Absolutely Nothing

 

This post has been removed.

It has removed because a number of commercial news sites and radio shows stole my intellectual property without bothering to ask for permission or offering compensation. These thieving sons of bitches took my material and used it to attract readers and viewers which in turn makes them money, none of which was offered to me.

Here I write for myself and I don’t mind you reading it for free, here on Stonekettle Station. But I will be goddamned if I’ll allow people to take my stuff without permission and go make money on it without giving me a piece of it.  When I said something to this effect on social media, I began receiving messages from readers who were offended and seem to think I owe it to the world to give my material away for free to whomever wants it and however they want to use it - and that I’m somehow a whore for expecting payment.  Tell you what, you’re welcome to write your own goddamned stuff.

If you want to read the article, well, folks, it’s been posted all over the internet, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a copy. 

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There’s a follow up post, Thieving Bastards, which describes why this event bothers me so much and exactly what it takes to write what I write.

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You may read an authorized copy of Absolutely Nothing here.

Or

You may read an authorized copy of Absolutely Nothing here.

Or

You may read an authorized copy of Absolutely Nothing here.

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Stonekettle Station will be off-line until further notice.

Negotiating With Terrorists: The Counterpoint

This article is a follow-up to my previous piece, the widely shared Negotiating With Terrorists.

6/7/14: Addendum at the end of the post.

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“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
      ― Muhammed Ali

 

We are the sum of our parts.

Our memories and our experiences shape who we are and, more importantly, how we see the world.

By definition, our worldview tends to change over time. That malleable viewpoint is influenced by a thousand things: friends and enemies and the indifferent, marriage, children, information both true and false, trauma, stress, grief, joy, depression, hope, rage, hate, love, education, reason, to name but a few.

Age often lends a certain perspective, not always, but often.

Sometimes that perspective can completely change who we are – sometimes we call that wisdom. Or not.

Sometimes we change ourselves. We don’t like who we are, and so we deliberately become someone else – ask any recovering alcoholic if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Or a born again Christian. Or a scrawny kid like me who joined the military and set out to prove something to himself. Sometimes it’s involuntary, driven by outside forces and influences – have a chat with veteran about PTSD if you need an example. And sometimes that change comes willie-nillie as we careen happily assbackward into the unknown.

And sometimes, well, sometimes life just hardens who we are.

It’s different for each of us.

When I was young, a teenager, just before I enlisted for the first time, a group of radical Islamists overthrew the Shah of Iran and took sixty-six American diplomats and their staff hostage from the US Embassy in Tehran.  For four hundred and forty-four days those men and women were held captive while we Americans seethed in impotent rage.

I was young then, true, but I don’t remember America hating Muslims before that. When I was a kid, the terrorists who committed endless atrocities came from Belfast – and the money to support their cause, along with the money to fight them, came from right here in America and I knew other kids whose parents were on both sides of the fight. Those Irishmen were terrorists, but we didn’t hate them – but then they weren’t attacking us either, so maybe that’s the difference.

They were killing our friends though, so then again maybe it’s something else.

Afterward, after the revolution in Iran, and then the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut a few years later, it was the Arabs who were terrorists – and they’ve remained so ever since.

And we often hate them.

And maybe some of them have earned it.

The Iranian Hostage Crisis came to define the Carter Presidency and I, like many other Americans, despised the President for not doing something, anything, to get our people back.  Arabs, they’re just a bunch of goat herders, towelheads, my naive 18-year old self thought. Just park a nuclear aircraft carrier off the coast and land the Marines! That’ll scare the dirty sons of bitches! Show ‘em who they’re messing with!  Christ, Jimmy Carter, what a damned pussy! Why doesn’t this guy do something? 

And, of course, when we finally did do something a year into the crisis, the rescue mission – Operation Eagle Claw – crashed and burned in the Iranian Desert and eight American servicemen died. A half dozen more were badly injured. Two multi-million dollar aircraft were destroyed and five more were abandoned to the Iranians – along with the hostages.

It was … shameful.

And that too I blamed on Carter’s incompetence, and I was so goddamned glad to be rid of him when Ronald Reagan took the White House.

But, time, you see, does tend to temper the heat of youthful passion and lend one that perspective I mentioned up above.

Three decades later, almost all of which was spent in military service, in so-called peace and in war and in everything in between (a significant fraction of which was spent within spitting distance of that self-same Iran), and I tend to view things far differently. You see, unlike that naïve 18-year old kid, the me of today, the experienced US Navy Chief Warrant Officer, me, I know what it would have taken to pull off that rescue – especially in 1980, with the limited technology and the rusting post-Vietnam equipment and the general state of the US Military. I know in endless detail. I know the troops and the equipment and the weapons and the comms and the terrain and most especially I know the intelligence problem, because that was my job. I know the politics, and that too was my job. Hell, I served with men who were there, in the desert that night in 1980, watching helplessly as their comrades died in fire. 

Because of that and many other things, I’ve come to view the Carter Administration in a very different light and I shake my head now in sympathy at the impossible situation, at the hate and the rage and the uninformed criticism the president faced – including my own scorn – in addition to the terrible tactical, strategic, economic, and political problems.

 

And so, here we are.

 

Two days ago I wrote Negotiating With Terrorists.

On the surface, that essay is about the return of an American prisoner of war, Bowe Bergdahl.

But underneath, the article is really about the same socio-political themes I commonly address, hate, fear, political insanity, reflexive unreason, hysterical punditry, division for profit, and empty patriotism.

The article appears to have struck a nerve.

Negotiating With Terrorists went viral. It continues to go viral. It’s not yet the most widely read or shared thing I’ve ever written, but it’s getting there.

As with everything nowadays, Americans are deeply divided on this issue because it seems we must lately line up on either side of any issue no matter how great or how trivial and scream reflexive hatred at each other. And again, like everything else, that division tends to the extremes and my email today reflects that in spades.

Over all, most of those messages are positive, tens of thousands of people agree enthusiastically with what I wrote. But many emphatically do not – and that hatemail, and it is hate mail, is pretty damned toxic indeed. Here are a few samples:

fuck go fuck yourself fucking ass coward i fucking hope your scum ass licker fucking dies people like you make me fucking puke!!

YES! I HATE OBLAMMER OK? I HATE HIM I HATE THAT HE HAS DESTROYED THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. OBAMA”CARE” HELLO! I HATED THE NAZIS TOO AND I FOUGHT THEM IN EUROPE YOU LITTLE SNOT. WAKE UP!

Liberals are cowards one and all just like the author of this hatchet job. Obviously he has never served. Coward.

Let me be the first to say GFY! [Go Fuck Yourself] … I feel sorry for anybody who had to serve under your traitorous command.

you are a liar! Borg.dum is a fuckin muzzie traitor! That is a FACT. He walked away from his post and left Americans to die and that is indisputable fact. hell ya leave him to die! He is not an American you are wrong about that stonehead.

