The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Thank You, Veterans

    By AmericanDreamer on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 9:32am |

    I don't have anything eloquent or profound to say on this.  You don't make the war and peace decisions.  I don't romanticize what is often an array of considerations why you enlisted any more than I do for other public servants I also feel a large sense of gratitude towards, day in and day out--including teachers and other school employees, firefighters, emergency workers, and, yes,  the police, disfavored by some here not just now in the wake of Occupy events but generally.  None of us, in public service or not, is perfect or are saints.  

    But you serve. You give of yourselves for something larger than yourselves, and on behalf of people outside your immediate circle of loved ones, friends, and co-workers.  If more of our fellow citizens were more mindful of what they owe to others, and less so of what they demand and expect, we'd be a stronger and better society.

    Thank you.  Sincerely.

    Comments

    You're welcome and thank you for saying it.


    by Beetlejuice on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 8:54pm

    I did not know, or perhaps had just forgotten, that you are a vet, bj.  When/where did you serve?  

    Thank you most sincerely.


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 9:30pm

    USAF from 1971 to 1981 ... during the last years of Vietnam. After tech school and a one year assignment in the states I was sent on a controlled tour to USAFE in Germany in 1974. Once you were in country you couldn't be sent TDY to Vietnam ... NATO was concerned about actual troop strengths being depleted if troops were doing 180-day short tours to Vietnam.

    Got reassigned to Hill AFB in 1976 working with drones. Notice in the picture, one of the do-thingys it carried was an AGM-45 - TV guided bomb. We proved in 1977/8 a drone could accurately deliver ordinance on target. Our sister flight at Edwards was using the same platform, but had missile launchers on the wingtips... they were trying to see if a drone could engage in a dog-fight. Never heard if they were successful. By the way, it was a jet not a prop and when it finished it's maneuvers, it flew to a recovery area, popped a chute and was snagged mid-air by a HFH-63 helo. And it had a TV in the nose and was interesting to watch where it was flying and see the targets on the ground.

    Got out in 1981 when I got wind the career field was going to be mothballed because of technological advances with the newer B-1, F-15, F-16 and A-10 just entering service ... internal analysis of aerial maneuvers using on-board info and data necessary to validate aircrew performance. It was fun though, using reproductions and actual Russian SAM and AAA ground-based threats to challenge aircrew response ... pre Red Flag stuff ... as well as some of the cutting edge technology the USAF was researching.


    by Beetlejuice on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 10:40pm

    Thanks, bj.  Per Bruce's comment below, what has your experience as a vet been?  Do you feel treated well generally, or no?  How about for vets you know?


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 10:43am

    Started out working for defense contractors. Excellent work and interesting and innovative product lines. When the Berlin wall fell, I moved over to the civilian side. It was way too cramped to work in... they weren't interested in creativity and pushing the envelope. Too much emphasis on scrapping pennies and not enough attention to the product they were moving ... the exact opposite of defense contract work. Moved back to the defense contractors side, but the spark had disappeared ... too much competition for too few resources. The military had instituted a low bidder award system and the best and brightest had been moving away ... brain drain. And those left weren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

    Seems as if my veteran status gave me a foot in the door for defense contractors whereas in the civilian sector it was a requirement by the Department of Labor to fill quotas. What I found was civilian employers are too one track minded and stifle initiative of their employees. They're too set in their ways in their requirement whereas defense contractors are more fluid in that they're able to see talents learned in one discipline could be adapted for use in a completely different venue with just a little training and OJT sessions with the production engineers.

    Many vets I know moved into the defense industry. Some were able to make the transition into the civilian world ... local and national telephone calling centers for example ... or into work not related to their military experience. It seems to me the military industrial complex is the only game in town for vets to take their experience and training to new levels. And with the Congress hell bent on cutting back on military spending a lot of those new Iraqi and Afgan vets hoping for a good job in the defense industry where their talents are known and recognized has been shot down.

