The One Article You Must Read Today

From Peter Sagal of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” fame. It isn’t particularly funny:

The first soldier was in bed, surrounded by six members of his family, including  his fiance, who was slumped over asleep. His left foot was missing, and he was in obvious pain, and also obviously in a fog of painkilling drugs. I chatted with his family, and heard about his injury – an IED in Afghanistan. My memory of this first visit was foggy, because I was slowly realizing something that for the life of me I had not anticipated: the men I would be meeting were not in rehab, or in recovery. These were not the guys I had read about in magazine features, gamely learning to walk on prostheses or deal with TBI,, months after their injury. These were guys who had just been gravely hurt, weeks or in some cases days before. They were sitting with family members who – also just weeks or days before – had gotten a call from the Army or Marines saying, “Your son has been wounded in battle,” and had with hearts pounding and tears streaming thrown things into a bag and gotten on a plane for Germany or Washington. These wounds were fresh and raw, in every sense.

I will not, or can’t give you details of every visit I made that morning, even a day after. I sat by bedsides and, as [Garry] Trudeau advised, asked them what happened, and heard their stories. As I listened, I tried to focus, and control my own feelings of horror and dismay, and my growing urge to walk out of the room and tell the Sergeant, patiently waiting outside, that I could take no more and needed to leave now. (The sergeant told me later that this does happen.)

But these are the things I remember most vividly….

Seriously. You must read this article. The men and women we send to war for us should not be forgotten. Especially as the war is still being fought.

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22 Responses to The One Article You Must Read Today

  1. 1
    anon says:

    The notion that soldiers did anything “for us” in the last few wars is completely untrue. What they did, they did to others, in our name — and many of us wish they had just stayed home instead.

    If they were wounded, or killed, that’s a shame because they’re human. But no more of a shame than the millions of American car accident victims that nobody talks about. Of course, most car accident victims have not invaded other countries, so nobody gives a shit about them.

    If you want to say that it’s a shame because the soldiers only agreed to go to war to be able to afford college, then of course I agree. But it’s even more of a shame for the Iraqis and Afghans, who did not agree at all.

    Fuck war. And fuck the people who glorify war.

  2. 2
    Jeff Fecke says:

    @anon –

    Did the soldiers make the decision to go to war? Did they make the choice to invade? No, they did not. They went where their civilian commanders, selected by the people of the United States, told them to.

    If you want to say that soldiers do not deserve more sympathy than soldiers from the other side, or civilians of any stripe, I can understand that argument. But to argue that because they’re soldiers, they aren’t particularly deserving of sympathy, and certainly not more than others — sorry, no.

    I do not glorify war. War is a terrible thing. There are times when it’s a terrible, necessary thing (though these are decidedly in the minority), and times when it is a terrible, destructive waste, but it is always terrible. But because there are times when war is a terrible, necessary thing, we as a society need people willing to fight and die for their country.

    These soldiers signed up to fight for their country. Whether it was necessary for them to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is irrelevant to my respect for them — those choices are not made by soldiers. They’re made by the voters, ultimately. The soldiers just went where our elected representatives told them to go, and fought where they were told to fight. Their suffering may not be worse than anyone else’s, but it is important we note it because their suffering is our responsibility — we sent them there. They fought for us, on our say-so. If you wish to mourn those others who have died as a result, please do so. But don’t run down the men and women whose greatest sin was choosing to fight for a country that would take that sacrifice and waste it.

  3. 3
    Grace Annam says:

    anon:

    The notion that soldiers did anything “for us” in the last few wars is completely untrue.

    You may fairly dispute that the use to which they were put was worthwhile or not. But make no mistake: many of them stepped up to be shot at, to put themselves between us and people who would hurt us, out of idealistic motives. Whether or not they succeeded, they tried to protect their fellow countrypeople, and many of them did it quite literally “for us”: on our behalf.

    Fuck war. And fuck the people who glorify war.

    You can abhor war and honor self-sacrifice in public service at the same time.

