Short answer:
Long answer:
There has been an insane susceptibility to the military propaganda of “supporting the troops” in the past 10 years. A good deal has to do with the Bush drums of war, some has to do with repetitious political rhetoric, and plenty comes from patriotism/near-nationalism. (Not that this whole idea doesn’t pre-date Dubya.) I’ve never been a fan of it. It isn’t that I hate the troops or anything. It’s that I don’t, nor could I, love them all. And why should I? “They’re defending the country!”, supporters may say. To that I ask, really? Offer me enough money and economic incentives and I might do the same thing. But that isn’t really some virtuous defense of one’s country, is it? It’s more like defense of one’s bank account.
Another issue I have with all this is that these people, whether there for their own gain (many) or there for some misplaced sense of virtue (also many), are there by choice. Of course, plenty of minorities go into the military in disproportionate numbers because it’s more reasonable than working for minimum wage and more feasible than other ways of getting money for college, so it wouldn’t be unfair to say they are hardly there by choice, but that aside, there is no draft. We are not North Korea where the alternative might be starvation. Why should I support someone who is choosing to do something simply because there are people in their field who find themselves in harm’s way?
Speaking of those in harm’s way, I do find myself sympathetic to their situation. The people who actually have to walk the streets of dangerous cities or who have to invade enemy compounds are in impressive danger. It’s impossible to not respect that, even if they knew what they were signing up for. So I do support a good number of our troops. I just don’t think every single person in the military is doing something amazing and dangerous, all in the pursuit and maintenance of freedom.
And that’s my real problem with all these ugly yellow ribbons and magnets. They’re offering up blanket support for a bunch of strangers who necessarily have various reasons for doing what they’re doing. Some of those reasons are going to be in conflict with each other. How can someone reasonably say they support that? That’s like saying I support William Lane Craig and Bertrand Russell because I also support philosophy. It’s logically incoherent and borders on blind patriotism, which itself borders on simple nationalism.
All that said, I do support this guy:
Filed under: Politics and Social Tagged: | Richard Dick Winters, Support the troops
Get out of my head! This has been on my mind a lot too, but I haven’t been sure if I wanted to write about it because, you know…who doesn’t Support The Troops? There are good, honorable, respectable people in all walks of life; having a uniform shouldn’t entitle one to instant respect over any of the other people who make a difference in this world.
I considered making it a simple status update on Facebook as, “I’ll say it. I don’t support the troops.”, but that would have been inviting unmitigated anger. I figured something with nuance would have been received more reasonably.
Incidentally, I sent you a friend request on Facebook as a matter of atheist networking. I won’t be offended if you choose to not be Internet friends with a stranger.
I’ve always rejected it simply because it’s been synonymous with “Support Bush’s foreign policy”. I think supporting the troops means not using their honorable commitment for frivolous and poorly planned wars.
Honestly, I’m not a fan of the generic “support the troops” bandwagon either.
The soldier does not declare the war, and I can’t blame today’s troops for being enlisted now instead of, say, 1943 when their actions would have been remembered as part of a major historical triumph.
I agree with you statement that honor doesn’t come just from signing up, but is earned through deeds.
The “support the troops” meme came out soon after 9-11 when we first went to Afghanistan and it was an obvious fad.
However, I think a lot of it was the American left trying to distance themselves from the soldier-hating far-leftists. They also had that RIDICULOUS talking point “support the troops by bringing them home”
Support the Troops was something the right was happy to say, and the left was desperate to jump on to shake the “unpatriotic” reputation.
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Hi there. Im a soldier of the united states army and i had somethings to put out.
Im not offended by your post or anything just would like to get people who are reading your blog to see it from a different side.
I joined back in 2010 wen i was 17. I admit i joined for monetary reasons. I want to attend college and make something out of my life and the military is a good way to do it. I was workin 2 jobs and barely making it by.
But even though i joined for a selfish reason i only have one mission from then to now and in the future, its to keep my family, my country, and our way of life safe…
Everyone joins for different reasons but our mission once we’re in are the same. To protect mine and yours. We havent had an attack on u.s. soil in a long time, but that can change in a second. We’re over seas bcuz we believe by being there and fighting there, we prevent massive attacks here… support the troops gives us a morale boost, bcuz even we loose faith in what we’re doing from time to time. It gets hard over seas when we are missing family and friends, we look at the paper and we read about anti-troop rallies and people hating us for doing what we do…
A lot of us wud ask you to join our ranks and then you’ll understand, but i dont think that’s the way to go. Im glad to hear you support the men and women on the front lines, but they arent the only ones with difficult jobs. Sure we’re not exactly in the line of fire but its just as hard for us as well.
I mightve gone off topic there and i apologize for that, i just hope you and others will rethink the way you characterize military personnel, their individual roles, and what we’re doing.