wrong in having that sentiment. You feel you need to have that, that’s fine.
But that’s making our support of those men and women political.
Think back to the Vietnam War. We (though I was barely four years old when it ended, I’m using we because it has a softer impact and alleviates the possible idea that I’m speaking personally – directly – to anyone who has commented on my blog, because I’m not.)
We had friends who were sent over there. Or at least acquaintances. Maybe even someone we loved dearly. We gave them our support for being there – unconditionally – while absolutely abhorring the War itself.
It wasn’t about if-Kennedy-and-Johnson-I’ll-support-them-but-if-Nixon-I-won’t. Or maybe it was. I’m sure many people felt that way.
I realize I’m touching on touchy ground here.
But if we’ll all try to remember: supporting our troops became a political thing then, too.
Compare how the troops from World War II were celebrated upon their return to the near lynch-mob of “support” the men who served in Vietnam got. It was appalling and disgusting – to put it mildly.
Forty years later and we’re still trying to heal from all of those scars. Do we really want the men and women in Iraq to be struggling in the year 2045?
As my friend Walt said, "I'm not sure, 40 years later, that we're capable of healing from the scars of Viet Nam. That war set the country on a path from which it's never recovered, and has polarized us. Yes, even to the point where many can't differentiate between "troops" who deserve unconditional support, and the war itself, which is about 50-50 in the public's mind.
"But there's no concerted "war effort" such as there was in WWII, things like "Loose Lips Sink Ships" posters, Rosie The Riviter, and blackout shades at night over every window in costal ciities, to prevent ememy planes from identifying targets."
The only bumper sticker he's had on his car in the last 30 years -- aside from his sundry Rodeo Association stickers -- is one that says, "Proud Parent of a U S Marine."
Does he support the war itself. No. He hates it. It terrifies him that his son and other soldiers -- men and women -- are over there, and that wars in general exist.
But his support for them is separate from the political entity in which they exist at the moment.
I served during the Gulf War and didn’t agree with the fact it was happening – and even why. It was a stupid war, but I fully supported my friends who were over there. Unconditionally. It wasn’t about “This is a ‘Republican’s War’ so they don’t get my support, but if it was a ‘Democrat’s War I’d be for it 100%!”
It didn’t matter to me who the President was. That had nothing to do with the way I felt about my friends who had been sent overseas. Sure, it was his “fault” they were over there, but there they were. There was nothing that could be done about it, for the most part, except accept it and support them however I could.
That’s what support should be: non-partisan, non-political. Otherwise it’s somewhat (and I realize this is a weak comparision) like saying, “I’ll support you if you go to college X, but not if you go to college Y.”
And, again, because this war with Iraq is so draining on our military forces serving over there – emotionally, physically – and because it’s going on far, far longer than it should (even a three hour war is three hours too long) – that’s why they need our support so deeply. Now.
If you feel that supporting them in whatever way you used to support them is supporting the war itself – and even the people who are “perpetuating” it (that’s my word), that’s okay.
I repeat: that’s okay.
To be honest, I can see the point of that. I really can. I fully respect – and support – you for having that opinion.
I just don’t agree with it.
It just frustrates and saddens me that it’s become a conditional thing (again), and I fear that when this war is over, the men and women who were over there will have even deeper emotional scars to heal, that will take even longer because we’ll place our frustration and anger on them, just as we did for the entire run and aftermath of the Vietnam War.
And the thing is – it’s something I’m already seeing through my job (for those of you who don’t know, I work as a life coach / counselor at a personal growth company). I’m increasingly getting emails and phone calls far more frequently than I’d like to report from Gulf War veterans who have severe post traumatic stress syndrome, are physically ill – and are feeling the resentment being directed towards them, albeit more quietly.
As one man said in an email about the way the public treated him, “It’s like when I came back from Vietnam, except this time, half the time nobody’s speaking to me. It’s all in the way they look at me. I don’t know which is worse.”
He actually felt ashamed for having served – as if the war was somehow his fault because of his involvement. He never said which one, but I’d be willing to bet he meant both.
Support of those men and women shouldn’t be about being a Democrat or a Republican or a Green Party member or an Independent or a Whig or whatever party we subscribe to. It should (and I’m asserting my opinion here) be about giving unconditional emotional support so that we can help those men and women heal from the trauma of serving in a war zone and during wartime, even if they aren’t directly in the middle of it.
You can hate the war. You can hate the people drawing it out for whatever reasons / excuses they give. Or you can agree with it or love it – that’s wholly the free will of choice we have. Exercise it.
But at least try to keep the support of our men and women over there non-partisan and unconditional. It’s not about whoever’s in the Captain’s Chair running the show – or who didn’t get there – it’s about providing a safe place and net for the men and women to fall when they come home. Direct your hatred and disagreement and frustration with the war where it should go.
Just for a moment, I ask those of you (and before anyone jumps the gun here, this is a general, plural “you” – not a singled-out personal “you”) who wrote to try this: pretend – imagine – that it wasn’t a ‘Republican’s War’. Imagine it was a ‘Democrat’s War’. That you fully supported the man in the “Captain’s Chair” wholly and completely.
I’m betting there’s a shift in all of the feelings and sensations clustering around it all.
If there is, then there’s conditional support going on.
If there isn’t, then it’s unconditional.
Granted, the homecomings have been much, much better (see A First Welcome Home as an example). And much more from the heart and supportive. For that I'm grateful and glad and relieved.
But there's still a long way to go for the kind of support I so often sense we don't give these men and women.
Our troops have enough healing to do without having to also deal with the sensation they’ve become pariahs. It certainly isn’t the intention of most people to make them feel that way, but that’s the inevitable result of misdirected – conditional – feelings.
And please note again: I am NOT directing this towards any one, single person. Please keep that in mind if there is a felt need to respond again. Before you email me again, I ask that you wait an hour or so before you do. If you still feel you need to write to me, I welcome your response.
But I would prefer that some air is given to the reply before you do. It goes back to directing feelings to their rightful target.
If you don't agree with what I've said here, that's fine -- but, truly, I don't need my readers to feel that they have to explain why they don't agree with me, their reasons for their reasoning, why they do or don't take action in a way I might, no more than I feel I have to explain my disagreement.
There's going to be as many differing opinons about all of this as there are readers.
But, truly -- that's what makes this world so amazing and wonderful. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Otherwise, I'd have no resource to form my own opinions. Opposition is healthy. And it would be a damnably boring world if we all thought the same.
You dropped your pen, Brother.
No thank you.
So if I've stirred up the pot a bit here, I'm fine with that. That's what blogs are for.
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