Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, January 16, 2012

.045%

I have noticed that there is a disconnect between the populace and the military, this is a dangerous position.  In the past the Military would draw their support from the populace, the military would draw their sons and daughters from this group.  But it has changed, we have a populace that is insulated from the decisions that are made by the politicians regarding the military.  We have people that don't know what it is like to serve and they were raised to be self centered and it is all about them( the OWS crowd).  To serve used to be a badge of honor from those that have done their time and got out.  Now we have people that look at us like we are something that they stepped on with their shoes.  I am seeing now what happened to the post 9-11 military as the same as what happened to the military after Vietnam.  The veterans are despised and insulted.   We are creating a new generation of people that have no positive feelings for the Military and the Veterans that have served.  Once a military loses the connection with the American people, the danger of tyranny is possible.  In the past to have the military go up against the American people was remote at best.  Now we are having a military that is developing a "bunker mentality" or the "US vs Them".  It will be easier for the military to turn on its civilian leadership or worse the American People.  This is what the founding fathers feared about having a large standing Military.  With this new defence act signed by Obungler, giving the United States Military rights to operate on American soil against the same citizens that we in the Military swore an oath to protect will cause great problems for the military and the society at large.
     I still espouse the "Starship Trooper" theory from Robert Heinlein, that only a citizen can vote, and only way to be a citizen is to have served.  If a person is willing to put the safety of his/her country before him/herself, that person will do what is in the best interest of the country, not in the best interest of themselves.

    A Veteran is a person that wrote a blank check to the United States for payment including life if necessary.
         There is Honor in that. 


From a General:
Thank you to the 0.45%
I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.

My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn't crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I'd worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.

That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: Nick, you're a smart guy. You don't have to join the military. You should go to college, instead.

I could easily write a tome defending West Point and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won't.

What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.

In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four years.

In Vietnam, 4.3% served in 12 years.

Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served in the Global War on Terror.

These are unbelievable statistics.

Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of the burden and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq by a Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child in the military.

Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were not sold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked to sacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing unless they have chosen to out of the goodness of their hearts.

The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their families. The volunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this nation. You.

You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on. You've lost relationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apart from kids you'll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that even professional athletes don't understand.

Then you come home to a nation that doesn't understand.
They don't understand suffering.
They don't understand sacrifice.
They don't understand that bad people exist.

They look at you like you're a machine – like something is wrong with you. *
*You are the misguided one – not them.

When you get out, you sit in the college classrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions on Iraq and Afghanistan because YOU WERE THERE and can't understand the macro issues they gathered from books, with your bias.

You watch TV shows where every vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that. Your Congress is debating your benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more.

But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this. You know your country will never pay back what you've given up.

You know that the populace at large will never truly understand or appreciate what you have done for them.

Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less than normal for having worn the uniform. But you do it anyway. You do what the greatest men and women of this country have done since 1775 – YOU SERVED. Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.*

*AMEN!*

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