Bracing LATimes op-ed: I was an obsequious Army grunt. But no longer
Cross posted from GD.
https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e
I was an obsequious Army grunt. But no longer
Im one of the lucky ones. Leaving the madness of U.S. Army life with a modest pension and all of my limbs intact feels like a genuine escape. Both the Army and I knew it was time for me to go. Id tired of carrying water for empire and theyd grown weary of dealing with my dissent and with footing the bill for my PTSD treatment. I entered West Point in July 2001, a bygone era of relative peace, the moment, you might say, before the 9/11 storm broke. I leave an Army that remains, remarkably, engaged in global war, patrolling an increasingly militarized world.
>snip<
I recognize that theres a paradox at work here: The Army and the global war on terror made me who I am. Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in particular turned a budding neocon into an unabashed progressive, an insecure aspiring dealer in violence into a pacifist, or as near to that as a former military man can get. What the Army helped me become is someone whom, in the end, I dont mind gazing at in the mirror each morning.
>snip<
I am not sorry to leave behind the absurdity I witnessed. .... Farewell to the generals who knew tactics but couldnt for the life of them think strategically ....Who shamelessly traded in their multi-starred uniforms for six- and seven-figure gigs on the boards of corporations that feed the unquenchable appetite of the military-industrial beast. ...... So long, too, to the chauvinism in the senior ranks that asserts a messianic American right to police the globe. Farewell to the faux intellectualism of men like former Gen. David Petraeus who have never seen a problem for which improved counterinsurgency tactics wasn't the answer and are incapable of questioning the efficacy of force....
Goodbye to the devotees of American exceptionalism who filled the Armys ranks, and to the hypercapitalism and Ayn Randian conservatism among officers in what is the nations most socialist institution. Godspeed to the often-hypocritical evangelical Christianity and the rampant Islamophobia infusing the ranks. Ciao to the still-prevalent patriarchy and homophobia that affects everyone in uniform.
>snip<
Sayonara to the adrenaline junkies and power-obsessed freaks atop so many combat units, folks who lived for the violence, the rush of nighttime raids without a thought for their often counterproductive and bloody consequences. Its a relief to leave them behind as they continue to feed the insurgencies the U.S. battles far faster than they kill terrorists.
Toodle-oo to the vacuous thanks-for-your-service compliments from civilians who otherwise ignore soldiers issues, foreign policy and our forever wars.
Maybe its hopeless for a former Army major to fight American militarism. .....And heres the truth of it: Im not alone in my views; as supportive texts and emails to me have made clear, there are more silent dissenters in the ranks than you might imagine. I hope more serving officers and troops gather the courage to speak their minds and tell Americans the score about our brutal, hopeless adventurism. ..... Goodbye to all that, and hello to whats next.
Danny Sjursen retired from the Army in February, after tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan, and teaching history at West Point. He is the author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Twitter: @SkepticalVet. Podcast: Fortress on a Hill. A longer version of this essay appears at TomDispatch.
democrank
(11,096 posts)sarabelle
(453 posts)This would be a great special for CNN or MSNBC.
MyOwnPeace
(16,928 posts)from one who has "been there" - as opposed to the "leadership" of General Bone-Spurs!
Aristus
(66,388 posts)is the staggeringly provincial small-mindedness.
I knew a lot of backwoods rednecks whose assignment to Germany was probably the only time they'll ever spend in a foreign country. For so many of them, their reaction was not to enjoy this beautiful and fascinating country, but to complain that it wasn't more like their squalid piece of American turf.
trev
(1,480 posts)I was one of them.
When I returned to the States in 2006 after my Army career in Germany, I left behind dozens of members of my unit who vowed never to return. They married foreign nationals, bought houses in Europe, and took jobs with foreign businesses. Many of them were disenchanted by G W Bush, and were seeking a better life outside the country. The Iraq War was instrumental in changing a lot of soldiers' minds.