    And one last thing. When I entered the real civilian workplace, I found out my fellow employees had a real bad taste of ex-military  ... got told how fast I would get decked if I started issuing orders. Seems as if being ex-military is not some thing a few civilians appreciate in a person.


    by Beetlejuice on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 1:49pm

    One of the things I really appreciate about the parts of military culture I've had experience with is the "can do" attitude.  There's a mentality, reflected in your comment, that, on being given a task, responds immediately by accepting the question as, ok, how are we going to get this done?  Instead of hemming and hawing and saying well, I don't know, boss, I don't know if we can get this done.  

    I find it really refreshing given how many folks civilian side come off to me as jaded and negative.  It can be problematic in the military when folks accept a mission when they really don't have adequate resources to accomplish it.  In Woodward's book on AfPak troop level decisions it would have been helpful if military-side folks "negotiating" with Obama were more skeptical as to what the mission actually was, whether there was a doable mission that was also meaningful from a national security standpoint (no).  Instead the questions all seemed to assume a doable and meaningful mission, with the main issue how many troops were needed.  So there was a kind of groupthink that seemed to dominate that discussion where no one was fundamentally questioning the mission, just how it was going to get done.  

    During the Vietnam War era there are some accounts suggesting George Ball at the State Department was the only one asking the threatening "why?" questions and he was dismissed by LBJ as kind of a crank and "oh, that's just George" when he turned out to be right on a lot of things others were badly wrong about.  

    Hard to say how much of the military "can do" culture is "transferable" to a fully civilian-side application.  How much of it is the people, who will take that culture with them wherever they go after they leave the military, versus how much of that culture gets lost when that happens even where some of the same folks are involved?

    I can't help but think we could use more of the can do mindset applied to basically civilian side research, development, and engineering challenges such as alternative energy products and systems.  The sheer determination and energy and commitment of military folks to accomplish what they're asked to is enormously impressive to me, even though it does sometimes have the down side to it that I referenced.  Skeptics who will ask the hardest questions about proposed plans of action are essential no matter how unpopular they tend to be.

    Probably extremely unpopular views here at generally anti-military dag and so I won't be surprised if I get some major blowback on this.


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 11/15/2011 - 12:09pm

    All due respect AD, but  this post rubs me wrong.  I agree a thousand percent with your suggestion that if folks were more mindful of their shared humanity we'd be better off.  I just don't see any connection with that notion to military service in general, or any other form of "public service."  I think most of us spend our workaday lives doing what needs doing.  And most of us get less in return than it's worth. 


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 10:33pm

    Fair enough, kyle.  I guess whenever one praises a subset of individuals or some groups of individuals that can be taken as meaning others are not also deserving and that wasn't my intent.

    Right now we have one major political party whose major 24/7 message seems to be that anyone on a public payroll is a presumptively a non-producing lout living off of money stolen from taxpayers.  All part of a long-term effort to gut and discredit our government and keep it from doing things it isn't doing at all now that we need it to, or isn't doing to the degree we need it to.  The result has been a long-term harm to our country and erosion in the public's trust in and views of the competency of government.  It should be no shock when people resist paying for services they think are not, or poorly, rendered, or would surely be ineptly rendered if offered.  

    In addition, I believe one of our society's Achilles heels is a weak sense of, and appreciation for, what is public and should be valued by and of concern to all of us.  Those providing public services are accountable to all of us, as citizens, not just to paying private customers. People in public service are not generally in a habit of picking and choosing who they are going to serve and telling those they'd rather not serve to take a hike.  I think we underappreciate that at our peril.  

    As for vets, and also police, firefighters, emergency workers, and teachers and other school employees who in crises such as 9/11 or Columbine are also very much first responders, those folks put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of individuals who need their help, and for all of us.  I appreciate and value that a great deal.  I had thought it is still ok to express gratitude and appreciation for others.  Even in the hard-to-please crowd that is the political blogosphere.