And these are the more, intelligent, ones.

Nothing in the hundreds of hate comments that attempted to post here on Stonekettle Station, nothing in the thousand plus emails I’ve received in the last two days, none of the pundits, not Rush, not Glenn, not Ann, not Sarah, not Sean, none of the politicians most especially John McCain nor Ted Cruz, nothing has convinced me that I was in any way wrong in my analysis yesterday. If anything, I take it as validation of my initial premise.

 

But then I got a letter from a Marine.

 

He is a United States Marine Corps Captain, recently returned from his second tour in Afghanistan. He disagreed with my article. But, and here’s the thing so pay attention, the Captain’s letter was polite, respectful as in one peer to another, firm in its opinion, intelligent, thoughtful, reasoned, did not engage in personal attacks, and was written in a clear and concise manner. And he signed his name to the bottom of it. 

In other words, exactly what I would expect from a Marine.

There is a reason why Marines have commanded respect the world over for more than 200 years, and it’s not just their pretty faces and unmatched fighting ability.

The Captain asked me if I would retract or edit Negotiating With Terrorists.

I told him no.  But not because I didn’t consider it. Because you see this Marine brought me forcefully back to where I began here today, and that is this: We are the sum of our experiences.

And despite the fact that I spent two and half decades in uniform and served in this war, my experience is emphatically not the Captain’s. 

Nor is it that of the soldiers who served alongside Bowe Bergdahl.

I knew this, I acknowledged it the previous essay:

Certainly, some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers say he deserted. That he was disillusioned with the war, with America, that he left his guard post and walked away into the desert in some foolish and quixotic attempt to reach China.  They say that men, good men, real heroes, died searching for Bergdahl after he disappeared.

And those soldiers, they’d probably know, wouldn’t they?

And, yeah, if I was one of them I’d be damned resentful too and I have no doubt whatsoever that I’d use this blog to protest those who would attempt to paint Bergdahl as a hero – if I knew for certain that he deserted, if I’d lost friends searching for him.

I don’t begrudge those soldiers one iota of their resentment, they earned it with their own blood.

And I meant that, sincerely.

But in retrospect it’s clear to me that I wasn’t expansive enough.

And I know this because some misguided people attempted to use my essay, my words, to school a Marine Captain who had just returned from the war zone.

These people attempted to use my experience to discredit his.

This was never my intention. Never. And I find it as unacceptable as he did.

Now listen carefully: what I said was that those aforementioned pundits, the usual cast of hatemongers and their like-minded politicians, are doing their usual dance – and that dance is motivated by hate, pure and simple. Hate is profitable and they’ve refined it to a fine art.

What I did not say, what I specifically did not say, was that I thought the soldiers mentioned in that paragraph above were to be painted with the same brush. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think it and you damned well shouldn’t either. And the next time you attempt to use my words to chastise a Marine, I’d be honored to hold his hat while he explains to you the folly of your ways.

We are the sum of our experiences.

Those Soldiers, those Marines, those Sailors, those Airmen, and those Guardsmen are fully entitled to their resentment.  It is possible that like my own example above, thirty years from now they may view things differently – or maybe they won’t.  There are those veterans from Vietnam who have forgiven Jane Fonda, and there others who wouldn’t piss on her only if she happened to be fully engulfed in flames. Both are entitled to their opinions, they earned that right with their own blood and Fonda can live with the Goddamned consequences of her own actions.

Just as Bergdahl will.

I told the Captain that I could not retract my article, instead what I would do is give him (and by extension those he had led and those who had served alongside Bowe Bergdahl) a platform. 

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Right now. You read my words, now read his. I want you to read this warrior’s words, every one of them. You don’t have to agree with him, but you need to see the situation through a Marine’s eyes, though the eyes of those who wear the uniform and who stand into danger with steadfast devotion.

We are the sum of our experiences, this is his:

With Bergdahl’s return we have the expected torrent of screaming from all sides. Would to God that Americans could learn again to have dignity and discuss their viewpoints without vitriol. Or at least value silence. Left and Right. This Bergdahl issue is one that a small sliver of our population has any real business speaking about: Uniformed service-people.

Recent conversations have highlighted three misconceptions, at least from my perspective as a twice deployed Marine Captain, that the media is broadcasting in this prisoner transfer case: That Bergdahl was a POW, that the trade-off was empathetic, and that disagreeing with this process is somehow political.

On both my deployments to Afghanistan we were all briefed thoroughly on this guy. We were to keep an eye out and ask around about him, even in Helmand. From intel collection they learned that he apparently got upset with Army life and walked off his camp one night. He sought out the Taliban and aligned himself with them. Our understanding was that he may have taught them US weapons, IED making, and tactics. That’s called not only desertion, but aiding and abetting the enemy. Not a prisoner taken against his will. You will note, he was never designated a POW. There is a reason.

From current conversations with my intel connections, it seems we knew where this guy has been for some time. But since he originally cost at least 6 lives by being a little ****, the vote was that he did not rate any more American blood. We all swore the same oath… the enormous majority kept ours. Bergdahl broke his and cost lives.

However, he needed to come back at some point to face the consequences or homecoming, whatever was appropriate. We go through great lengths to salvage our dead, even if just their souls are dead. Like all good things in life, such sensitivities take timing and precision. What is so maddening about this from a military standpoint is that we traded the Himmler posse of Afghanistan for a guy who willingly went and joined our enemy and contributed to at least the deaths of 6 of his comrades. It’s like “Tommy Boy Does Foreign Policy”. The 5 Taliban leaders are evil. Suicide belt on Down’s syndrome kid evil. Bombing school buses evil. Digging eyes out of skulls with a spoon evil. And they will continue to wage their jihad on the Afghans that my people worked too hard to set up for success. And if the Taliban has any sense (and they do) these 5 guys will start up Jihad SERE School 2.0. That makes this trade seem not so much based on empathy. It seems amateur. It seems like ineptitude. In the real world of blood and loss, the end result is important just as long as the process doesn’t totally undermine it. Like a pyrrhic victory. These concerns are not partisan. Or maybe these guys are implanted with revenge which will come later.

Every young person in uniform has been told at one time or another, “Good initiative, bad judgment”. Would that a kindly entity could put his arm around certain decision makers and frankly state such as a mentoring opportunity. This trade will be looked at as a giant victory to our enemies--- the real jihadist network. Why is that important? PR. Their information operations for the next few seasons is set. By us. They succeed as long as they can convince young and aspiring jihadists that they can make the US wilt. It deepens the impression that the administration is way over its head. Which is why there exist things like war committees in Congress, who legally should have been included in this decision but were bypassed. Again: the appearance of ineptitude. If not heard a single person in uniform begrudge Bergdahl his return. There are exponential WFTs as to the process, however.

And to answer a previous question about the value of a US serviceman because he’s a serviceman: If I were to walk off from my trusted place of duty, join the enemy, and conspire to kill my brothers, how many Taliban would I be worth? Exactly zero. Honor and duty still trump platitudes and dishonor earns magnificent violence.

