How to meaningfully thank a veteran or GI

Farenell Photography, run by a Marine veteran, has an excellent blog entry entitled 'How to Thank a Serviceman.' It offers a number of ideas about how to show meaningful thanks to a veteran or active duty service member... and this is important, as well as to their families. It's often forgotten that while only the active duty member may serve, his or her whole family shares in the sacrifices. He offers a number of great concrete suggestions: check it out here.

When you sleep with snakes, they will bite you

Earlier this summer, I said that Egyptian liberals were nuts to align themselves with the corrupt, brutal military whose only concern was re-seizing political and economic dominance of the country. A few weeks later, the country’s leading liberal, Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, was been arrested by the junta for the ‘crime’ of having protested the insecurity forces’ massacre of protesters. Shortly thereafter, the country's long-time dictator, convicted following the 2011 revolution, was released from prison. The intent of the coup against President Mohammed Morsi was always to reverse the revolution. The military is well on its way to doing just that.

Update: the coup leaders have now charged President Morsi with allegedly inciting deadly violence. The mass murderers are passing judgment on someone for murder. The snakes strike again.

How to really thank a GI

Rather than (or if you prefer, in addition to) merely intoning some cutesy catchphrase, Farenell Photography blog has some good suggestions on how you can show appreciation to a member of the military in a substantive way.

On the nature of service to others

NCPR's Brian Mann wrote an interesting essay on Why Memorial Day Matters.

I could go on about how activities like Memorial Day are exploited to chill dissent and stifle real debate on when soldiers should be forced to risk their lives. But that's for another time. Memorial Day is a holiday that has become important to me. I am not entirely sure why but I think it's related to the notion of service to something greater than oneself. I also think it's related to my horror at the actual effects of war.

Yet, I think one of paradoxical effects of the us constantly honoring our soldiers is that it (inadvertently, I hope but am not sure) leaves the impression that the only way you can render service to your country is to join an institution whose primary means of problem-solving is violence.

The use of force for true self-defense is legitimate. And I believe it is right to honor the sacrifices ordinary soldiers made, since the controversial stuff is nearly always done by the politicians.

One thing for which I am grateful to my father (an Air Force veteran) is the way in which he stressed to me the importance of service to others. He did not view service as something strictly limited to joining the military, something he never once encouraged or discouraged me from doing. He once expressed envy at my choice to serve in West Africa in the Peace Corps. He had a very broad view of service and I am thankful he shared that.

As such, I wished we lived in a society that place more value on serving your country and community in ways that build and help other Americans. We honor soldiers constantly. But do we honor teachers? Do we honor firefighters, who also risk their lives? Do we honor the truly heroic work of humanitarian aid workers? Do we honor volunteers who read to the sick or feed the homeless or visit the elderly, tasks perhaps more modest but an integral part of our greater humanity? Why don't we do more to honor that service which gives aid and comfort to human beings in our communities? Is it possible to wish we valued other forms of service without devaluing the very real service of soldiers? Is service to humanity really any less important than service to America? If not, why do we treat it as such?

The purpose of the military

So with the president promising in his State of the Union to end the Don't Ask Don't Tell fraud, the policy is not back in the headlines.

I hate to be blunt but this needs to be said.

The sole purpose of the military is (in theory at least) to defend national security.

Not social engineering. Not religiosity. Not about making people feel comfortable or accepted.

The military is being asked to do a lot of things supposedly to do with national security. If those things are as important as claimed, the military can not arbitrarily exclude able and capable people and still pursue that very complicated task. It does not need gay people. It does not need blacks. It does not need women. It needs human beings who can do a needed job and do it well. The rest doesn't matter.

The military does not exclude blacks and Hispanics and Asian-Americans just because their presence might make bigoted soldiers "uncomfortable."

It does not exclude women because it makes sexist soldiers "uncomfortable."

And it should not exclude gays because it might make homophobic soldiers "uncomfortable."

It may not be politically correct but it's the truth: all soldiers need to get over their personal preferences and biases and realize they are there to serve the greater good. Let's be serious. If a GI cried that he didn't want to go to Iraq because hot weather made him "uncomfortable," do you think the Army would cater to his whining?

If the bigots or anyone else want to let their personal biases preclude them from dealing with people they deem inferior, they should not join the military. Soldiering is a profession where dealing with people different than yourself and taking orders from them is an absolute requirement of the job. You know this going in. If you're too weak to handle it, find another job.

Update: Joint chiefs' chairman Adm. Mike Mullen explained to a Senate committee why he supports Don't Ask Don't Tell's repeal.

Real Heroes don't rape

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I heard a disturbing interview on the BBC with the author of the book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq about epidemic of sexual assault against female soldiers in the US armed forces.

The author cited the Pentagon's own statistics: 30 percent of ALL female soldiers in the American military (not just those in Iraq) have been raped by male soldiers supposedly on their own side.

An astonishingly high percentage like this suggests not the deviancy of a few individuals but an institutional culture that, at bests, enables widespread sexual assault both by and against those venerated as Our Heroes.

In the interview, the author told the story of a woman she interviewed. The soldier explained how she was stalked and then raped by a colleague. She said that when she went to the authorities to report the incident, she was strongly discouraged from doing so and warned that she would be "court martialed for leaving her weapon unattended in a war zone."

If these women truly are Fighting For Our Freedoms So We Don't Have To, then isn't dealing with snipers and IUDs enough to ask of them? Should they also have to worry that their own "comrades" might brutally rape them? Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but when they signed up to be in harm's way, wasn't the understanding that the harm might come from the Enemy, not from their colleagues?