    I understand and agree that these folks are hardly the only ones who deserve our gratitude and appreciation.  But I feel that these folks do.  If you'd like to give special shout outs to others in our society by all means I hope you'll feel free to do that.     


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 9:48am

    I had thought it is still ok to express gratitude and appreciation for others.  Even in the hard-to-please crowd that is the political blogosphere.

    It still is more than OK AD; it's something we need more of, particularly for our veterans.  The treatment of and indifference to our returning veterans is a national disgrace.  And the treatment of civilian public servants isn't that far behind.  But yesterday was for our veterans, and thanks for reminding us about that here.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 10:37am

    Of course it's perfectly ok to express gratitude and appreciation for the contributions of our fellows to the whole.  Particularly to our veterans?  Not so much.  And while I agree completely that the treatment of and indifference to our returning veterans is a national disgrace, closing the Post Office and staging a parade does shit to address the issue.  In fact, I'd say the whole affair goes a long way to reinforce the notion our military is good and necessary and thank god for it.

    My heart goes out to the young people who enlist for all sorts of reasons, a deep desire to serve the people of their country among them.  Thanking them for it, though, doesn't work for me.  Please, someone articulate exactly what we ought to be grateful for.  Military service?  No thank you.  Let's honor the millions of sacrifices made in vain over the past century--the lost lives, treasure and opportunity costs--by shutting down the MIC and creating meaningful opportunities to serve for future generations of would-be vets.   


    by kyle flynn on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 11:24am

    Kyle, this subject sends my mind onto a long disjointed meandering path of mixed feelings that I cannot begin to relate in any constructive way. Your comment here is a condensed, succinct statement of much of what I would like to say. Especially:

    "...closing the Post Office and staging a parade does shit to address the issue.  In fact, I'd say the whole affair goes a long way to reinforce the notion our military is good and necessary and thank god for it".


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 12:01pm

    Please, someone articulate exactly what we ought to be grateful for. 

    I am grateful for their service, including their willingness to put themselves in harm's way.

    I write that as someone who also believes our military is too large; we devote too many resources to it; we have far too many overseas military bases; some of the military interventions and wars we have undertaken have been wrong, unwise or both; we are an unhealthily violent society; our political class is dysfunctionally militaristic in its thinking about and conduct of foreign policy; we do need a military; and I am grateful to our veterans.  

    I hope we as a society can believe that combination of things, or something close to it.  I do understand those who might question whether we can believe all of those things at the same time, not just in theory but in practice.  Earlier in my life I was more conflicted about this matter, too conflicted to feel comfortable writing what I wrote in this post.  

    It seems to me that if we are having trouble believing something like the combination of things I mentioned above, the response should be not to decline to convey gratitude to our veterans on that account, but rather to change our ways of thinking and doing in ways that hopefully will have, as one byproduct over decades, cause to express gratitude to fewer and fewer of our fellow citizens each year on Veterans Day.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 1:07pm

    I've been thinking a lot about this AD, and I'd really like to agree with you, but I just can't get there. It isn't that I'm declining to convey gratitude. It's that I don't have any to begin with that has me thinking critically of this holiday. In all sincerity, I do not believe our "freedom," or "our way of life" or however it can be put, is defended by soldiers with guns. I do not share your opinion that we need a military.

    Let me be perfectly clear here. I do not begrudge anyone for joining the military. I believe the vast majority serve honorably. And I appreciate what a lousy beat it can be. I just don't go where you do from there. Every young man or woman who enlists in the United States Armed Services represents a terrible, collective failure. Acknowledging this fact ought to be the first step in changing our ways of thinking and doing, as you suggest. And the appropriate response to Veterans Day toward our veterans should reflect this. Instead of saying "thank you," we need to say "we're sorry." We're sorry we didn't do more to keep you from the battlefield. We're sorry we didn't do better to provide the meaningful opportunities you deserve here at home. We're sorry we choose war when we could make peace.


    by kyle flynn on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 9:43pm

    Thanks for sharing your further thoughts, which I appreciate.  