We have rescue forces second to none in the world. By a long shot. If we desired, we could have pulled him out. We’ve known where he was, down to the number of guys guarding him. Our true professionals could have done some great work there. What didn’t need to happen is that we give back major chess pieces who return to a hero’s welcome and trade high-value targets for low-value propositions. In the end it will not be people at Paypal, Dell, or ATK who will bear the brunt of this. It’ll be my brothers and sisters in the Marines, Navy, and Army. And there will be blood.

I’m about to freeze the comments on Negotiating With Terrorists, I think that conversation has run its course, and I’m going to close here with this:

I stand by what I wrote, but what I wrote isn’t the whole story.

Part of the remainder was described to you by a Marine Captain. And there is more to come.  There are legitimate questions that need to be answered, some of those by President Obama, some by his detractors in Congress, and a great deal more by Bowe Bergdahl himself. 

Six brave men died getting Bowe Bergdahl home. Five dangerous men went free. You must never forget that, that was the cost of Bowe Bergdahl’s freedom.

But, we don’t leave our people behind.

Consider however what the Captain said, more may die as a consequence of what it took to make good on that sacred promise, and that, my fellow Americans, that is the price you will pay.

The question will always be: was he worth it?

Was it worth the price we had to pay? But that’s always the question, isn’t it? In war the price is always, always terrible and this is part of it, right here.

Was he worth it?

I don’t know the answer to that.

I think those who love Bowe Bergdahl would say that he was indeed worth the price, and more.

But I suspect the six Gold Star Mothers of those men who died chasing after Bergdahl would say something different – and in point of fact I don’t have to guess, I read their outrage yesterday when my words were linked to their sorrow.

Was it worth it?

I don’t know, but let me ask you this: if, if, Bergdahl is tried and found innocent, then don’t we as a nation owe it to those dead men to finish what they started?  And if Bergdahl is guilty, then don’t we owe it to those self same dead heroes, those men who came of their own free will and gave of themselves the last full measure of devotion, and don’t we owe it to all the living ones who like the Captain, like me, served our country honorably and stood steadfast by our duty, don’t we owe it to ourselves to bring Bergdahl home to account for his sins? Don’t we?

Was he worth it?

I have no idea.

Look me up in thirty years, maybe I’ll know then.

 

 

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Addendum 1:

I’m disappointed.

I expected more of my readership.

I asked you see the situation through a soldier’s eyes. Instead some of you have resorted to the same kneejerk blinkered responses you accuse the Captain of and you’ve missed the point of this follow-up. I wrote it the way I did for a reason. I’d like you to go back and read it again, carefully, dispassionately this time. And let’s leave the conspiracy theories regarding the military chain of command at home this time.

I asked you to look at this from a different viewpoint for a reason, and I expected those of you who know me, who read me on a regular basis, to think about what I said.

Something a lot of you are missing, especially those of you who lack military command experience: the Captain’s position, and that of his superiors, makes perfect tactical sense. 

They had to assume the worst case scenario.

They had to assume Bergdahl was compromised. And until they have proof otherwise, they must continue to assume so – they must assume that Bergdahl gave up what he knew to his captors, tactics, techniques, intel, routines, routes, all of it. Whether you assume that Bergdahl gave it up willingly or under torture or because of Stockholm syndrome or whatever, you have to assume that he did give it up.

Anything else is irresponsible. 

I’ve told you over and over, war is dirty and immoral and fucking horrible, this, right here, is part of it.

The Captain’s, and that of his chain of command, are the only correct viewpoint for military leaders in their position.

The Captain has to assume that the enemy has his playbook, anything else gets his Marines killed.

Debriefing of Bergdahl will take years and may show that he didn’t give up anything of value, or it may not. 

Which is why I directly implied that the Captain may feel differently in the future, when the memories and the heat of war have faded, and the true situation is known.

Or he may not – even if history eventually shows that Bergdahl isn’t a deserter.

And if Bergdahl is a deserter, it may be that thirty years from now he, Bergdahl, will come to regret his actions – which is why I deliberately mentioned Jane Fonda who now deeply regrets hers. And while those regrets don’t change the facts, they may temper how others view the events of history.  And if that’s so, it may change the Captain’s position.  Someday.  Or, should it go the other way, it may change mine. Someday.

Or not.

Which is why I ended the piece with the line I did.

The Captain has good reason to believe the way he does, unlike the raging pundits and politicians mentioned in the previous piece.

You, I hope, can find a place of reason in between.

 

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Addendum 2:

A lot has been made about whether or not the six soldiers who died in the aftermath of Bergdahl’s disappearance specifically died looking for Bergdahl.

I find this utterly unnecessary argument distasteful.  

Those men died in the performance of their duties. 

They died in the service of their sworn oath. 

They died in the service of their country. 

They died in a foreign land, in a war zone, wearing the uniform of the United States of America.

Whether they were out there under orders to specifically look for Bergdahl or not, they were still looking for him.

Those six dead men, along with all the others who fell in this shitty war, are indeed the price we Americans paid.  They are the price Bergdahl’s unit paid. They’re the price Bergdahl paid, intentionally or not.

Watching those dead soldiers’ bodies be dragged through the streets of the media by self-serving politicians and media pundits and the shouting mob on both sides of the aisle disgusts me.

Here at least, I’d appreciate it if you’d show those dead men the respect they deserve.

 

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A note about commenting: Comments are in full moderation and will remain so until further notice. I’m not going to reemphasize the commenting rules, you’re suppose to be an adult, act like one. If you behave like a child, your comment will not post. //Jim

Negotiating With Terrorists

 

Are we really going to do this?

Is this what it’s finally come down to, is it really?

Look at yourselves, you silly selfish bastards.

Look. At. Yourselves.

Go on, do it, find a mirror and look into your own dead zombie eyes and see the empty void looking back.

This revolting, disgusting display of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy, is this what we’ve finally become?

Are we now so filled with foul bilious hatred, are we now so consumed with soul-destroying fear, do we now despise our own selves so much that we would actually protest the return of one of our own? Is that it?

Is that what we’ve become?

If so, then the sooner America collapses of its own maggot-ridden gangrenous rot, the better.

No. No, don’t you dare look away. Don’t roll your eyes and dismiss the question. Don’t change the subject. Don’t click on to another story you find more palatable. You started this. You look into your own rotten soul and you answer the question.

Is this who we are?

Because the utter unmitigated, unhinged, unbounded yellow-eyed hypocrisy that defines this sick twisted morally bankrupt philosophy has finally, today, reached its zenith.  There is nowhere left to go.

I didn’t think these people could dishonor the spirit of this country any more than they already had, but I was wrong.

