Don't Put This on the Troops

The attitude that the general public has toward our warfighters (soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines) today seems overwhelmingly positive. You hear about spontaneous applause for them in airports, they are constantly being thanked for their service by strangers, and "Support Our Troops" stickers are ubiquitous. All of this is outstanding, particularly when you contrast it with the heat Vietnam era warfighters took from the anti-war movement in the 60's and 70's. It was as if the warfighters themselves were being blamed, irrationally, for the war and its outcome - this even though so many were drafted. Today, it seems that the vast majority of the public able to separate a warfighter's participation in a war from an administration's decision to undertake it.

That said, when I do occasionally run across some loon who finds it necessary to hold warfighters responsible for the Iraq war, my hide gets seriously chapped.

For example, here is an excerpt from a reader comment following an interview a close friend of mine did with the Huffington Post about her experience in Iraq, her return home, and her recovery from her injuries:

SCOOPDJOUR: My nephew was wounded on his second tour of Iraq. As much as I love him, he knew, his father and mother knew, IT'S A VOLUNTEER ARMY.
I did not ask you or him to volunteer, I am and was then 100% against this war. I cannot be proud of or grateful towards glory seekers coming back wounded.

Granted, comments like this are rare, but they make me seriously angry.

Yes, we have a volunteer military. So what? Even though they volunteer, we as a nation still have a responsibility to ensure that they aren't put in harm's way unnecessarily. They don't get to pick the wars they fight in. They don't get to opt out of conflicts that they think aren't worth while. Rather, warfighters voluntarily place themselves at the service of the country for whatever conflict in which they are needed. We don't get to write off an injury or fatality because someone volunteered. We are still responsible. If anything, the fact that they volunteered only increases our duty as a nation to make sure their commitment is not abused.

Here's another comment excerpt from a different interview with a different warfighter:

NORTHSHOREDUDE: If the troops would refuse to fight and unjust and illegal war - there would be no war.... So, in the meantime, if you support the troops - you are effectively supporting the war. And don't call me a traitor - just bringing up a reasonable argument.

Again, infuriating. It just shouldn't be a warfighter's job to figure out whether the war is just or not. They have enough on their plates without having to deal with a fuzzy moral/political question. Frankly, I can't imagine the experience. I can only guess that if, for example, I were trying to defend a police station that was under siege and taking fire from the outside while simultaneously trying to subdue a prison riot that was taking place inside, all the while desperately hoping that the preparations I have made for occurrences like this are enough to keep the soldiers under my command alive, then I might not want to be bothered with the question of whether or not I did the right thing by complying with my deployment orders.

We expect so much of them as it is. They put themselves at our mercy, yet someone would suggest that we should also expect them to also be martyrs - to accept a court martial when we fail to choose our wars wisely. Infuriating!

But, like I said, these comments are rare. The people to take these positions usually get put in their place pretty quickly by more reasonable folks. Thankfully, people opposed to the war have largely figured out that the warfighters aren't to blame.

Disturbingly, the folks who are for the war seem to be moving in the opposite direction. I'm starting to see instances where the hawks attempt to paint the choice to serve the country in the military as a personal adoption of administration policy.

For example, Rush Limbaugh caused a ruckus recently when he coined the term "phony soldiers" to identify warfighters who are opposed to the Iraq war. Here's an excerpt:

CALLER 2: ...what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

CALLER 2: A lot of them -- the new kids, yeah.

LIMBAUGH: Well, you know where you're going these days, the last four years, if you signed up. The odds are you're going there or Afghanistan or somewhere.

CALLER 2: Exactly, sir.

Obviously, the "phony soldier" thing is bad, really insulting. But I'm also concerned about the view that is being pushed right after it. Supposedly, the "kids" are signing up to go to Iraq, and in Limbaugh's eyes, that means they approve of the war itself. This makes me uncomfortable because the practice of equating service with approval would seem to embolden the arguments made above about the soldiers being responsible for the conflict itself. Suppose Rush were against this war, would he feel compelled to also hold them culpable for it because they are enlisting?

In my view, the warfighters have signed up to be skilled and responsible agents of our national security, and that is enough. We can't thrust upon them the responsibilities of the President, Congress, and the public to make policy decisions. We shouldn't blame them when we think things are going wrong, and we shouldn't parade them out when we think things are going right. We should just make damned sure we're being fair to them by honoring them with a commitment equal or greater to the commitment they have given us.