    In all sincerity, I do not believe our "freedom," or "our way of life" or however it can be put, is defended by soldiers with guns.

    A neighbor has a car bumpersticker which reads "Home of the Free Because of the Brave."  For me that is absurd.  It is saying yes to hero worship+ and I definitely do not go there as a general matter for all who have served, or for our military institutions or practices.  It also suggests that if we did not have the military we currently have we would not be a free country in the senses that we are.  And I don't agree with that at all, either.  

    I don't go as far as you do in thinking a military unnecessary in the world we live in today.  I think we have overinvested in our military capacity relative to other relatively more important needs at this time, though.  In that sense, I believe we have weakened our society with that over-investment.  We spend about as much on our military as the rest of the world combined.  The Cold War has been over for two decades but we haven't downsized appropriately.  Remember all the hooha about a "peace dividend" in the wake of the end of the Cold War?

    In some cases fellow citizens are serving in significant part because opportunities which well-to-do families make available to their kids and don't think twice about are not available to them.  And that is wrong that young people should have to volunteer for potential combat duty in order to access such opportunities, I agree.  

    I see a major difference between hero worship versus the kind of simple gratitude that consists in saying thank you and treating our veterans right and with respect.  If we had no Veterans Day, but treated our veterans with respect and consistently did right by them, I'd think that an improvement.  Having the former doesn't seem to have led to the latter in some important respects.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 11:31pm

    100% with bslev. For KF to derogate the appreciation of veterans on Veteran's Day after 10 years of war and thousands of dead, and tens of thousands of wounded troops, seems off the scale bitter and self centered. If we want to get a handle on the MIPC (military industrial political complex) we can stop electing, or re-electing, the war starting, chest thumping, 'Bring 'Em On' War Presidents, and the other members of the 'strong on defense' short on brains GOP.


    by NCD on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 4:37pm

    "I am grateful for their service, including their willingness to put themselves in harm's way.

    "100% with bslev. For KF to derogate the appreciation of veterans on Veteran's Day after 10 years of war and thousands of dead, and tens of thousands of wounded troops, seems off the scale bitter and self centered. If we want to get a handle on the MIPC (military industrial political complex) we can stop electing, or re-electing, the war starting, chest thumping, 'Bring 'Em On' War Presidents, and the other members of the 'strong on defense' short on brains GOP." NCD

    Speaking only for myself, I would like to respond here in line with my main agreement with Kyle Flynn. You suggest that:

     "... we can stop electing, or re-electing, the war starting, chest thumping, 'Bring 'Em On' War Presidents, and the other members of the 'strong on defense' short on brains GOP."

     No we can't. At least I sure as hell can't. And, it aint just the GOP. It is most of the Grand ol' Democrats too.  It is  the weight of our whole country. It is manifested in our national myth.
     My first enthusiastic vote was for McGovern who did not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. My next and latest enthusiastic vote was for Obama, and my biggest reason, by far, was my belief that he had a brain, a heart, a conscience, and maybe even a soul, that would actually make a significant change in the way he, as our CiC, viewed the proper and legitimate use of his military power. I have been more than a little bit disappointed. Every vote I have cast in my lifetime has been either in Texas or Utah. Was there ever some chance to "give peace a chance" through my vote?  Thinking that the answer is "no" I choose to sometimes cast a vote as a jurist in the court of public opinion. That is what I am doing here and now.
      Does this mean I should withhold honoring soldiers? That is where my confliction comes in. I believe that most soldiers serve honorably according to our culturally agreed upon rules of war and a surprisingly high percentage act bravely, and when the situation presents itself even the most unlikely might act heroically. I believe this to be true in today's  all volunteer military, but no less true when the majority of the combat forces were made up of conscripts. I happen to also believe that most of the soldiers of our many alternating enemies also exhibit those qualities, but that is beside the point for now except to point out that it would surely rile the home-front to suggest picking a day to honor the Afghan resistance, for instance.
      So, I recognize that an American soldier, like most other Americans, will fight for god and country and also for Mom and that is all too cool. The thing I hate is that he has, in fact, almost always been fighting for apple pie and Chevrolet. Why would he do this? Why should we ask him to? Why should I encourage anyone else's kid to do that when they are still just that, an immature kid?
      Is there a war or conflict or police action or proxy war or any other shooting-killing actions fought overtly or covertly by America since WW Twice that you would ask your own child to risk his life in? Or, that you would ask him to go kill another person, or twenty or a hundred people in, even if he was in a reasonably safe position himself? Military actions in which you would ask him to take actions which would almost certainly kill many innocents in order to maybe get a few who were maybe a part of what might be our [very possibly legitimate] enemy?

