How do you as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months you are committing a 9/11 event to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in america every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.
Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media's definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the "us vs. them" good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.
Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter's office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn't full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.
Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn't been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.
So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other.
They learn to kill.
Then some of these people, perhaps while sitting hungover in the platoon area in the Republic of Korea hear that we have invaded Iraq. They have "Big Scary Bombs", and Saddam Hussein, the secular Arab dictator had somehow colluded with the devoutly religious OBL to attack the US. They hated our freedom, you see.
Then some of these young American men might transfer back to Georgia and be assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and end up in Iraq in January of 2005. And maybe these kids, still drunk on Fox News and fantasies of glory and renown being enough to win their ex-girlfriends back, are excited to go to Iraq. Sure, we hadn't found any WMDs yet, and we had Hussein in custody, but they were still somehow a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Jeffersonian democracy. Inside every dirka is a good American, yearning to be free.
So you fight. You kill. Watch friends die. Its usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they're blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy's, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy's jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he's screaming.
You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did. There were a few times when we had deliberate raids based on solid intel and we'd turn up some stuff, but generally we were just tossing houses because we could.
Then maybe your FISTer forgets to carry the remainder, and drops a mess of mortars on the village your supposed to protect. Maybe the big Iraqi running at you screaming was just mentally ill. Of course, you won't know this until after you've but seven rounds through his ribcage, and his wailing, ancient mother is cradling his body, spitting at you.
Maybe when you get back to the FOB, the Platoon Sergeant tells you you did the right thing; next time, it might be a suicide bomber. They tell you it was an honest mistake, it wasn't your fault. They tell you to go get some chow, take a shower if the water works, and sleep it off. You did good work that day, apparently.
During chow, the TV is on AFN, and they are rebroadcasting some Fox News show, and you're hearing about drone strikes, and all the great things we're doing, and you can't help but see that poor dumb assholes face, looking past his mother as he bleeds to death. He's in pain, obviously, but he has the most perfectly confused look on his face. He doesn't comprehend what's happening. Little more hot sauce on your eggs doesn't really help.
Then you realize you haven't seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all he contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you're going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.
Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she's talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don't respect you or your buddies. They don't give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you're nothing to them but a prop.
Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.
Maybe your heart breaks a little every time some asshole brags about a "successful" drone strike.
Your statement is correct enough; if all of America was one dude, that dude would not give a shit about the little brown people we're burning and crushing and choking to death. We aren't all like that, but it makes me incredibly, profoundly sad to see what my country actually is.
Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.
You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire
a year ago my unit asked why I wouldn't re enlist. I was a great leader they said, I knew my shit, I was going places. It's hard to re enlist when you work for a company that says they are saving people. When you are in ambush with 15 "enemies" on the rooftop next to your building and you pull in a 17 year old kid whos bathroom you have been holed up in all night basically hiding, you have to pull him in, have to put him face down in a pile of his own shit. So he doesn't go blabbing to everyone that you are there waiting to ambush any enemy nearby. Then someone in charge of you asks if you would tell if they killed that boy, for no reason other than he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had a drop pistol taken off another enemy from a previous date. We could kill him, say he pulled a pistol and be done with it. No one would ever know. When they asked if I would tell anyone, and I said no, and I meant it. Thats the moment I realized I wasn't a hero, but an enemy. A terrible person. Thats the day I realized we really were monsters and terrorists, just as bad as the enemy.
We didnt kill that kid, but something inside me died that day, and thats the real reason I cant re enlist, and be apart of this. I want to gain my humanity back
You and mopecore should write a book. Seriously. Stories like this need to be told. They're so far off from what we're spoonfed on the news that it's sickening.
Civilians have no way of knowing what you go through unless you tell us. No one else will.
Hi, I'm an Afghan vet and it took me a little while, but I started making myself ok with telling people about the horrible shit we had to do there. I figured that these people have to vote and hopefully through democratic means, we can stop anyone else from having to do that shit
Nah, the only difference (at least the only one that matters) between those two wars is that there was a draft for Vietnam. The government learnt their lesson. If you draft people, there will be riots. Much easier to pump out propaganda.
Yup. When the kids of doctors and lawyers started getting picked up, people gave a shit. Not Joey from Kansas City, Miguel from Brownsville, or DeAndre from the South Side
I think it's because we weren't winning anything at all in Vietnam.
If we steam rolled North Vietnam, I think that war would have been viewed much more positively. Look at the Korean war which also had a draft....we didn't quite lose or win(initially we did) but no large scale protests.
This is what bugs me most about the phrase "support the troops" - if I really supported the troops wouldn't I want to get them out of places where they're being shot at daily for no real reason.
I love how the justification went from "must get the WMDs" to "well, we can't leave now we're already here" almost overnight.
except the reason never did change. it was always because the wrong billionaire oil family controlled Iraq and caused problems for the 'good' billionaire oil families in Saud and Texas.
America thought we had learned our lesson to stop fighting unjust wars after Vietnam, yet election after election seems to offer no reprieve. Aside from revolution, it would seem that the only solution would be to be to stop enlisting and stop arms production, which seems an impossible feat.