Oh, I get it. I understand that frightened people become more and more irrational, especially when they are allowed, encouraged, to feed incestuously on each other’s fear. And I get that they are afraid. I can see it in their faces, I can hear it in their voices. I get that they’re afraid of change. I get that they’re afraid of the future. I get that they’re afraid of the past. And I get that they’re afraid of the present. I get that they’re afraid of losing power and privilege and prestige. I get that they’re afraid of their capricious and childishly vengeful god. I get that they’re afraid of different races and different cultures and different accents and different religions and different sexual orientations and different viewpoints and different politics. I get it, they’ve screamed their small fears over and over and only a dead man could possibly miss it.

I get that they are so consumed with rage and so filled with naked hate and so programmed with their diseased ideology that it poisons their minds like a computer chip submerged in acid.

I get that they are so utterly terrified of the world that they piss themselves in abject fear at the mere thought of going to the grocery store without a goddamned gun stuck in their pants like an extra oversized prick.

More than anything, I get that they are afraid of Barack Obama, everything about him, every single thing about the president terrifies them. Obama stalks their feverish nightmares and he is the very symbol of their shameful impotence – so much so that they’ve written him into their precious bible, in a starring role as the devil, the destroyer of worlds.

I get it.

And I get that it’s an uncontrollable mindless tic, a raging xenophobia, a political PTSD, and they know that it’s wrong but they can’t seem to do anything about it.

It’s just how their crippled minds work.

I know that I’m supposed to cut these people some slack. I know that an objective person would try to empathize. I know I should try and see the world through their eyes, to meet them halfway, to treat them as if their gibbering insanity is, if not okay, at least reasonable. Understandable. Sane. And I try, with varying and limited degrees of success, but I try because I understand they are afraid and they just can’t help themselves.

But this? This, right here, this is the limit of my patience.

With this, they can no longer claim that it’s a difference in political philosophy, or a clash of competing economic theories, or the debate between big government and small, or civil rights, or taxes or the national debt or jobs or gay marriage or abortion or any of the bullshit excuses they’ve used to justify their unhinged rage for the last five years. 

No, it’s hate pure and simple.

It’s hate for hate’s sake, hate driven by unreasoned selfish fear and nothing more. 

When these capering lunatics stand in front of the nation, the world, and without a single shred of decency, without the tiniest modicum of self-conscious shame, without any apparent awareness of their own boundless hypocrisy, and loudly protest the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the clutches of our sworn enemies, I have to say no more.

I’ve reached the limit of what little tolerance I have for this insane hatred.

They say it’s because Bergdahl is a deserter, that he could be a traitor.

And maybe he is. Maybe he’s both.

And maybe he isn’t.

We don’t know. No one knows, except for Bergdahl himself.

And Bergdahl has neither admitted his guilt nor proclaimed his innocence as yet. There’s been no Article 32 hearing, no trial, no court martial. The military and the intelligence agencies haven’t even begun his debriefing. All we know for certain is that an American soldier was taken captive by the enemy, held for years, and returned as part of a prisoner exchange.  That’s it. That’s what we know. We don’t know what events led to his capture, not all of them, not yet. We don’t know the details of his captivity. We don’t know the particulars of his release beyond the broad details that have been published in the press. 

Nevertheless, Bergdahl has been condemned by the popular media, by social networks, by pundits and politicians, not because they know more about the situation than you or I do, but solely because they hate the president. If Obama was behind Bergdahl’s release, then Bergdahl is a traitor, Q.E.D. because the president must never, ever, be allowed even the slightest acknowledgement of patriotism. 

This condemnation isn’t about Bergdahl, it’s about Obama.

Certainly, some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers say he deserted. That he was disillusioned with the war, with America, that he left his guard post and walked away into the desert in some foolish and quixotic attempt to reach China.  They say that men, good men, real heroes, died searching for Bergdahl after he disappeared. 

And those soldiers, they’d probably know, wouldn’t they?

And, yeah, if I was one of them I’d be damned resentful too and I have no doubt whatsoever that I’d use this blog to protest those who would attempt to paint Bergdahl as a hero – if I knew for certain that he deserted, if I’d lost friends searching for him.

I don’t begrudge those soldiers one iota of their resentment, they earned it with their own blood.

And let’s say it’s true.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Bergdahl is indeed a deserter, that his capture by the Taliban was a result of his own cowardly actions.

So?

So what?

Last time I checked, the punishment specified for violation of UCMJ Article 85 (or Article 86 depending on Bergdahl’s intentions) isn’t to throw him to our enemies!

Ultimately, Bergdahl will have to face his accusers, and if the allegations of desertion are proven true then he will answer for the crime of desertion as specified under the Uniform Code of Military Justice – which technically could include the death penalty since the desertion is alleged to have occurred during time of war and in the face of the enemy. Far more likely, of course, if Bergdahl is convicted of desertion he’ll probably get little more than a bad conduct discharge and forfeiture of any benefits. It’s unlikely that he’d see prison time – and, really, how would that even be a punishment compared to what he’s already been through?  Likely he won’t ever face a hearing and he’ll be administratively separated from the service at the Army’s earliest possible convenience.

But, and here’s the thing so pay attention, even if Bergdahl is tried and found guilty of desertion, even if he’s found guilty of treason as some would have it, he’ll go to prison – we won’t give him back to the Taliban.

There is no crime so great that leaving him in the hands of our enemies is the indicated punishment. 

He was, he is, one of ours. Period.

For better or for worse, he’s one of ours, and we don’t leave our people behind – not even the deserters.

We Americans sent him into the meat grinder and it is our sacred obligation to get him home, no matter what.

Even if he was dead. 

We’ve been digging through the jungles of Southeast Asia for the better part of four decades, trying to make good on that promise for the men we left there.  We’ve spared no expense to return home little more than tiny moldering pieces of bone.  Some of those dead men were heroes, some were hardened professionals, and some were just soldiers doing their duty, who came when called and who did their best to survive a horrible conflict they couldn’t understand and wanted no part of. Some were steadfast and some were cowards and some were fools. But they were, each and every one, ours. And we have done our best to bring them home.

And what? We should do any less for Sgt. Bergdahl?

The staggering hypocrisy of this becomes immediately apparent when you realize that the very same folks who would grant an unconditional pardon to the traitorous Edward Snowden, a man who provably and self-admittedly gave aid and comfort to our adversaries during time of war and who continues to do so to this very day, these same people would proclaim Snowden a hero and leave Bergdahl to die unlamented in a Taliban cave – solely because they despise Barack Obama and for no other reason.

For the last two years, these very same people have been screaming for Obama’s impeachment, because the President ordered the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who publicly renounced his citizenship, declared his allegiance to our sworn enemies, and who then actively took up arms against the United States and loudly encouraged others to do so as well.  These same people would sacrifice untold numbers of American soldiers to capture a self-declared terrorist and give him a trial because they simply cannot and will not acknowledge that the president did the right thing, but these very same people would condemn Bergdahl and leave him to rot in Afghanistan without so much as an Article 32 hearing, solely to further their blind hatred of Barack Obama.