     If there are any of those conflicts in which your answer is "no", and I would be surprised if there were many out of the many for which the answer would be "yes", are you then comfortable with me effectively encouraging him to get involved? Should I be part of the cultural myth-machine that tells him he will be a hero if he volunteers to be fodder for a corrupt killing machine that I tried to alter but was not able to alter with my vote? Should I tell him that, even though he killed those people in a war based on lies, that it was a great and honorable thing he did just because he was  brave and true to the close friends he had made in his small group and because he continued to follow orders like a good soldier always does? Constant hero warship, even if only lip-service to current soldiers, is part of preparing the next generation to not just accept, but to embrace and vote for more aggressive war mongering politicians and chicken-hawk pundits. It is enabling conduct for something that has been consistently wrong through history and probably because it feels "right".

    Our culture starts preparing people, mostly boys, for fighting wars, and everyone, loving mothers no less than anyone else, for supporting wars from the time they are infants. A national holiday to honor all soldiers as heroes is just one small part of that cultural push, but it makes that national holiday a legitimate day, IMO, for registering a public vote intended to affect, that is, alter, the greater public opinion. It often feels like, as a citizen, there is an obligation to vote your conscience even if it is known that the other side is predicted to win in a landslide.

    So while I don't want to be critical of the honorable service of you, your son, or anyone's kid, I don't want to be part of a hero-worship machine that makes it more likely that your grandson will become an enthusiastic killer, if not fodder, for the war machine that will likely still exist, if our country still does, when he turns eighteen.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 8:37pm

    "Should I tell him that, even though he killed those people in a war based on lies, that it was a great and honorable thing he did just because he was brave and true to the close friends he had made in his small group and because he continued to follow orders like a good soldier always does?"

    Amen to this. I understand the political reasons for finding ways to say good things to the troops, and for treating them well.

    But IF soldiers are adults, with reason and choice and the ability to read and think and observe the world and learn about the system they're in - which they have supposedly done, since they're busily defending it - then they're big enough to take the heat, as grown, rational, individuals, for fighting and killing in appalling and illegal slaughters overseas. 

    I see no way around this. No fine talk about "bands of brothers" or "service" or "nation" takes away their ability and their RESPONSIBILITY to learn the how's and why's of the fight they're entering.

    And yes, they fight because of poverty and needing a job, and because they're misled and misinformed, and because of family pressures or their lover enters the forces or racism or love of high-tech equipment or whatever. And it has always been so, Civil War, Revolutionary War, WW2 whatever. 

    But I do not accept that we can paint over military service - and the deep primary colours it creates, red and black in particular - with any sort of cover-all grey "thank you for your service." I did not want my own family member to fight in Afghanistan, both for own his well-being, and for the well-being of the people of Afghanistan. "Thank you for your service" is a phrase that does nothing more than avoid the reality of what did and is happening.

    And really, how can people be so glib as to talk about an illegal and immoral war such as that in Iraq, and ask - today, on this site - about how easy is was to "look away" during events such as Penn State, and in Germany, and then, same day, same web-site, walk right straight away from those holding the guns, flying the planes, setting the explosives, running the drones, that took out tens of thousands of children? 

    I'm not saying I can sort it all out.