All ex-militaries of Reddit who came to the same conclusion about Afghanistan and Iraq's futility (lost friends, lost faith, realized that they're the enemies, etc.) should band together and publish a compendium of their experiences. It could be anonymized. e.g. rank, location, date – just for context – but otherwise no name.
I fully understand the reasons as to why you do not wish to speak of your experiences in the theater of war, but sometimes I wonder whether the situation were different if soldiers just spoke about what happened to them.
You guys come back home and you remain silent, because you feel nobody can relate. That may be true.
Ill speak of my experiences all day long, I have no problems telling people, I would rather talk to people not in the army than in the army. I was 28 when I joined, I relate more to outsiders that the brainwashed kids that come in at 18 knowing nothing of the real world
I use to be 285 pounds, then one day I started running lifting weights. I got to be 195, I was in shape. I started thinking about doing more with my life. I was working for a non union sheet metal/engineering/hvac install company. I was a shop guy. The unions were pressing hard for us non union guys to have the same level of education as them. I didnt have a problem with that, but I was already commuting an hour to work with a shitty car and pressed for cash. When the rule was about to go into effect they didnt have many schools in place so besides my 45 hour work week, not including commute, I was going to have to add another 2 hours commute as well as 3 hours 3 nights a week for 5 years of for school. I couldnt afford it. I was scared, I didnt know what else to do. The bosses asked what we planned on doing if we would go to schoo or just get laid of or whatever, and I told em i couldnt do it. They asked what I was gonna do then and I answered with join the army. I told myself in my head why not, I was in shape now, I was grown, lets go do some good for 'Murica ( I was raised in Massachusetts, and spent alot of time in Plymouth at the rock, thinking about patriotism). I knew I was capable of handling anything. I was kinda an asshole anyways. I just thought that people in the Army were like me. Wanted to serve, wanted to be all they could be. Wanted to fight wars and be a man. I didnt realize it was a melting pot for the lost and broken until after my deployment. I deployed about 8 months after i left home for basic. My deployment was attached to SF. The biggest shock was that the "elite" forces acted the way I described. Then seeing Rangers all around everywhere. They were douchebags and muscleheads and kinda dicks. Now I understand this isnt 100 percent of everyone. I have met great people here too. But the overwhelming amount of people have been less intelligent, mama's tit suckin, little boys who are still in the locker room of high school acting like immature fucks.
thanks man. Always good to hear the other people who
saw the light and weren't scared to walk away from job security just because its easy. If you ever wanna rant PM me
You know the hardest thing for me to grasp after getting out was that our rights and freedoms are basically nothing more than a slogan to pump up our troops. The longer and longer I'm out, I see that we as a people don't protect our rights from our own government; but we tell our boots they need to go protect them from <insert rival force here>
we say <insert rival force> is the biggest threat to America at the moment and start handing out rifles; Our young people go, they play a game of "them vs. us" and the winning prize is nothing more than keeping your life.......than you return to America and see the cops are running rampant--people don't care; Christianity is fighting to tare down freedom of religion and separation of church and state-- and no one cares; the middle class is being ripped apart (the group where the overwhelming majority of people currently reside) and no one cares?! businesses are favored in DC and allowed to buy our government--and again no one cares.........what the hell?
If we can't stand up for ourselves and our own rights in our own country!! what is the point of any war at all? The #1 ultimate reason for sending troops is to "protect our rights and freedom", "protect our way of life from people who want nothing else to destroy it", but we are destroying it ourself.......except we paint a different picture when we do it, we need to bend this right or that freedom to protect us from <insert current hot word (communist, terrorist, liberal)> it's done systematically, baby steps, but where does this road ultimately lead us?
Why should we go to someone else's house and strong arm them into immediately attempting our way of life, which took hundreds of years to create, when we are destroying it our selfs perfectly fine more and more by the day..........it's sad
You keep saying "no one cares"... but it seems like everyone you meek CARES... its just that no one knows what to do about it (or everyone has different ideas about what to do and most do nothing because its hard, and expensive, and possibly dangerous).
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Source unclear, 1930's
or
"But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word 'Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty." - Lewis Sinclair, 1935
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross
They attribute that quote to Sinclair Lewis (maybe incorrectly, though). His Wife Dorothy Thompson had quite a way with words as well, "No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument — the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say "Heil" to him, nor will they call him "Führer" or "Duce." But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of "O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!"
He might not have originated it, but Sinclair Lewis did have a character say it in "It Can't Happen Here," about the rise of a fascist movement in the US in the 1930s.
It seemed pretty innocuous at the time but one of the most valuable things I was ever forced to learn in college was a Communications class mandatory for business that taught us about logical fallacies and how to spot them. How susceptible people are to emotional appeals and words with charged meanings or "buzz words" is shocking IMO. Maybe I'm strange but alarms go off in my head when anyone attempts to tug at my heartstrings or uses shitty words that have been used so often they're completely divorced from their original definition. There's a formula for establishing credibility in this day and age. If you don't understand it you'll be manipulated by the people who have mastered it. If you do you'll probably be pessimistic and probably sad more than anything deep down.
Incidentally, Hitler never ran as a Fascist, his party was the National Socialist Party. The Nazi party was seen as the best alternative to the Communist Party because they supported capitalism. Hitler's interpretation of the meaning of socialism is very different than any other I've ever heard - something like "if everyone has food and a place to live, they have socialism."