For the last eighteen months these very same people have been screaming for Obama’s impeachment. Impeachment? Hell, some of these silly sons of bitches, including sitting members of Congress and members of the military, have marched on the White House demanding the actual overthrow of the United States government and the imprisonment or death of the President, because four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya. They are outraged, outraged beyond logic, beyond prudence, beyond reason, because they believe Obama didn’t do absolutely everything possible up to and including an armed military invasion to save those men.  But these same people, these very same people, would leave an American soldier to die at the hands of the Taliban and they refuse to cheer his safe return, solely because they hate Barack Obama beyond all rational bounds and they will not allow this administration any victory no matter how small – even when they themselves have been condemning Obama for leaving an American serviceman in the hands of our enemies. 

For them, Bergdahl be he a captive or a free man, is nothing more just another way to attack the president and they can spin their hypocrisy in any fashion necessary.

They are angered by Bowe Bergdahl’s release, because they say we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

But what they conveniently fail to mention are those pictures of Cheney and Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein, back when we were giving the murderous Iraqi despot money and guns in his war against Iran and which he later used to invade Kuwait.  Or that part where we armed Osama bin Laden with Stinger missiles and all the guns he and the Mujahidin could carry into Afghanistan. Or that part where these people’s beloved patron saint, one Ronald Reagan, sold arms to our mortal enemies in Iran, a nation the US Congress and that very same President had publicly labeled a terrorist state, the very same terrorist rat bastards who took our entire embassy staff hostage and held them for over a year.  Or that part where that very same administration took the profits from that arms deal with terrorists and used it to finance still more terrorists in the jungles of Central America. And the really, really amusing part is that the same people who are right now shouting “we don’t negotiate with terrorists!” are some of the very same people, name for name, who were personally negotiating with terrorists in Iran, in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan, in Colombia, in Nicaragua, in Somalia, and in Beirut.  

We don’t negotiate with terrorists?

Jesus Haploid Christ, we do business with terrorists on a daily basis and have all the way back to WWII when we contracted with the Mafia to run arms into occupied Sicily.

We don’t negotiate with terrorists, what a fucking joke.

Answer me a question, if we can sell arms to terrorists, to our own enemies, then you tell me why we can’t negotiate with those same terrorists for the return of our own people.

If our people aren’t worth it, if they aren’t worth more than the value we place on arm sales and political maneuvering, then you go right on and tell me what all the shouting is about over Benghazi. Go on, I’ll wait. 

If our people aren’t worth four or five terrorists sitting in a Gitmo prison cell, then you tell me why we’ve spent the last twelve years in two wars, why we traded the lives of six thousand servicemen and why we killed hundreds of thousands Iraqis and Afghans to avenge three thousand Americans. Go on, tell me why it was okay for the previous administration take a hundred enemy lives for every one of ours, but it’s not acceptable for the current administration to trade five terrorists for the life of one American soldier – especially when we gave six American lives as a down payment looking for him after his disappearance.  Why were the Americans who died on 911 any more valuable than Bowe Bergdahl?

And if Bergdahl is guilty of desertion, then don’t we owe it to those six dead soldiers to bring him home and make him account for his cowardice?

These people are so eaten up with hatred, their souls are so corrupted by their poisonous worldview, that instead of satisfaction at the return of their fellow countryman they feel only loathing – because they simply cannot stand to see Obama with a joyous Jani and Bob Bergdahl, announcing the safe repatriation of their son.

The staggering hypocrisy of John McCain continues unabated, the man is a disgrace to the uniform he once wore and the honor he swore to uphold. McCain, more than any other living American, should know what it’s like when governments value politics over their own citizens. Navy Lieutenant John McCain, if he still exists inside that wretched bitter old man, that John McCain more than any other should remember what it’s like to come home as a POW under a cloud of doubt and suspicion. But Vietnam was a long, long time ago and John McCain is a rich man now and more than willing to condemn others for his own sins.

Ted Cruz, a man who wants to be President of the United States, who wants to be the Commander in Chief, is the very epitome of these intractable sons of bitches. No other American embodies every horrible facet of the moral bankruptcy that is this corrupt selfish philosophy – unless it’s his father, the turd-blossom didn’t fall far from the horse’s ass in the Cruz family.

Cruz said, "What does this tell the terrorists? That if you capture a U.S. soldier, you can trade that soldier for five terrorists?"

Cruz went on to say the prisoner swap was “very disturbing.”

Disturbing?

What does it tell the terrorists?

This, this right here, is where we as a nation, need to say no more.

We need to stand up and say we’ve had enough. That not only are we sick and tired of being afraid of terrorists, but we’re even more tired of listening to the fearful cries of the other terrorists, the ones who practice being terrified as a political philosophy.

This madness, this crippling unreasoning fear, must be dragged into the heat of the sun and cauterized, before it kills us all.

What does it tell the terrorists? 

Fourteen years we’ve been killing these cockroaches, we’ve killed thousands of them, we’ve killed their families, we’ve destroyed their country, we rooted them out of their strongholds, we hunted down their leader and shot him in the head and dumped his body into the sea. 

And for what? So we can still be afraid?

All of this, all of these lost lives, all of the terrible terrible cost, all is for naught because we were willing to trade prisoners, because we’re the kind of people who would care enough about our own to want him back? Is that it?

What the hell have we been fighting for?

What were all those lives traded for?

If we can’t bring one American home alive.

Why do we have the mightiest military in the world? In the history of the world, if we have to live in fear of what the goddamned terrorists think?

If we have to live in terror all of the time.

If we can’t even go to the goddamned grocery store without a gun?

Here’s the really disturbing question:

What does Ted Cruz’s statement tell the US Military?

What does it tell the terrorists? Who cares. The real question is what does it tell America?

That under a Tea Party administration if you’re captured by terrorists, well fuck you, Soldier. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Our vaunted principles, our inflexible ideology, our unbending politics and our sound-bite simple-minded doctrine is worth more than your life. We don’t negotiate with terrorists (even though we really do, don’t we? Pretty much all of the time). Besides, you’re probably a traitor anyway.

Think about that.

Think about it real hard.

Think about it real hard, especially if you’re the parent of a soldier-age son or daughter.

And then be glad, goddamned glad, that you have a president who was willing to do what it takes to get Bowe Bergdahl home.

Dead or alive, we get our people home, whatever the cost, that’s the one promise that must never be broken.

The day we forget that, the day the fear of “what will the terrorists think” becomes more important to us than that sacred obligation, that’s the day America dies.

Whether or not Bowe Bergdahl is a hero or a deserter or just a hapless fool who screwed up under the enormous pressures of war, he’s still an American.

He’s one of ours and and there’s only one thing to say:

Welcome home, Soldier.

Welcome home.

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Update: Commenting on this article is now closed.  Because there are now over 300 comments on this post, to see them all you must scroll to the bottom of the queue and click on “load more.” You may have to do this several times to see all of the comments.

