Wake Up Soldiers
Susanne has 12 years of service in the military to back up her critiques and I recognize my limitations as a lifelong civilian, but as a student of history I wonder hasn't the military always been unconcerned with their soldiers welfare. By this I mean the soldiers are just viewed as pawns to be sacrificied for the higher cause (whatever that may be defined as being) and officers who think about soldiers before orders (in other word show undue loyalty to their men) are reviled by the military system (think about the wars of the 20th century). Check out this earlier post on an essay from Chris Hedges:
Physical courage is common on a battlefield. Moral courage is not. Those who defy the machine usually become its victim. And Lieutenant Fick, who we find in the epilogue has left the Marines to go back to school, wonders if he was a good officer or if his concern for his men colored his judgment. Those who make war betray those who fight it. This is something most enlisted combat veterans soon understand. They have little love for officers, tolerating the good ones and hoping the bad ones are replaced or injured before they get them killed. Those on the bottom rung of the military pay the price for their commanders' vanity, ego, and thirst for recognition. These motives are hardly exclusive to the neocons and the ambitious generals in the Bush administration. They are a staple of war. Homer wrote about all of them in The Iliad as did Norman Mailer in The Naked and the Dead. Stupidity and callousness cause senseless death and wanton destruction. That being a good human being—that possessing not only physical courage but moral courage—is detrimental in a commander says much about the industrial slaughter that is war.
Entire Post on "Chris Hedges: On Current Books About the Iraq War"
Thanks Susanne!
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