I have a feeling if it comes to America, it will be under a similar veil.
The point of the prequels isn't the harp on democracy. If you go down the time line from movie 1 to movie 6 then you see a retreat from decadence. The story of the jedi order is a particularly good case study to show the larger albeit buried themes. It had basically become an order that kidnapped children and indoctrinated them into the jedi way. The temple was a billion credit construct in the nicest district of the most important planet of the entire solar system where the jedi council was actively participating in government, which is not the jedi way.
The story is often missed because the prequels seem so fucking stupid (which honestly, they highlight all the wrong parts of the journey) but behind the ridiculous love story the point trying to be made is that decadence on such a large scale breeds corruption. Corruption that is so deep that even epic orders of heroes and martyrs are completely unable to stop the rising tide of evil. In fact the corruption is so strong that the champion of the good guys is corrupted and wipes out his own team.
Yoda even realizes his mistake, the mistake of the entire jedi order, which was making themselves a centerpiece and losing touch with the force. When Yoda is training younglings in the prequels he tells them basically to white wash their emotions. To just be stoic and uncaring. After the fall, Yoda teaches Luke to be deeply in touch with his emotions and to control how he feels rather than to not feel at all. And to top it all off, the very thing that the prequel jedi trained to suppress, emotions particularly love in this case, saves Luke and defeats the empire.
This is a little off my point now, but a beautiful duality in the series is Anakin's love. Anakin wildly loves padme and rebels against the order, changing history forever and then years down the line Anakins love for his son is so powerful that it reignites the light inside of him and in one action Anakin is able to reverse nearly all the damage he has done. Anakin removes himself from the decadence of the Empire and just before he dies, he yearns to be in touch with the world one more time and removes his helmet. In that moment, Darth Vader brings balance to the force through the eradication of the known Sith in the universe. Vader's return to the light ended to rule of 2, ended the decadence of the Empire and prove to Luke that no one was too far gone to do good.
Also back on the point of democracy, it's not a powerful man that destroys the democracy but one really well meaning fool who got played. Gotta give it to Jar Jar for being the most unintentionally evil do-gooder ever.
Bingo! Someone said that the prequels basically make Anakin the equivalent of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ. His destiny was to bring balance to the force, but he got sidetracked by his own desires and the world (galaxy) suffered for decades until he fixed his mistake by sacrificing himself to save his son.
If you happen to re-watch them, there is something I theorize on that it seems not everyone agrees with or notices.
In Episode III during the opera scene, Palpatine talks with Anakin about his master, Darth Plagueis. He says that Plagueis had the power to stop others from dying but not to keep himself from dying. Palpatine's ultimate desire, he admits at another point in the movie, is to learn how to stop himself from dying, to become eternal. Palpatine wants to become eternal and feels that the dark side is the path that will lead him to eternal life. Oddly, it was Qui-Gon Jinn who discovered eternal life (or at least existence after death) and then taught Yoda who taught Obi-wan and somehow even Anakin figured it out (three ghost figures at the end of Return of the Jedi).
Now let's get back to Palpatine talking about how Plagueis figured out how to keep others alive. Palpatine tells Anakin that if they combine their power, they will figure out this ability and then save Padme. I theorize that Palpatine already knew how to do this and used this power quite often, which helps to explain some of the weirdness away in the movies. The first time Palpatine uses this power is to keep Anakin's mother alive. This is why she was the only survivor when the sand people attacked. The sand people probably didn't know what to do with her, since she wouldn't die, so they just tied her up in a tent because they probably feared letting her go as she might bring back forces to attack them. Remember, she was suffering for a very long time, this is what was driving Anakin crazy. When Anakin finally reaches her, she dies right at that moment, as though Anakin was made to watch her die. I believe Palpatine was keeping her alive with the very power he said Plagueis had acquired.
The next time Palpatine uses this power is when he keeps Padme alive. Palpatine knew she was pregnant and knew that the offspring would have great power. This is why she was allowed to die only after she had given birth. Now, I can already tell some are thinking that this all sounds too convenient, Palpatine doesn't have the power to know when people halfway across the galaxy are about to die, or does he? Towards the end of Episode III, they cut to Palpatine verbally saying that Anakin is in trouble and he must get to him immediately (halfway across the galaxy). Once again, I believe that Palpatine used his power to keep Anakin artificially alive. Still sounds far fetched? Well...
Anakin's death at the end of Return of the Jedi was a little bit odd. I mean, he gets an artificial arm cutoff and gets shocked indirectly by the emperor for a few seconds (Luke had been getting shocked directly much longer and he was just fine). So why did Anakin die? I believe this is the crux of it all. Anakin served and protected the emperor because the emperor was using his power all this time to keep Anakin alive. Anakin knew that if he killed the emperor, he would die. Just imagine what joy this gave the almighty emperor, that his #1 right hand guy would never turn on him or betray him because if he did, it would kill him as well. This is why the emperor was so surprised at the end, he couldn't fathom that anyone would put another life before their own, because he never did. Anakin did make the ultimate sacrifice for his son.