The follow-up article is here: Negotiating With Terrorists, The Counterpoint. Please read it before you send me any more hatemail. Any additional comments may be left there. // Jim Wright, Stonekettle Station

The VA Scandal, More Of The Same

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
     - Captain Louis Renault, Vichy Official, Casablanca

_______________

Addendum and update at the end of the essay // Jim

_______________

 

On this Memorial Day weekend, you may, if you like, picture me making the “I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!” face.

So there’s chicanery and malfeasance in the Veterans Administration, is there?

The VA hospital in Phoenix diddled the books, did they?

Administrators shuffled ailing vets into secret waiting lists, delaying medical treatment for months, maybe years, in order to pump up the hospital’s stats and make it look like they were meeting the goals established by President Obama for prompt service.

Veterans, some forty and maybe more, died while awaiting treatment – whether or not any of the deaths can be directly linked to deferred access is still undetermined.

And now it’s emerging that this practice of secret lists and deliberately delayed care might be far more widespread within the Department of Veterans Affairs than just the Phoenix hospital.

Outrageous, isn’t it?

I mean, you’re outraged, right? Well of course you are.

The country is outraged in patriotic indignation. This is bullshit! We should treat our heroes better than that!

Congress is outraged, oh boy are they ever, and they’re going to get to the bottom of it, you bet!

The President is outraged, and by God heads are going to roll! Sure they will!

Don’t worry, Veterans, things are gonna change! America won’t stand for this injustice!

Heh heh.

That’s great, Folks. Really. Thanks for dropping by, thanks for coming, drive safely, and, please, don’t forget to take your outrage with you – we veterans have plenty of our own and frankly I don’t need any extra.

 

No, really, thanks for the fierce indignation, America. We appreciate it, we surely do, but you’re more than a few decades late.

 

This is nothing new.

This kind of bureaucratic flimflam when it comes to taking care of veterans? It’s been going on for years, for decades, from one war to the next and all the timeless space in between. And it’s not confined to the Veterans Administration.

It’s been happening in Phoenix and San Diego and New York City and New Orleans and Biloxi and Anchorage and Washington D.C. and from sea to shining sea. 

This latest thing? The appalling revelation that the Phoenix VA was cooking the books in order to meet impossible deadlines and levels of throughput? That administrators were hiding unacceptable delays in service and care in order to get themselves monetary bonuses and to pad their resumes? The fact that veterans died waiting for the care they faithfully earned and rightfully deserve? Yeah. That’s not outrage you see on our faces, and it sure isn’t surprise, it’s amused resignation.

We’re used to it.

We’re used to being disposable assets.

We’re used to being left to die by bureaucrats and politicians and the American public.

We’re used to being forgotten when the nation doesn’t need us anymore.

Oh, please, don’t bother. I’m not looking for sympathy or any more feigned outrage, I’ve had plenty.

And you certainly don’t have to take my word for it, ask any veteran.  Ask your fathers and grandfathers why when they returned from Korea and Vietnam and The Gulf and took off their uniforms they didn’t even bother with the VA unless they had no other choice. You think this is something new? Go on, ask ‘em, I’ll wait.

And now?

Now after more than a decade of war, after many decades of endless lines and endless bean-counters and endless delays and endless waits and endless lost records and the endlessly misplaced paperwork and the endless institutionalized incompetence and the endless excuses and the endless unending VA shuffle, now you’re upset? 

After five years of an intransigent, deadlocked, do-nothing Congress who’d rather chase hysterical manufactured conspiracies and beat their fleshy chests in faux-patriotic fever, who’ll enthusiastically fork over hundreds of billions for fancy new jets and ships and tanks so long as that hardware is manufactured in their own districts, who drive past homeless needy vets every single day, and gleefully refuse to pass a veterans jobs bill or to fully fund veterans services in their own districts or any other, after five years of this capering self-serving congressional bullshit, now you’re pissed off?

Now you want blood?

Now you want an accounting?

Now?

By all means, go ahead, America, knock yourself out. That’s great, it really is. 

Forgive me though if I don’t hold my breath.

Here’s the thing: speaking from personal experience, the truly ironic part here is that the VA of today, the VA under Eric Shinseki and Barack Obama, is orders of magnitude better than it has ever been.

Ever. Under any administration.

Over the last five years, things have steadily improved. They’re a long way from perfect but they’re a long long way from what they were when this war began thirteen years ago. Most of the peeling paint and the mildew and the banal uninterested bureaucracy is gone, not all but most of it. 

It took more than seven months for me to get enrolled in the system after I retired from the Navy despite having started the process six month before I punched out.  It took a friend of mine nearly two years, and I know plenty of fellow vets who’ve waited as long or longer. And it’s damned frustrating. That said, every single VA employee, every one from the coffee shop barista in the lobby to the various administrators and clerks and bean counters to the numerous doctors that I’ve dealt with since my retirement in 2007 have been polite, professional, respectful, attentive, and as helpful as is humanly possible in such a massive and overworked organization.

The times to get an appointment have often been long, but the system is saturated and there are plenty of my brothers and sisters in arms far worse off than me, I didn’t mind the delay – but then I’m not dying, it only feels like I am most of the time.

Ten years ago, my father, a Korean War Navyman who had contemptuously avoided the VA for five decades was finally convinced to take his discharge papers and see what the VA could do for an old vet with terminal COPD. And they did wonders. They restored his hearing with state of the art hearing-aids, they outfitted him with oxygen and a mobility scooter and a powered chair-lift up the stairs of my parent’s old farmhouse. The VA treated my dad with dignity and respect and kindness and they gave him a decade with a significantly improved quality of life – something he never would have had otherwise. 

The VA of today is vastly better than it has ever been. And that is a provable fact.

Now, certainly that doesn’t excuse malfeasance in the administration of Phoenix’s VA Hospital, but the thousands of hardworking dedicated members of the VA who show up every single day and give one hundred percent of themselves over to caring for veterans – some under the most heartbreaking of circumstance – shouldn’t be tarred with the same brush.

But, of course, they will be, because most Americans are too lazy and too uninformed and too uninterested to gather actual facts or speak to actual veterans or be bothered to actually think.  They’re told to be outraged, and so they are – and they don’t care why, it’s just another reason to hate the president and the government and the people on the other side of the political spectrum and that’s good enough.

The simple truth of the matter is that if America actually cared about its veterans, cared enough to do more than slap a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of their SUVs and feign outrage on command, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?

No, I’m actually not bitter, not at all.  Why would I be? I come from a military family, I knew what I was getting into, and after two and a half decades of military service my expectations aren’t particularly high to begin with.  I wish it was better, but it could certainly be worse – and has been.

Let me read the tea leaves here:

Nothing will change.

We’ll rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, polish a few turds, round up the usual suspects, and nothing will change.

Oh, sure, a couple VA administrators will suddenly find other jobs, that’s a given.

