Re: Re: Re: Do You Support the Troops?
peptoabysmal said:
You may have hit the nail on the head here. Did the guy go nuts in battle and start spraying bullets everywhere? Who knows?
The part of this story I'm having difficulty swallowing is that he's a deserter, and that's his choice and he will have to live with the consequences; but now he's trying to make it into some kind of anti-war statement or "war resisters"?
Look, it's the same sort of psychology that made Kerry the leader of the anti-war movement. Here's the situation. You're a freshly-minted 2nd Lieutenant, and you are now running a boat in Vietnam. You are quickly disillusioned with the whole thing and want to go home.
So what do you do? You take advantage of a little-known rule, known to you, which allows those who have three purple hearts to come home early. You set your sights on getting those purple hearts by hook or by crook--the actual merit of the awards, if any, notwithstanding. You get three purple hearts for three superficial wounds and scratches that did not, in fact, require you to spend a single day in a military hospital or to be evacuated, which shows the "seriousness" of these wounds.
While formally you probably did deserve them--the award is for those injured by enemy fire, there is no mention of the serousness of the injury--it is the kind of "award" that most self-respecting soldiers would consider below their dignity, and in any case not worth going through the paperwork for. But then again, the average soldier, unlike you, doesn't know that three purple hearts are a ticket home!
In four months, you have your three purple hearts. So what does Mr. Decorated War Hero do next? The very next week, he applies for early dismissal from Vietnam, and very soon he's back home in Boston--leaving his crew in the lurch, still in Vietnam. Some "heroism" THAT is. Obviously, the point was to be a FORMAL "hero", with just enough heroism to gain a dismissal ASAP. To be a REAL hero, or even a decent commander--to stay with one's crew, to finish one's tour--is of little importance. Screw my self-respect and my duty--just get me the hell out of here!
But then, back home in safety, perhaps Mr. War Hero is somewhat troubled. Perhaps he did wrong somehow to abandon ship? So, to compensate, he pretends to "care" for his crue--the same guys he abandoned. And how does he "care" for them? By joining the good cause of them not being "the last man to die for a mistake". That sounds very noble--especially when you're back in good ol' Boston, having made damn sure that
you will not be that last man. It is almost as noble, in fact, as, oh, somebody who beat up his wife and kids and drove them away and then campaigns for building more shelters for battered wives.
Above all, make a lot of media noise and make outrageous statements libeling the armed forces. This is crucial. Yes, your crew--still in Vietnam--might resent being libeled as war criminals who are also suckers. But they don't really count (or you wouldn't have abandoned them at the first opportunity). The real reason behind all this "USA soldiers are baby-killers, and I say that as a war hero" bruhahahaha is that when you make such outrageous statements, you can convince yourself that your cowardice wasn't REALLY cowardice, since:
a). It wasn't really cowardice, but "moral outrage", that made you turn tail and run after only 1/3rd of your tour was completed, and
b). You are now merely a different
type of "hero", having the "courage to speak truth to power", blah blah blah, which was, as we know, so terribly difficult to do in the early-1970s USA; and who is to say that making outrageous statements on TV is not
just as heroic as getting shot at in a war?
Indeed, Kerry is perhaps the most egragerious (sp?) example of this sort of coward who pretends to be a hero by claiming that his cowardice is in reality a type of moral superiority. But here was have a similar situation, if not with as much bruhahaha. (After all, this soldier doesn't have the family connections to get him an officer's commission, three purple hearts, early dismissal, and, finally, the PR and circus to make him a "leader of the anti-war Movement".)
The main point in his "defense" is: this soldier is not a coward--he is your moral superior! He is not afraid of fighting--he just cannot stand the injustice of the war! He is not fleeing for safety--he is making a political statement from a morally superior country up north! But if you disagree and whisper that, maybe, cowardice just
might have something to do with it, you are naturally merely a gung-ho pro-war neo-con. Let alone if you think he should be punished, or that Canada should not be sheltering deserters during wartime.
The man should be extradited from Canada, put on trial for desertion, and, if found guilty, run for presid.... I mean, be punished severly. So far as I know, the US Armed forced do not shoot deserters any more (the last one to have this happen to him was pvt. Slovik, in WWII--and the one before
that was during the civil war). But, frankly, while I hardly think it would happen, or that it should, for a variety of reasons, I couldn't say I'd be particularly grieved if this great morally superior dissenter from evil neocon dogma were to be shot if found guilty.