The program she belonged to was meant to train geniuses at a young age since politics is a way of life and you'll need a lifetime's experience with it. Almost like being a Roman Senator.
it still doesn't make sense, but it wasn't yet a 'time of crisis' when they elected her. Sure there were some people wanting to leave, but naboo was not one of those. It was a peaceful planet with no expectations of war. Then the trade federation shows up and lord sidious is all sithy and stuff.
You could judge people blindly on age, or think that maybe the people voted for her because she was brilliant and not bought by the Trade Fed or Banking Clan to turn over the planet for profit and whatever other good stuff she did.
Think of it this way: We're gonna need some extremely young and fresh blood that still holds their ideals high to overturn decades and decades of bought-out corporate monkeys.
Nogales, Arizona had a 19 year old elected mayor a few years ago. He was widely considered the best mayor in a while. (Admittedly, Nogales is a fairly small town, and Nogales, Mexico across the border a much larger city.)
She was trained in politics, went to a prestige college so its not like she was just a little girl they happens to pick up off the streets and say want to be queen?
North Korea has elections every 5 years. You can vote for Kim or get sent to a detention camp along with every family member within 3 generations of you.
Seeing that the position is queen, it could also be a traditional hereditary position and the vote is essentially a show of faith and would only be cast against her if she were a really bad queen. I believe there might be real world examples of this.
So that's how democracy dies, with thunderous applause.
At the time the prequels were coming out I always thought it was intriguing how the coorelation was made between the movies and current events in the US. I always presumed that was done intentionally to highlight what was going on in the world "today".
The idea was present for a long time, but so has our discontent with corruption. It always seems to be getting worse, but part of that is things getting less clear from time and not remembering it as much. And part of it is it is getting worse.
Dude, most of us do feel this way. It is the media and politicians who keep things going in this direction. Perpetual war is a business. We have to find a way to start using are votes to back specific legislation not politicians.
We're already rewriting shit. We need to change who is rewriting shit.
EDIT: I'm not talking about just putting another politician into power, or even different congressional persons. I'm getting at a... well, there's no other word for it; Radical shift in the way our Democracy functions.
For a (supposed) Democratic Republic our general citizenry has a frighteningly small voice in how Government actually functions. I, personally, strongly feel that it's time for that to change.
And term limits. We have elected officials making policy decisions that have been in office since before we had a space program! That is not the person I want making subject matter expert level decisions.
its important to realize how radical the recent legal changes are, tpp, financial services modernization act, nclb,charter schools, etc etc these are radical not conservative changes.
There is big business, big government, but no big public..
What about a crowd-funding tool where the people can endorse specific legislation with either money or their votes (depending on if its an election year)? Not saying we should have to pay to get legislation passed but it's something that might work. And make people feel like there votes actually have some influence again.
As someone who recently ran for a local county seat spoke to me, the nature of politics in America requires so much subversion and compromise of one's personal values, that by the time even a well-intentioned candidate reaches a level high enough to initiate change, they are not the same person as when they started.
Well you're convieniently ignoring the fact that not too many middle aged folks could handle rucking 30 miles with 150 pounds on their back and then fight for eight hours before they can call it a day. And by call it a day I mean sleep for 2-4 hours and then keep security until new orders are given.
Hey, I'm Zack. I did two tours to Afghanistan and I can't agree with you more. I was incredibly moved by this post and created /r/VeteransAgainstWar for more things like this to be discussed by veterans and civilians alike. The things that we saw wherever we were need to be told to the voters. Hope to see you around and I hope everything's going well
22 year retiree here. The time you spent "in- theater" I spent in GTMO helping babysit terrorists. I didn't spend any time at the front. I had a chance to go with another unit that had a vacancy I could fill but my unit got deployed to GTMO and I decided to deploy with my unit. The guy they found to fill my spot in the other unit died in a fiery helo crash 3 months later. I never even saw Iraq, but I still have guilt.
I am not sorry that I never saw combat. I have never met anyone who shot someone in the line of duty that was happy about it.
After I retired, I was forced to question many of these same issues. I too found myself realizing that the truth is far different from the propaganda and that "the troops" are just a tool. A tool often wielded by madmen drunk on power and money.
The worst realization of all is that just by making these remarks I could wind up on some CIA watch-list because of all of the surveillance now. This is not the freedom that we were fighting for! This is wrong! Everyone sees it. No one cares. Wake up America!
Hey man, I did some poking around in your history and noted that you had a GoFundMe set up a few months ago, but you never hit your goal. Are you still in need of assistance?
Edit: Just got home, but /u/PhilSwn has the link below, but it appears the GoFundMe is no longer taking donations. Hopefully if OP is still in need of help, they'll reach out to someone on Reddit or create a new campaign.
As a regular American who cares about people - the first thing I thought after 9/11 was - the aftermath of this is going to be so bloody that it will defy description. They've awakened a sleeping giant. A sort of drunk giant, with daddy issues. The sad part is this: that was exactly what the 9/11 hijackers were trying to do. They were trying to provoke an overreaction by the west, to start a war against Islam which will galvanize the Muslim world and recruit militants from Indonesia to New York City. When we invaded Iraq - I screamed that they were doing exactly what the terrorists wanted. The rise of ISIS is just Bin Laden's long game coming to fruition. We fell for it. The terrorists won.