And Eric Shinseki’s days are certainly numbered, pretty soon he’ll be down at the VFW having a desultory beer with Colin Powell and amusedly ruminating on how jungle warfare was easier, and safer, for an old soldier than serving in a cabinet position. At least when you were knee-deep in a Southeast Asian rice paddy you knew who the enemy was and they were only trying to kill you – not to mention the communist Vietcong were a more intelligent, forthright, honorable, and downright likable enemy than the US Congress.

I read Representative Tammy Duckworth’s opinion about Eric Shinseki’s management of the VA. I tend to respect Duckworth a great deal, for her service and for her outspoken take-no-prisoners honesty and intelligence. She’s one of the few people in Congress that I do respect.  If anybody – if anybody – is an expert on every facet of the service provided by the VA, it’s Tammy Duckworth, she’s not only a decorated veteran, still on active duty in the reserves despite the loss of both her legs in active combat, and a daily user of her VA hospital, but she also served under Shinseki as a Deputy Secretary for Veterans Affairs. The woman knows what she’s talking about, in great exacting detail, and you should take the time to read the interview linked to above. Duckworth thinks Shinseki should stay on. I respect her opinion, sincerely, and I agree with her reasoning. I’ll go her one further and say that I think public officials should be required to clean up their messes before being allowed to quit.

But somebody has to be the scapegoat in this affair and history says that’s going to be Eric Shinseki.

Speaking of Congress, the House and Senate will puff up like big warty toads, they’ll bloviate and pontificate and croak out self-righteous indignation. Ribbit, ribbit. They’ll wax fat and fecund and shed salty crocodile tears for our poor poor American heroes. They’ll pound their mighty chests and wave the flag and rage on about patriotism – and then they’ll go back to their offices, bad mouth Lieutenant Colonel Tammy Duckworth under their collective breath, and vote yet again to cut funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans’ healthcare and mental health programs, veterans’ jobs programs, and homeless veteran initiatives right along with active duty military pay and benefits.  The war is over and they don’t need us anymore.

And once they manage to kick Eric Shinseki out of office, they’ll spend months dragging their feet and blocking the President’s nominee for a new secretary in order to score a few political points with their base. Then they’ll grin at each other and cash the lobbyists’ checks and act like they’ve actually done something to improve things.

Ask yourself something, if Congress really cared about veterans, I mean if they were really as concerned as they purport to be, then why was this brought to the public’s attention via a half-assed tabloid news outfit like CNN instead of the House Armed Services Committee? How come they didn’t know? How come it wasn’t veteran senator John McCain, since this happened in his district? When was the last time Arizona Senator Jeff Flake checked his email? Arizona has nine Representatives in their House delegation, four republicans and five democrats, so where were they? Veterans in Arizona have been complaining to them for years about these problems. I guess they were too busy with Benghazi and birth certificates and the definition of marriage and shutting down the government to notice.

The GOP is already licking its lips and squealing happily in orgasmic glee. At last, at long, long last they’ve got themselves an actual, no fooling, authentic scandal that they can hang around Obama’s neck and ride into November and maybe beyond if they can just find a way to couple it to Hillary Clinton, and they will. Hooray! They don’t care so much for the plight of veterans as much as they can’t wait to milk this sucker for all the political cream they can get. 

Senate Democrats are in defensive posture, no doubt they’ll be blaming Bush any minute now, hoping desperately that nobody notices that they’re just as culpable for the lack of funding and oversight. Just like their conservative counterparts, their real concern is how this will affect their chances at the polls come November.

And, of course, President Obama will take his lumps, as he must. He’s the Commander in Chief, the VA is part of the Executive Branch, and this happened on his watch. He is ultimately responsible even though this is nothing new, and even though the VA has vastly improved under his administration, and even though nothing will really change. Everything the President, and especially the First Lady, have done to improve the lot of veterans will be drowned in a flood of political theater as his enemies turn up their collective lip in sneering contempt and shout, “See? See? That stinking liberal Obama doesn’t care about our heroes! Told ya!”

And nothing will change.

That’s the sad, simple truth of the matter right there: nothing will change.

Nothing will change because the America people don’t give enough of a damn to actually do something about it. The war is over, they don’t need us anymore. They’ve been walking past veterans for years, decades, hell, centuries. They wave the flag on Memorial Day and Veterans Day and slap a $5 made in China magnet on the back of their cars and call it good. And they’re more interested in blame than they are in correcting the problem.

The problem isn’t Barack Obama.

The problem isn’t George W. Bush.

The problem isn’t Eric Shinseki, or whoever takes the fall for this.

The problem is systemic and a symptom of a much larger malaise.

The problem is an ineffective deadlocked Congress who’ve abdicated their actual constitutional responsibilities and oversight for conspiracy theories and witch hunts, hysteria mongering and political theater.  If these people had put but one tenth of their efforts into responding to their veteran constituents as they did chasing after blowjobs and Benghazi, if they would have allocated but a hundredth of the funds to veterans affairs as they wasted on cancelled weapons programs and pork barrel projects, if they had put half the effort into creating jobs for veterans as they did into protecting those who continue to liquidate American businesses and ship American jobs overseas, well then veterans wouldn’t be dying while waiting for treatment.

This weekend is Memorial Day, a day we Americans set aside to remember those who died in uniform while serving their country. There will be speeches and parades and wreaths will be laid upon the cold white granite.  Politicians, one by one, will take this opportunity to solemnly rail against the outrageous treatment of our veterans, with a sly wink and a nod towards November – and 2016 – using us just one more time.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of living veterans stand in line.

Waiting.

And it turns out that I’m not really surprised at all.

Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects!
  - Captain Louis Renault

 

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Addendum 5/30/14: Reprinted from my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stonekettle)

 

And there it is.

Both sides of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, screamed and hollered and stomped their feet in feigned self-righteous indignation and got Shinseki to resign.

And so Shinseki did.

Yah! Wohoo! Hooray!

Exactly as I predicted here – not that it took any actual prescient powers or anything. Politicians are nothing if not predictable.

And now congress can claim they actually did something.

You know, without actually doing a goddamned thing.

There was no actual investigation - we've investigated Benghazi how many times now? Congress is all outraged over the deaths of four Americans in a war zone (one of which was a liberal ambassador and personal friend of Obama. And now you know how to get the GOP to care about Americans, all you have to do is kill them first. It’s pretty much exactly the same as their stance on abortion. Though on second thought, it doesn’t work for gun violence. You pays your money and you takes your chances, I guess). Meanwhile countless American Vets have died waiting for care in their own hospitals and not even a committee level review from Congress. Nothing.