    I AM saying that the easy phrases are just.... grey paint, useless for covering over the much deeper mistakes, sins, evils, which would be better dealt with upfront, with straight talk.


    by Q-thingie (not verified) on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:11am

    and if suddenly everyone in our military unvolunteered?  What would happen if there was no one in our military and other countries knew this?


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:18am

    With luck, some country or other would invade Indiana and eat everything carbon-based in the entire state.

    You may/may not be at risk.


    by Q-thingie (not verified) on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 1:43am

    You are so witty in the way you avoid addressing the issue at hand.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 2:09am

    I suspect we would become victims of those seeking World domination?

    Just as some of the other weaker countries have found when we've had a hand in overthrowing their governments.

    .........and to the Republic for which it stands ....with liberty and justice  FOR SOME  

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL35F522DB9E8B527E&feature=viewall


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 6:01am

    Better for us if your question was posed to our leaders.

    What would happen if there was no one in our military and other countries knew this?

    What happens to a Nations national defense effort, when the people realize

    the indoctrinating rote of  .......... ♫  and to the Republic for which it stands ...... with liberty and justice for ALL  ♫

    Is no more than jingoism to get you to lay down YOUR life; to protect the liberty and justice for SOME? 

    Would you defend and fight to the death; giving your blood as a sacrifice, if you knew you weren't a member of the sub-group SOME? You're just the sucker?

    "it is not yours to question why but it is yours to do or die"?

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL35F522DB9E8B527E&feature=viewall

    Ask our leaders what happens; if a nations people figure it out and they get angry and as an act of defiance, not only do they unvolunteer, they refuse to serve? 

    Liberty and Justice for ALL was betrayed from within. for the benefit of SOME 

     ♫  "What are we fighting for

    don't ask me I don't give a damn

    next stop is Vietnam   ♫

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xD8j8ye9k


    by Resistance on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 7:01am

    Lulu, you are right, Veteran's Day should not now, or ever, have been about hero worship.

    The election of George W. Bush marked a turning point in post WW2 US history.   I have pointed out numerous times, George W. Bush should stand trial for the supreme international crime of starting an aggressive war. The Iraq War was not 'business as usual' for the United States. It was not Vietnam.  In Vietnam a war had been going for about 10 years.  We entered after the French left.  We fought on the side of an existing government and existing army on the losing side of a civil war. I think we were wrong, but it wasn't like Iraq.

    Iraq was at peace. Those in the military who trusted their government not to use them in an illegal war were deceived, many were sent to their deaths.  Bush even sent part-time National Guard members to war. National Guard had not been used for combat since WW2. 

    Veteran's Day is an international holiday which started on Nov. 11, 1918 to commemorate the victims of WW1, and celebrate the peace and end to that deadly, destructive 'war to end all wars'. It isn't for the politicians or the Generals, it thanks the common citizens, those who chose to serve the nation in what they would expect to be just causes, vital to the nation, and as a last resort to confront real threats. That Iraq did not meet that standard is a fault of Bush and the recent GOP administration, those individuals and corporations who funded them, the Supreme Court, the media and most of all the electorate who helped to put them in power. Veterans pay the heaviest price when the nation's institutions fail, it is that risk they take that distinguishes their honorable service.


    by NCD on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 2:48pm

    Veterans pay the heaviest price when the nation's institutions fail, it is that risk they take that distinguishes their honorable service.

    That is one perspective

    Here's another

    When the early Christians, including the Apostles; refused military service to support the Roman rulers; it was they who were sacrificed in the arena. I think that is too heavy a price to pay, for a dedicated life to promote peace.  

    Then as now; War serves war profiteers.


    by Resistance on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 10:21pm

    Being the simple minded sort, I'd always thought Veteran's Day was to recognize that inside every military uniform was a human being, as well as a soldier.

    I had no idea it was so much more complicated.


    by wabby on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 7:30am

    It just goes to show, the devil; the original manslayer, is crafty.


    by Resistance on Sun, 11/13/2011 - 11:02am