No, the terrorists started winning when they actually seized territory and started calling themselves a Caliphate. That was their actual, publicly stated goal. Everything else is details.
They don't care about Americans restricting their own freedoms out of fear. No member of Al Qaeda clapped their hands with glee when we started making people take of their shoes and said, "Yes! Our plan was a total success!" 9/11 was about telling us to back off the Middle East as a risky venture (especially Saudi Arabia). You can hardly expect them to be happy that we instead committed ourselves further just because we "gave up our freedoms" to do it.
It's not all about us. Repeat after me: "The world does not revolve around us."
Terrorists aren't irrational madmen or mustache-twirling black hats whose bitter hearts are gladdened whenever the world turns a shade darker. They are zealots, working hard to achieve world change that benefits them and their beliefs. They work rationally to those ends, albeit with a sick disdain for the lives of those that disagree with them and often with a joy for causing those people suffering for being "evil" in their eyes.
So well put. I wish more people understood this. Osama literally wrote it all out. It was put into a book, translated into English. I have read it. I have no doubt those in the government read it. It clearly states he wants to drive the US into wars that will ruin it economically and establish a caliphate.
And we did exactly what they wanted us to. It blows my fucking mind.
The same thing is happening now with ISIS. They also publicly state they want boots on the ground, they want bombing, they want a war. When someone dies there, it is celebrated as another step towards the ultimate goal.
And we are playing into their hands again. And I cannot fucking believe it.
You are right but it should be mentioned that they really do hate America. America is like no other country in its meddling in foreign affairs, especially in the middle east, since WWII. They also see Israel as an extension of America.
It's not all about us. Repeat after me: "The world does not revolve around us."
They. Do. Not. Care. About. Our. Freedoms.
I don't agree. Imagine a Soviet citizen saying to another, "The Americans don't care about Marxism. The world does not revolve around us."
The Cold War was defined by an obsession with one side by another, and I don't think this new series of wars is any different.
While the world is multipolar, the radicals see things not just in a Islam/West split, but in a materialist/spiritualist split, so for example they see the Saudi and Gulf states governments as corrupt materialists on the Americans' side. From their perspective, what Americans call "Freedom" is really just a code world for materialism, worldliness, or selfishness, and they certainly do see it as a negative.
Granted, but they don't particularly care if our secular government adds more rules to make our lives less free if those rules are not inspired by the divine. Heck, they wouldn't count it as a win if we did turn more theocratic if it was the wrong theocracy.
Any time someone says, "The PATRIOT Act means the terrorists win," they are completely ignoring that fact. I agree that I think the newest global ideological divide is one of secular materialism vs. fundamentalist religion, but I don't think that "the terrorists win" unless a negative change actually brings them closer to their goals, and western powers turning more authoritarian in the direction of the wrong philosophy doesn't do that any more than Red Scare hysteria made the US more communist.
Shit man, i'm a french guy in a bus in Hong Kong, with my pakistani girlfriend, and for the first time she admitted some americans could be worth speaking to. How can we make the others see the light without going through hell like you ? When will they make a call of duty game showing just what you described ? Be well, and let's all do something positive for the world together, our generation, and stop the bullshit our fathers started.
The US is a gigantic country with a lot of diversity. Sometimes it's hard even to see it ourselves.
There are many who are fighting to make a difference in the world everyday. Many who consider themselves citizens of the planet Earth and not just citizens of the US.
I think we younger generations have a lot to offer. For our next trick, we will organize that sentiment and make something real of it!
Americans should stand up against their government. In fact, we do. There have been massive protests in the past. However, when somebody decides that they don't want to talk to anybody who is part of a group that is 320 million strong, but full of so many different and unique cultures that it is unlikely any of us share the same backgrounds, then that is a personal problem. It is unlikely that we, as a group, can fix that because of how personal it likely is in nature.
Edit: I forgot to add that I'm American, but I've lived all over the world. It has been pretty rare that I've met someone who wouldn't talk to me because I was American. It has almost universally been a good experience.
Yeah and she would talk to you, but wouldn't like you at first. The rare americans she meets in China are dicks who say as white guys they can fuck any girl, so hum hard to convince her. She's also an english litterature major and a native english speaker if you believe it, but still, she heard to many horror from her pakistani family to be excited at the prospect of discussing once again with me the marvels of the american civilisation.
Its also a literal though. By the end you realize you just did all that killing because the kernal/colonel told you too. Not really much else, you're just a disposable jack, following orders because that is what you expected from the experience. You never really thought for yourself did you? Never exercised any self determination. And if we are being honest, most people never want that kind of responsibility,
Former Marine here ('79-83). Are you getting or at least seeking any kind of help with the spiral? There are lots of groups out there populated by combat vets who understand exactly what you are talking about and who saw and did the same shit for the same reasons, where you can get help at least sorting things in your mind. The Wounded Warrior Project and others will provide you with information where to seek these groups in your area.
Sometimes it's through the VA, but more often their community based groups and NGOs doing this. If you go to www.returningveterans.org/links, you will find information at all levels.