There’s been no congressional review of procedure. No revision of process. No change in regulation. No realignment of VA staff, hell, the director of the Phoenix VA Hospital where this all started is still out on paid leave. Congress hasn’t expanded veterans services. No increase in funding. No attempt to address the real problem, the systemic problems of an overburdened and inefficient system designed to care for senior administrators and not the veterans it’s actually supposed to help. None of the problems identified in the Inspector Generals report have been taken up by a Congress more concerned with election year grandstanding than those who fought and bled in conflicts Congress sent them into, ill equipped and ill prepared by that self-same Congress.

Instead, they got rid of Shinseki. That'll fix it!

And they cut the head off the organization just when it needed leadership the most. And now they'll spend the next two months delaying confirmation of his replacement and preening for the cameras and making election year hay from the dimwitted masses.

Not only did Congress not listen to veterans regarding veteran’s issues, members of congress who've never worn a uniform told veterans to fuck right off – but in retrospect you shouldn’t be surprised, given that this is the same outfit who holds committee hearings on women’s health … and bans women from the proceedings.

But, yay, they did something and it didn't cost America a single penny. Congratulations. Well done, bonuses and reelections all around.

And now America can get back to the usual business of waving the flag and pretending to give a shit.

See ya on Veterans Day, fellas!

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Addendum 2:

Well, well, well, I must have pushed somebody's button.

This article is seeing a sudden and massive number of page hits from Department of Veterans Affairs, US House of Representatives, and US Senate servers. Be interesting to see if my next VA appointment gets cancelled, won't it?

I note that not one of you congressmen or senators, or your staff as the case may be, have the guts to weigh in. Thanks for the form letters though, as institutional indifference goes, that’s a nice touch.

Ah, hell, you know, in retrospect, maybe I am a little bitter after all.

Thank You For Your Service!

 

Veterans hear that a lot nowadays.

We’ll hear it everywhere today – even though Memorial Day isn’t really about us, those veterans still among the living.

Thank you for your service.

As a veteran, and as somebody who has a moderately large social media following and internet footprint, I get asked how I feel about that phrase on a fairly regular basis.

Thank you for your service.

As a veteran who typically wears one of my various ratty old Navy sweatshirts around, I get thanked for my service daily. Alaskan businesses are big on giving out military discounts, both to active duty military personnel and very often to retirees as well (which is damned unusual and which I sincerely appreciate), and so I often flash my retired military ID at the register or maybe the waitress spots it when I pull out my wallet to pay for a meal, and in addition to the discount I get thanked for my service.

Thank you for your service.

Some vets enjoy being thanked for their service.

Many are ambivalent.

Some are irritated or embarrassed or angry at being reminded of things they'd rather forget. And some just plain don't give a damn.

Many are sick of hearing it.

And that’s okay. Each of us deals with our service in our own way.

Thank you for your service.

It often feels hollow, a stock phrase that get tossed about nowadays, all run together like a sound clip on fast-forward: tankewfoyerserviceandhaveaniceday!

Thank you for your service. 

Me? I don't mind.

I take it in the spirit offered, just like the discount.

If it seems sincere, I nod and thank them sincerely in return for their thoughts - and why not?

You know, many folks truly do appreciate the sacrifices and dedication. Many truly do respect those who stand the watch out there in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, day in and day out year after year. They truly do admire their fellow citizens and it makes them proud to know they live in a nation that whatever its flaws and whatever its problems and whatever its divides still produces in boundless quantity men and women of such resolute character that they are willing to voluntarily place their own precious selves between home and war's desolation. 

Some folks thank us because they don't know what else to do, or because they wish they could do more. Because they’re embarrassed that they themselves didn’t serve. Or because they’re embarrassed that our lives are wasted out there in wars and conflicts they vehemently disagree with.

Some of those people? The one who offer up thanks? They're vets too and you can see it in their eyes, the respect.  They say thank you for your service because they know. They know. Because they’ve been out there.  And because they just enjoy talking to another vet and that thanks is a way to open conversation with a stranger, with a brother or sister you just haven’t met yet, in the checkout line.

And so, when they offer up sincere thanks, I sincerely appreciate it in return and why the hell not? 

Just like the discount, I don’t expect it, and I surely don’t demand it as my due, but, you know, I’ll take it in humble gratitude if offered.

A young man recently thanked me for my service. He was 18, maybe 19, working his way through the Alaskan summer, earning money for college as a crewman on a glacier viewing ship I happened to be a passenger on.  He thanked me and he meant it, eyes wide with respect and admiration. He said he was thinking about joining the reserves. I spoke to him for a while as the ship returned to dock, offering up a bit of crusty old Warrant Officer advice - because that's part of it too, paying it back, giving respect back in exchange for respect given, encouraging the next generation.  Agree with how the military and we veterans have been used over the last few decades, or not, you have to stand in admiration and respect for a generation of young people who are still willing to don the uniform and go forth under the Stars and Stripes. They have every reason not to, and yet they still go and that should tell you everything you need to know about them. America will be in good hands when these kids take over, you have only to look around to see it.

Thank you for your service.

Oh sure, sometimes it's tendered reflexively out of America's collective guilt. Guilt at how we treated the previous generation of warriors, the ones that came home from Korea and Vietnam. 

That’s okay, the guilt.

Sincere or not, being reflexively thanked for your service is a damned sight better than being spit on or called a baby killer.

You can tell, when it’s out of guilt. I nod and smile and move on, perfectly willing to accept a belated thanks for my comrades in arms, in the names of the ones that came before me, the ones that are no longer with us and to whom we honor on this Memorial Day.

I accept those guilty thanks, not for me but for them, because that’s what we were trained to do in the military, look out for each other, leave no one behind.

Thank you for your service.

And yes, sometimes it’s just a stock phrase, thankewferurservice.

And so what?

I take it in the spirit offered with a polite stock “thanksapprecitit” in return.  Just like the discount, sincere or not, offered only to get me into the store, whatever, I’ll take it and why the hell not? These people don’t owe me anything. I didn’t serve so America would owe me or give me a military discount.  As a veteran, especially one who served of your own free will, you start thinking that the country should kowtow to you over your service, you’re headed down a dangerous road of resentment. Look around, there is a certain fraction of disgruntled vets who do feel that way and unhappy miserable bastards they are, one and all. If the military taught you anything, it should have taught you that your personal happiness doesn’t depend on anybody else.  You have the respect of your comrades in arms, the ones who know, what else do you need?

Thank you for your service.

Today is about thanking those who fell in the service of their country.

Many of those thanks are heartfelt and sincere. Some of that gratitude is out of guilt, perhaps, or out of duty, or self-serving political agendas. Some is nothing more than simple gratitude for a day off to spend with family and friends for whatever cause.

And that’s okay.

Thanks are not required, in America we revere the warrior no more than any other citizen and that is exactly as it should be.

But if you find the time today, take a moment and raise a glass to those who have fallen in your name. Do it so that they are not forgotten, if only briefly.

And then go on, live your lives, be free, because that’s the best way to honor them.

 

To all of you who have served, the living and the dead, as always, thank you.

- Chief Warrant Officer Jim Wright USN(ret)

If This Goes On

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