The following are excerpts from Facebook group, "Soldiers Are Not Heroes." I have voiced my opinion on each of the opposing sites.
As a soldier I agree...
...that it's absurd that soldiers feel entitled to hero status. I had several jobs before joining the army and this has been the easiest. They shouldn't all be called evil or murderers either. This is simple obvious logic, and somewhere in this mess of posting the same point must have already been made, hopefully more than once.
Most soldiers, if giving honest answers about the other soldiers they know would admit that a lot are "stupid," "gay (usually meaning weak rather than homosexual)," or "pussies." But point a finger at the group and we get defensive for other soldiers. That is after all, how it all works, a team effort for survival.
There are good people who want peace in spite of history and the impossibility of it in the future. I would like to hold the same dream. But people within this site seem to be spewing more hatred than what I've ever heard from the most hateful of soldiers.
What gets lost is a good point - a lot of soldiers returning home from "combat" do not deserve any kind of hero status or special treatment, in particular...violent criminals. A lot of soldiers are big babies, and make excuses for their stupidity by playing the war card.
It's very true. Got drunk with a buddy of mine at a bar before deployment and in his lit condition announced that he was a war veteran and while in that condition expected to be treated heroic...till we were kicked out for his being an ass. Fact is, as a mechanic, I know he never went out past the wire but for arriving in Iraq, and when leaving. It was embarrassing.
So to all the overly excited jumping on the band wagon...chill, or nobody will listen to the intelligence beneath all that Jerry Springer talk. To soldiers, you know there's a good point. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
SPC Burkley
Benjamin Bradford
Please explain why a well-educated and thoughtful person like yourself would want to engage in acts of war? Not a wind-up question, I am generally interested.
Mickey Caster (Syracuse, NY)
Absolutely. After being in for 10 years, I can say I know enough soldiers that it would be ridiculous to consider them all to be heroes. Heroic acts make someone a hero, and there are very few who fit that category. However, soldiers are like everyone else, capable of heroism, but also capable of cowardice.
Me -
The only acts of war I've engaged in are treating trauma injuries, American and Iraqi patients at Ibn Sina, Baghdad Iraq. As far as the acts of war you have in mind, thankfully I haven't encountered a situation where that's been necessary. If by "act of war" you mean joining the army, I did so for a complicated mix of reasons. I actually posted on that very subject at my blog, www.versavice.blogspot.com, if interested. There you might also find another view point as to what soldiering is. It's not just Rangers killing babies - which does happen BTW - and can never be justified.
Agnes Ng
In the past decade,millions of innocent people have been killed in barbaric wars. History shows that wars are driven by greed and ideologies that conflict with justice and human rights. Despite that, wars are well packaged, for the mob and the naive among us, under the guise of religion, defending democracy and freedom, patriotism, national security, and recently TERRORISM. Those factors are the drive for the gullible among us to believe, participate in a war and die, or get maimed, or scarred for life (emotionally, physically, or both).
At this point there were several varied posts with opinions on why peace is better than war, which were redundant and I omitted here.
Me -
No war. Great. Great Idea. Not a new one though. The idea of peace is as old as the act of war. As far as history reaches war is the most consistent and natural thing for humans. Natural, but not green eh? There are plenty of discussions elsewhere for that.
What's new is the discussion on members of the military feeling entitled to an elevated status, something that actually irks me, from within the military, as a soldier myself, and the public's self made obligation to give this special status.
It hurts the discussion to imply wild things like what I've seen elsewhere on this site. Soldiers as murderers and mindless killers. If for no other reason - nobody really thinks that's true. So they'll throw your baby out with their bathwater. Don't let them. Stay steady, focused, and non-emotional.
Fact is - the majority of the military are proletarian middle income middle class who lack a political voice in most discussions, and are too busy with daily tasks like paying bills and feeding kids to give much thought to these issues in any detail.
They'll simply except the free drink with a nod, or say thanks in return if you say thanks for their service.
Unfortunately there is a huge shitload of vain and extremely non-heroic vets who are going back out into the military and civilian population with a chip on their shoulder, a hand out, and getting sympathetic reactions to both.
This is a dishonor to the handful of truly brave, men and women who served beyond the duty of the average soldier. They deserve that recognition. They are the ones you'll almost never meet, the very same people that may never even mention their prior service.
Be aware of the difference. It's real.
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