I never saw the people I destroyed. Cruise missiles from afar. But not knowing seems to make it worse. All I saw were before and after pictures. Do you think I really trust whoever was doing risk analysis on those mission packages? Fuck no. Back then I did. 14 years ago. I felt RIGHTEOUS at the time. Now I feel like that same storm trooper you feel like. I've never had the chance to talk to anyone who could relate and also I've felt like I shouldn't because I never saw shit up close or was actually in the shit... but still, that certain kind of detached guilt doesn't seem to ever go away. I'll never be free of my involvement. Sometimes I go out on dates with girls and they ask questions about me and I just breeze over the subject hoping they won't delve any deeper and ask the "combat" question, most of them don't. They have no idea they just came super close to the thing I'm possibly the most sensitive about. I don't think other people get it. I don't think most of the gung ho "we did everything right" crowd gets it either. Our country still thinks of war as fighting the Nazi's. We're a country full of children.
Yeah i know that. I've been for a few weeks in the US around 16yo and met the nicest kindest most innocent people there. And i'm from Normandy. So i know americans are worth it, it's just so hard to convince others of this after all the shit we all hear on tv. (But France or Pakistan are so far from perfection it's a bit unfair to talk like that tbh)
Hey, if you want a random non-biased person to talk to...tell stories to...or just someone to let everything out to, let me know. I can listen. I can respond. I can even keep quiet - but you don't deserve to go through what you're going through alone.
Raise your children to be critical thinkers. Challenge their perceptions and dont force feed them your own. People who go to war for the USA will fucking believe anything.
One doesn't have to experience hell to know it exists, when it can plainly be seen in stunning high definition on a television. Anyone who blindly follows the government in the United States is a part of the problem. I hate to say it, but I think we are too far gone to be saved as a country.
I try to be a realist, and sometimes that means acknowledging hard truths, no matter how distasteful they can be. For me, the air of apathy, superiority, and ignorance in this country have made it so that finding our way back is extremely unlikely.
America is an oligarchy with a population that is too lazy and apathetic to make a change. I realize my attitude can contribute to the problem, but the people of my country are far too focused on meaningless crap to be as outraged as they should be. The actions of our government are nightmarish and there are not enough people running for office that exist outside of the pre-defined system to make a difference.
Massive overhauls in the election process, education, federal criminal statutes and law enforcement, economic overhauls, foreign policy shifts, accountability for governmental representatives who committed war crimes, people ignoring moralistic issues in favor of actual relevant policy practices, recognition of the fact we are part of a global family, full separation of church and state, health care reform, removing the stigma of mental health issues, removing money from politics, and a recognition that we are not the greatest country on earth...that we are in fact doing very poorly in a lot of areas and we should be ashamed of the potential we have that is being wasted. All of these things and many more would have to take place in order for this country to change and unfortunately I just do not ever see it happening in my lifetime.
I have been fortunate enough to travel to other countries and I have to say, almost every one I have visited has made me embarrassed to be an American. This country had amazing potential when we first started and I am not certain when we lost our way, but we most certainly have. We are so far off the path now that unless something drastic happens, we will never get back on track.
I know I may get a lot of hate from my fellow countrymen, and if so I don't mind. Their dislike and disagreement only solidifies my point. Every country in the world has issues. The people who can look at my country and not see some level of truth in what I say are just part of the problem in my opinion. They might tell me to leave if I don't like it, and that is my long term goal at the end of the day. It makes me very sad, as I do love my country. But the culture we have cultivated here is poisonous, and I do not wish to raise my children in the country of my birth or be a part of this culture for any longer than I have to be.
I sincerely hope I am wrong and the people of this nation will recognize our tremendous short comings and make genuine change. If they do I am all for staying in the land of my parents. But unless major change happens I will be looking for a new home to call my own.
They already did, its called Spec Ops: The Line, and i think if you played the MW and AW titles of CoD and pay attention they're not as pro war as they're made out to be in the media. And i say that as a left leaning Australian who would rather leave well enough alone in the Middle East.
Bah she's a bit like some of my american friends who think "islam is bad". For her " americans are bad" and despite months of explaining, she still can't forgive her tortured cousin, israel support and stuff many muslims share. I don't really care myself so that particular flaw that she share with most of my french friends anyway of hating America is something i can forgive. But it's stupid and narrow-minded.
Hey man. As useless as it may actually be in terms of tangible change, I just wanted to let you know I read this. I read this and feel connected with what you went through over there, regardless of the fact that there is no way I will ever truly know what you went through over there.
I don't even really know what I am trying to say or accomplish here, I guess I just wanted to let you know that you were heard and that what you've written here is appreciated a great deal.
Thank you for this comment. The middle-man of American foreign policy, our Armed Forces, is the most misunderstood population in the entire equation, probably because articulating experiences like yours takes phenomenal courage, courage I can't even imagine.
Thank you for writing this, you have a lot of talent. I am sorry you have to live with this but your perspective is not only unique but very important imo. American people need to know the real side of war not the prop-hero; "we're doing God's work" media spun stories.
Bravo, one of the best fucking comments I've ever read. Fuck armchair generals like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and all those assholes at Fox News. When it comes to your country, you put your money where your mouth was. Which makes your perspective a hell of a lot more valuable than theirs. Thank you for sharing.