    As a society, after Vietnam we learned not to spit upon returning soldiers. And I’m glad we did.

    Grace

  4. 4
    RonF says:

    Jeff, Grace – thank you. Well said.

  5. 5
    mythago says:

    “Millions” of Americans die in car accidents a year? More like tens of thousands – which is still far too many, but should tell you about how much anon cares about things like facts.

    If a war is wrong, it’s not wrong because our soldiers were there for us; it’s wrong because we sent them there. It doesn’t glorify war to honor their sacrifice.

  6. 6
    Mandolin says:

    I wish that we weren’t putting these young people at this kind of risk. :(

  7. 7
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    As a country, we ask people to do dangerous jobs–from logging to soldiering, from policing to high wire work. in different ways, these are important; in different ways, all are needed in modern society.

    But of the jobs we ask people to do, the ones that carry an EXPECTATION that you will encounter people that are trying to kill or injure you, are soldiering and, to a somewhat lesser extent, police work.

    Most people run away from gunfire. We’ve asked some people to run towards it, as a means of maintaining our societal order. Honoring their willingness to sacrifice and bear risk for our country is appropriate, and isn’t glorifying the resulting deaths.

    I’m not a fan of the government’s handling of various overseas conflicts. I remain an admirer and supporter of every servicemember, nonetheless.

  8. 8
    Grace Annam says:

    Mythago:

    “Millions” of Americans die in car accidents a year? More like tens of thousands – which is still far too many, but should tell you about how much anon cares about things like facts.

    Mythago, in fairness to anon, anon declared a simple number, not a rate, and implicitly included both those killed and injured. Back-of-the-envelope calculation: if we just consider deaths, and conservatively that about 35,000 people die each year in car crashes (which is more or less right in recent years, though it’s been higher), then it would take around 30 years to hit 1 million deaths. For injured, of course, we’d get to 1 million a lot faster.

    Grace

  9. 9
    Grace Annam says:

    gin-and-whiskey:

    But of the jobs we ask people to do, the ones that carry an EXPECTATION that you will encounter people that are trying to kill or injure you, are soldiering and, to a somewhat lesser extent, police work.

    Yes, they are unique in that regard, though different in the distribution of risk. In the American military, if you are not in combat or near it, your actual risk is probably not dramatically greater than a civilian’s.* In law enforcement, assignments vary in risk, but there is a constant low-grade awareness that, at all times, you are a walking target and can be sniped. So the nature of the stress is different.

    Note that male and female soldiers differ, in this. Female soldiers may not be aware of this going in, but they have a high risk, during their service, of being raped by someone else in the service. So their risk/stress computation is arguably more similar to law enforcement’s.

    All of which is not to take away from the main point: as a society, we must ask someone to perform these duties, and some people volunteer to do them, and some of them suffer all out of proportion for having stepped up to do them, and history shows that quite often our society is reluctant to pay the bill for that, or even directly face the consequences of the deplorable necessity of those duties.

    Grace

    *edited to add: except for military police, for which, see the next sentence.

  10. 10
    RonF says:

    Note that male and female soldiers differ, in this. Female soldiers may not be aware of this going in, but they have a high risk, during their service, of being raped by someone else in the service.

    Perhaps you could put up a citation for this. I’m not denying that there’s a risk of rape in the military, and I can imagine that such risk may be higher than in civilian life. But “high risk” is a subjective term. I imagine statistics comparing the risk of rape in civilian life and in military life must have been gathered.

    With regards to civilian jobs and risk of injury/death, I’d also include firemen as a special case. While they don’t stand at as much risk to be injured by people directly they certainly carry a much higher risk of being severely injured or killed while on duty and – similar to both the military and police – they are expected to deliberately and knowingly expose themselves to this risk for the benefit of society at large.

