MISSING COMPONENT

    By Dennie Briggs on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 12:43pm |

    “Why Would anyone Miss War?” Afghanistan war correspondent, Sebastian Junger asks. “War,” he suggests, “can be tremendously alluring to young men.” So what is its attraction to young men and women? Our recent wars, in contrast to World Wars One and Two, have employed an all volunteer military.

    At first glance military service offers a job, especially crucial when unemployment is so high. The military is one of the nation’s largest employment agencies. And then there’s cash in the form of enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses. But these are not complete giveaways. The military demands its pound of flesh. Learn a skill; receive an education; find a career; prepare for a retirement—economic enticements shored up by hard working parents. The recruiting posters don’t end there: travel: “See the World”; new experiences, offer humanitarian aid. Underscoring all the marketing, of course, is patriotism—Freedom, defending one’s country from the evils of foreign invaders.

    By this time you’re hooked and find yourself in boot camp or basic training where the making of a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine, begins. Boys become men; girls become women. Homogenization: uniforms, drills, guns, competition, winning.

    After you leave, preparing for your first assignment, you begin to realize that other less apparent things were happening: teamwork, leadership, adventure, danger, excitement, fascination, mixing with other social and ethnic groups, away from one’s family, friends, neighborhood; in all, a deeply felt camaraderie with your new found buddies. The adhesive that will cement relationships for years to come, if not a lifetime. Deeper in the subterranean region of the unconscious, another latent force had been cultivated. The sticking power that will transcend peril as it did with Medal of Honor recipient, 23-year-old Sgt Dakota Meyer, who saved the lives of 36 fellow Marines, Soldiers, and Afghan Soldiers. “My best friends, my brothers, were getting shot at. I was doing my job.” As he told the press, his actions merely showed, “how tight the brotherhood in the Marines is.” 

         Following the White House ceremony, Sgt Meyer asked if he and President Obama could share a beer? Which they did privately in the Rose Garden.

     

    Cross posted on Dennie's Blog

    Comments

    Yes Dennie...

    It is true that on the field of battle... no one but your brothers-in-arms has your back.

    Although, in the long run there are also no true victors.

    There is a cliché that goes, "To the victors go the spoils..."

    But, in this day-and-age there are no victors nor bonuses, perks, or treasure when a defeated force in retreat is slaughtered.

     


    To those of us who have served honorably, this is also a very important "Missing Component."

    ~OGD~
    .


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 4:07pm

    As someone has not served in the military (and probably would have had a total breakdown by the end of the first week of basic training), one facet that has popped out in the numerous stories over the past decade about those that serve is for how many it is family tradition, and if not family than community tradition.

    Those who choose to volunteer do so not as an individual making an individual choice, but as member of a group.  Sometimes we get so locked into our cultural primacy of the individual that we forget (I know I do) that some people make decisions through a paradigm that is ctually more like traditional Asian cultures where the individual is subsumed into the whole.

    There can be something deep and profound about the person who signs up to do their service, just as their father, aunt, uncle, grandfather, cousin, four neighbors down the street, etc did before them. 


    by Elusive Trope on Mon, 10/24/2011 - 8:47am

    Actually what I had in mind was the idea of empathy, that fundamental quality which makes us human, and is found so missing in our lives today. Everyone is born with it; for so many it is blunted or even momentarily destroyed early in life, then schooled-out with the push towards math & science, along with the practice of competition. Sugar-coated religious morality confuses the psyche and soon one ends up in the "rat race" or the "trance of ordinary life." Fortunately, empathy is still there and can come forth under unusual circumstances, as it did with Sgt Meyer—not only in the battlefield, but as he met with his Commander-in-Chief.


    by Dennie Briggs on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 10:09am

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