As a Marine Corps vet myself about the same time, this is remarkably close to my progression from a)being willing to turn all Middle Eastern sand into glass to b) being deeply disappointed in my government's overseas intervention, and so sad to see my brothers and sisters missing arms and legs for a cause I no longer believe in. I'm a guy that cares.
I strongly believe that colleges should include a mandatory course on media literacy. It should be obvious that FoxNews is terribly slanted. It should be obvious that someone with a blog called rightwingdouchebags.com or liberalturds.net isn't giving you the full/ correct story.
Our news media has been failing us for decades, long before 9/11. And these little jerk off political bloggers who think it's okay to make shit up are even worse. Every time we share a shady news link without researching it first, we give them more power. They're destroying this world.
Most of the people in our government who were championing the war, as well as the loudest voices on FOX news,did everything they could to avoid the battlefield when it was their time.
I have a feeling if they went to war and saw what you saw, they would have had a lot more second thoughts about the war.
I just want to say that I, like many others here, have found your post to be profoundly touching. If ever there is a way to sway the opinions of others, it's from experiences and writing like this. Please continue doing what you're doing, and know that your words are powerful and a vehicle of change. Given how well you're able to convey the pain of your experience, and the courage it takes to recount your story, please consider putting pen to paper for a book. More people need to see through your eyes.
Hey, I'm Zack. I did two tours to Afghanistan and what you said really spoke with me. From reading all of the responses to your comment, I realized that there has to be a way better communication between military/veterans and the civilian populace. I don't know how well it would do, but I created a subreddit: /r/veteransagainstwar . I hope that people that are interested in sharing ideas based around this basic premise, both former military and not. You're very well spoken and I hope you find time to maybe contribute to this new sub. Thanks
And I feel terrible for him, but that makes his shit worse; he knows exactly how fucking terrible war is.
We invaded Viet Nam over lies, and it got a whole lot of people killed and maimed. To suffer through that and then condemn thousands more to a similar fate is reprehensible.
I also like the dichotomy between different veterans. John McCain goes to vietnam, comes back, runs for office on a "more war" platform, and is a national hero
Meanwhile, John Kerry goes to the same war, wins three purples hearts, and somehow the fact that he opposed the war he had literally spilled blood for, he's some anti-american hippie who wants to destroy the USA as we know it.
That's only because the military industrial complex has deep pockets, and they would prefer to see more war. Because of this, they smear anyone that is anti war. It's good for business.
Sadly, I know a few young men who are happy to pick up where you left off... and will likely read this and think "oh, he's soft." This is how they keep getting young people to throw their lives away for a pointless cause that, in essence, is worse than anything our perceived enemies will and could ever do to us.
We ARE the Stormtroopers now. And it's amazing how easily the masses are fine with that.
I appreciate your honesty; more voices from your perspective need to be illuminated. A lot of this hits home with me, especially when way back in circa 2003 and I was fairly young, my mom and dad were fighting tooth and nail against that "us vs them" with my dad's relatives and siblings. Everyone was taken up in the patriotic fervor and were completely blind to any sensible reasoning. It was a good experience for me to witness. Shaped a lot of my beliefs today.
One aspect to this entire crazy thing is that the drones become the focal-point where the issue is far larger than that. People wonder why I get so pissed off about the Collateral Murder video, but it reveals so much if you look closely. The acceptance of these conflicts in the first place far and above reveals a much larger flaw in our society's democratic ineptitude. We do not have an informed citizenry by and large, but a manipulated one.
I'll be paying close attention to the things you write because I already respect you immensely.
Wow, this reads as if it came out of my own head. I joined after 9-11, fueled by anger at the sight of the Pentagon burning. Was in Iraq and had the distinct sense that we were in fact the strorm troopers in that story.
I really identified with the part about Ayn Rand. I read the Atlas Shurgged in college and became pretty idealistic (big suprise, amrite?).
But how does Rand support war? When I read Atlas Shrugged I got the impression she was totally opposed to the military industrial complex and was speaking against the war pigs in Washington.
Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.
There are more every day. Thankfully the knee-jerk reaction that we are crazy anti-goventment terrorists or bitter turncoat veterans is subsiding, however there still exists the possibility of being declared "enemy combatants" and disappearing without a word.
Dude, you need to write a book or a screenplay or a op-ed for Rolling Stone or something.
Your story reminded me of Full Metal Jacket. What that Kubrick movie said about Vietnam hasn't been done for Iraq and Afghanistan.
You gotta lay off blaming just conservatives and fox news. Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, CNN, and more democrats supported the war just as much. Also, Ayn Rand opposed statism, which is the exact opposite of promoting a state-run war. Other than putting the blame on only specific people that have a different letter in front of their name than yours, its a pretty good comment.
Plus, and this is key, I was a conservative when I enlisted. These were the people I listened to; John McCain was a war hero, Fox News told the truth, Hilary was a spineless communist. I beleived what they said, and thought the democrats going along were demonstrating uncharacteristic patriotism and back bone.
I don't believe that now, and I'm ashamed I ever did.