  11. 12
    RonF says:

    I am of the generation that was raised by WW II veterans. It seemed as though most men in that generation were veterans, and when I paged through a photo album the pictures of just about every one of my uncles and grandfathers and other male relatives included at least one picture of them in uniform. Often there would be several pictures of them with a bunch of the guys they were in the service with, horsing around. Sometimes there’d be a comment about one of those guys not making it back. There was no question, then, of dishonoring veterans. It was pretty much impossible to say something like that to anyone without insulting either them or their brother or cousin or uncle or father. And when most of my older male relatives died it was unusual if there was NOT a flag draped over the casket.

    Being a Boy Scout had it’s influence, too. I marched in the Memorial Day parade, the Veteran’s Day parade, the July 4th parade. The first two usually included at least one stop at a cemetary (often more, Catholic, Protestant at least and maybe Jewish), with a reading of Flanders Field and volleys of shots. Our campouts brought back memories to the leaders of being out on bivouac, if not out in combat – they’d sit up at night and tell each other and the older Scouts stories. Often our equipment (especially the tents) was at least in part military surplus. I’ve spent plenty of nights sleeping in a tent made up of a couple of U.S. Army shelter halves that my buddy and I buttoned together and then cut a couple of poles for. Even had C rations on campouts a few times, with our Scoutmaster circulating around taking away the cigarettes packed in them before the older Scouts could smoke them.

    So my generation tends to be pretty sensitive when we see and hear members of the military degraded for having served or actually serving. General Sherman said “War is hell” and I have never been sure if he was being descriptive or prescriptive (as in, if it’s not hell, you’re not doing it right). War should not be glorified. It is, however, at times necessary. Famously, it takes two to make peace but only one to make war. People who deny that are not in touch with reality. We need soldiers and sailors and Marines, and people who dishonor them for their service are ignorant and contemptible.

  12. 13
    RonF says:

    Thanks, Mythago.

  13. 14
    mythago says:

    Additionally, while this article focuses on the abuse of civilian contractors at US military bases abroad, there’s an incident in 2008 where two of the female contract workers the journalist had been following told her one of them had been raped.

    The next day, I dialled the U.S. Army’s emergency sexual-assault hot line, printed on a pamphlet distributed across the base that read, “Stand Up Against Sexual Assault . . . Make a Difference.” Nobody answered. Despite several calls over several days, the number simply rang and rang. (A U.S. Central Command spokesman, when later reached for comment, noted, “We do track and investigate any report of criminal activity that occurs on our military bases.”)

  14. 15
    james says:

    The notion that soldiers did anything “for us” in the last few wars is completely untrue. What they did, they did to others, in our name — and many of us wish they had just stayed home instead.

    Did the soldiers make the decision to go to war? Did they make the choice to invade? No, they did not.

    I’m not sure. I’m sure some people signed up and were blindsided by 9/11 and found themselves at war. But we’ve been at war for the last 11 years now; so that excuse is wearing a bit thin. Pretty much everyone in the armed forces either signed up or refused a chance to leave knowing exactly what they’d be doing.

    It’s a bit dubious to make parallels with conscripts or people who sign up in peacetime and unexpectedly find themselves at war; these soldiers knew a particular war was happening and actively volunteered.

  15. 16
    Grace Annam says:

    RonF:

    With regards to civilian jobs and risk of injury/death, I’d also include firemen as a special case. While they don’t stand at as much risk to be injured by people directly they certainly carry a much higher risk of being severely injured or killed while on duty and – similar to both the military and police – they are expected to deliberately and knowingly expose themselves to this risk for the benefit of society at large.

    I love firefighters (and not just the firemen, RonF). When I see them run a fire hose through the windows of a car which parked next to a hydrant, I always enjoy a giggle. And according to most stats I’ve seen, their job is more dangerous than police work.

    However, gin-and-whiskey specified jobs where people actively try to kill you. That’s pretty much soldiery and policework.

    The following Venn diagram might help in thinking about this:
    circle 1 = “Responds Bodily to Emergencies which Threaten Others’ Lives”
    circle 2 = “Higher Mortality Rate”
    circle 3 = “People Seek to Kill You”

    There are plenty of jobs in Circle 2, including many riskier than soldiering and firefighting: commercial fishing and construction well off the ground, to name two.

