This may make life easy, for I may be a leper after expressing it: If I hear “support the troops” one more time, my head may implode. One more pandering politician or patronizing hack may take me over the edge. If you don’t know what you are talking about, sit down. I apologize up front to all the service members who deserve our sincere gratitude. But the phrase “support the troops” as used by the Bush administration and on and on was immediately so hollow, obtuse, and meaningless that I am at a loss to express how angry I became and remain because I deeply hold the belief that its use was a violation of the law of the land. It is unlawful to use psychological operations against our own citizens. And while the phrase was used to tamp down any objection to pursuing an unwise military adventure, I and a whole lot of “great Americans” were off fulfilling the direction of our Commander in Chief by planning a series of other unwinnable wars. Meanwhile the buffoons in Washington giving guidance deflected any criticism by using a lesson from the Viet Nam War that highlighted the need to engage the public if you want support for the war. That was part of the syllabus at every military staff and war college during the eighties and nineties. And engage the public those miscreants did. They sucked us in unawares. So, Speaker Pelosi isn’t the only frog in a pot of water slowly brought to a boil.
I was not in Iraq for that adventure. I was in Japan with my then non-citizen wife and our high school aged son. I would come home from work and she would be watching the news featuring stories of the young men and women killed and injured or just off in a place they should not have been. She cried at every death and mangling. She was angry that they and their families suffered for no good reason and could not understand why a great nation had done this. I can’t tell you how many times she took out her frustration on me. That was supporting the troops; only not this troop. I know it was partially because she looked across the room at her son and saw those youngsters in him. She didn’t know then how frustrated and angry I was every day and in every meeting I attended where the leadership simply brushed away the concerns of the planners. I was not silent, I just wasn’t heard by the careerists. And I could not tell my wife much of it.
Just the other day, I attended a Republican function where the father of a fallen service member was paraded before the assembly. I cannot imagine the loss he has experienced. I never want to know that. Nothing can make up for that loss. And if I do experience it, I would want to something to fill the void. George Lutz has found something (Update: more of this story). His son was killed December 29, 2005. George has begun an effort to have a new flag he designed presented to the families of fallen service members. It is a beautiful design. It is called the Honor and Remember flag.
But here is my objection. Kenny Golden, Chairman of the Virginia Beach Republican Committee expressed it this way: “He (George Lutz) realized that families don’t get anything except the American flag and sometimes that goes to the wife. It’s just not the kind of thing we ought to do in our country…” George has proposed that this flag be presented to every family of every fallen service member. Councilman Bill DeSteph led the passage of a Virginia Beach City Council resolution to have the flag adopted. It passed the city council unanimously. Representative Forbes (R-VA4th) has introduced HB 1034 to have it adopted as an official symbol to recognize the members of the armed forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice. So this will replace Old Glory as the symbol of the sacrifices made. The American flag is no longer a sufficient American symbol. This new flag “will serve as the symbol of national gratitude for all those members of the armed services who have given their lives for our freedom; will serve as a daily reminder for all Americans who acknowledge the ultimate price of freedom and will give comfort to the families who have lost loved ones during military service…” Sorry Bill, sorry Randy, that is the function of the red, white, and blue. Or has all that use wrapping it around yourselves to shield from criticism of bankrupt policy worn Old Glory threadbare? I can tell you this, never mind me: if that day comes, don’t bring my son’s mother, now a citizen, some contrived symbol.
And then today I hear a candidate for governor of Virginia pandering to the military vote by proposing that Virginia, you know, you and I, take up the slack for the failure of the federal government to capitalize and fund its obligations to service members. Wrong. Wrong on so many levels. Worst is the proposal to cap off military pay. It draws immediate attention. We, Virginia, are going to make up for the difference in pay between the reservist or National Guard members’ active duty pay and what they were making when called to active duty? I have no measure of how many service members this represents, but I can tell you that intuitively that broad proposal includes as many people who don’t need it as those it will benefit; maybe more. And it is a small number. Grand, showy proposal; small outcome. Go ahead campaign, count the ones affected today. Don’t parade a bunch of figures from the past and don’t assume a burden that is rightfully federal when we can’t even pay for our state’s schools.
Enough of that. I want a governor who will figure out who is responsible for these obligations and pin the tail on that donkey. I want a process that allows veterans and survivors to navigate the rocks and shoals of the Veterans Administration to glean every benefit that they rate and not have that burden shifted to Virginia. Virginia did not create this awful mess at the federal level and we should not be left holding the bag. We certainly don’t need a governor who fails to fight for veterans and volunteers to assume the risk and obligations of illegitimate foreign adventures.
Tell us: Where does this end? What I wouldn’t want is that the sacrifices being made become cheapened by adopting every proposal that comes along because we must “support the troops.” Support the troops by ensuring their sacrifices go toward enhancing national security, the thing they raised their hand for, and by ensuring that they receive what they rate in recompense for their individual sacrifices from a grateful nation. If we really supported the troops, we would have risen up and stopped the neocons from directing us to Bagdad. If we really supported the troops, we would never have allowed torture (forget that side of the argument?). If there is no sacrifice, there is no honor. If we relieve every sacrifice, we diminish the honor to nothing.
Cross posted at Blue Commonwealth