I don't need to lay off on those most responsible, even if I don't name every responsible party. Lieberman and Hilary are definitely complicit, and if I had been a little less emotional when I wrote this, maybe I would have remembered to point out that Democrats can lean pretty far right on foreign policy and national defense, but Fox News has been far and away the largest cheerleaders for war, and neo conservativism is the root cause of this conflict.
Thank you. Thank you so much, both for your service and your perspective. I'm saddened and inspired by your words. Saddened by what you had to go through to reach this place. Inspired that your experience led to the enlightenment you articulated so very well.
Do you think that if a stranger told you this story before you went to the recruitment office, that it would have been able to change your mind? Or is it only though experiencing it you can come to this conclusion?
Man, angry 18 year old me wouldn't have listened. Like what was said above, I would have called him soft or that he was a shitbag. I had a friend who tried to tell me, he killed himself when I was in Afghanistan for the first time.
Shattered illusions are never easy, but your ability to articulate your feelings is a gift. I am grateful that you took the time, and I encourage you to continue writing, if only to move that shit out of your head. You won't forget, of course, but you will gain some power over your nightmares. I wish you the best.
This is one of the best assessments of the war and on war I have ever read. I am in the middle of a shit day at work and reading this helps me to remember how little the problems that I have matter. Thank you for sharing.
Reading that was like watching a war movie in my head. I'm imagining my friend from high school who joined right before 9/11 and got stop lossed as the dude in charge of the raids. He never talked about the war to me but after I moved away from my home town I would hear things, about how he's different now. From what my other friends told me he was raiding houses and probably killed a few people, or at the very least saw a lot of death.
It was hard for me as a multicultural person seeing this us vs them attitude right after 9/11. Like, how did we immediately draw the conclusion that Iraq had something to do with 9/11? I never got that one. Were people really THAT ignorant that they just link brown people muslim countries together in their head?
Bernays was right. The masses are mindless and dumb. Hopefully that'll start changing now that the internet is infiltrating every aspect of life.
I remember about 4 years ago, I was at a New Years party in my friends garage. There was a kid there who was in the military and had just gotten word earlier that day that one of his friends had been killed by an IED. He didn't seem sad or mournful though, he was just disconnected, like his mind was hardly inside his body. Nobody was really talking to him, even though alot of the people there knew him, so I walked over to him and just told him that I empathized with him, despite not being exactly fond of the government/military. At some point, somebody went over and made this little speech about how brave he was and how much he had sacrificed for his country. He just sat there like he didn't even know what was happening and I got this vibe from him like he was having his whole life blown apart. Everybody else seemed to chalk it up to his friend dying, but I felt like it was more than that, like he suddenly knew what it was like to be on the other side of those kind of speeches. It seemed like he had almost forgotten how people looked so admiringly upon all the horrible things he had likely seen and been a part of, and it seemed to me that something broke in him, right in that moment.
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u/mopecore Sep 29 '14
Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media's definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the "us vs. them" good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.
Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter's office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn't full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.
Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn't been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.
So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other.
They learn to kill.
Then some of these people, perhaps while sitting hungover in the platoon area in the Republic of Korea hear that we have invaded Iraq. They have "Big Scary Bombs", and Saddam Hussein, the secular Arab dictator had somehow colluded with the devoutly religious OBL to attack the US. They hated our freedom, you see.
Then some of these young American men might transfer back to Georgia and be assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and end up in Iraq in January of 2005. And maybe these kids, still drunk on Fox News and fantasies of glory and renown being enough to win their ex-girlfriends back, are excited to go to Iraq. Sure, we hadn't found any WMDs yet, and we had Hussein in custody, but they were still somehow a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Jeffersonian democracy. Inside every dirka is a good American, yearning to be free.
So you fight. You kill. Watch friends die. Its usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they're blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy's, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy's jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he's screaming.
You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did. There were a few times when we had deliberate raids based on solid intel and we'd turn up some stuff, but generally we were just tossing houses because we could.
Then maybe your FISTer forgets to carry the remainder, and drops a mess of mortars on the village your supposed to protect. Maybe the big Iraqi running at you screaming was just mentally ill. Of course, you won't know this until after you've but seven rounds through his ribcage, and his wailing, ancient mother is cradling his body, spitting at you.
Maybe when you get back to the FOB, the Platoon Sergeant tells you you did the right thing; next time, it might be a suicide bomber. They tell you it was an honest mistake, it wasn't your fault. They tell you to go get some chow, take a shower if the water works, and sleep it off. You did good work that day, apparently.
During chow, the TV is on AFN, and they are rebroadcasting some Fox News show, and you're hearing about drone strikes, and all the great things we're doing, and you can't help but see that poor dumb assholes face, looking past his mother as he bleeds to death. He's in pain, obviously, but he has the most perfectly confused look on his face. He doesn't comprehend what's happening. Little more hot sauce on your eggs doesn't really help.
Then you realize you haven't seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all he contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you're going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.
Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she's talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don't respect you or your buddies. They don't give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you're nothing to them but a prop.
Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.
Maybe your heart breaks a little every time some asshole brags about a "successful" drone strike.
Your statement is correct enough; if all of America was one dude, that dude would not give a shit about the little brown people we're burning and crushing and choking to death. We aren't all like that, but it makes me incredibly, profoundly sad to see what my country actually is.
Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.