    There are jobs in circles 2 and 3, but not 1: abortion providers, very high level political leaders (presidents, popes, etc).

    There are jobs in circles 1 and 2, but not 3: firefighting.

    There are jobs in circle 1, but not 2 and 3: emergency medicine.

    Hm… I can’t think of any jobs in circles 1 and 3, but not 2. Circle 3 might be inside Circle 2, unless the only people trying to kill you are literally ineffectual, in which case, why worry?

    Anyway, not putting a value judgement on any of these. Just pointing out that, for some purposes, they are meaningfully different.

    Grace

  16. 17
    Elusis says:

    However, gin-and-whiskey specified jobs where people actively try to kill you. That’s pretty much soldiery and policework.

    It’s late. I read this as “soldiery and paperwork.”

    (Given that I have been embroiled in a Kafka-esque nightmare of bureaucratic fuck-uppery for the past 3 days since some kid decided to steal my car and crash it into a bunch of other cars and a building, which has been made both exponentially worse and marginally better by paper-pusher types, I was ready to believe it.)

  17. 18
    mythago says:

    “And a building”? Yikes!

  18. 19
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I’ll try to explain why I distinguished between soldiers and firefighters. First, though: I have immense respect for firefighters, and am related to one. There’s no difference in “quality of individuals,” for sure.

    The biggest difference is that firefighting allows you to withdraw when/if you have reached your personal risk tolerance, or when circumstances change. If you don’t want to go into a particular burning building, you don’t have to do so. And if you want to stop entirely, you can.

    If you fight a fire and decide “fuck this shit” then you can resign that afternoon. If you’re in an outpost in Kabul and decide “fuck this shit” things are not quite so easy.

    The second one is that fire is sort of a natural thing. It kills you, but it isn’t TRYING to kill you. It just is. It seems worse to me–and perhaps this is wrong–when you’re dealing with smart individuals who are trying their darndest to figure out ways to kill or injure you.

  19. 20
    Elusis says:

    Mythago – two buildings, apparently. Or rather houses. I am disappoint that there hasn’t been anything in the paper so at least I’d have a conversation piece.

  20. 21
    Frowner says:

    I read this post and the article a few days ago, thought about commenting and didn’t – I really dislike the “everyone should respect the troops even as they get screwed over serving in imperial wars to “protect” the American wealthy” trope, but I don’t have the heart for that particular fight. (I’ve got lots of military in my extended family, if that helps any, and have a few (legal) bits and pieces that were brought back as an unsolicited gift from someone’s service in Iraq – the kind of spoils the working class gets, old worthless money and a few souvenirs.)

    Then I happened across these suicide statistics for vets, along with a note that while vets represent 1% of the population they account for 20% of the suicides.

    This cemented my belief that “respect/disrespect” is the wrong paradigm for thinking about the military. The military fucks people over. It takes in vulnerable people, desperate people, poor people and people who want to do something meaningful but see no other source of meaningful work available to them, then it cheats them out of everything it promises, pushes them to do terrible things and turns them loose with few resources. The military is the moral equivalent of a sweatshop, except with additional externalized killing.

    No one would set up a moral litmus test about whether I respect someone who is toiling away in the maquila zone, because that’s the wrong question to ask. I don’t know those folks in the maquila zone – some are probably awesome, some are probably terrible. My “respect” for strangers who produce products for me under conditions of extreme violence and exploitation is meaningless. What I do want is an end to the fucking maquilas.

    And what I want is an end to the army. If things must be produced, factories have to be decent places. If we must have armed forces, we need to find a way not to exploit and destroy people to get there, and part of that is getting rid of these clandestine imperial wars fought by the poor and optionless.

  21. 22
    Robert says:

    Factual correction. Vets are indeed about 20% of the suicides. but they are not 1% of the population. There are about 25 million veterans in the US, approximately 8%. Veterans commit suicide at a rate two to three times higher than the general population.