A bit late perhaps -- but a salute to Veteran's Day

I thank the soldiers, though, regardless of the justice of the wars they've been asked to fight - because they were willing to put their lives on the line for something larger than saving their own ass. It's everyone's job to keep the leaders honest, not just the grunts.

When soldiers are ordered to war, they are never ordered to commit genocide, or to "go kill every single person on that mountain top." The job of the military is "hold this line" or "take that hill" or "secure the village." Troops get rifles and tanks because these are frequently the tools they need most desperately to do their job.

If a person, not in uniform, was beset by attackers while trying to travel from one place to another and repelled the assault using a weapon, we would not say their job was simply to kill. They were defending themselves. If they had been killed, it would be seen as a travesty of justice, because they were not in uniform.

Which brings me to my point. What IS in the oath of enlistment is a solemn promise to die, if it becomes necessary. And that is what the uniform means. Rifle or no rifle, the uniform means you are a target. We enter into the contract to become targets, to die so that others may travel unmolested. The primary duty of all military personnel is to be killed - we don't celebrate days for all the people we blew up or the countries we laid waste to, we observe days for those who died and those who offered their lives and were lucky enough not to have to follow through.

Killing is secondary, a means to an end, a recognition that simple math still matters and the other side signed up for the same task you did. The soldier is no different from a fireman or a policeman, but with a different, more savage and terrible milieu, that's why they must often kill so readily and be equipped with such gruesome machinery to do so. Ultimately however the promise made when donning those ridiculous pajamas and uncomfortable shoes has nothing to do with blowing up other people, it has to do with taking a bullet for somebody you'll never meet and will never know your name, because of some abstract principle your chain of command may never grasp.

Anyway. I only got the killing people training for about 3 hours total, and most of that was safety lessons for us automatic weapons newbies. So maybe I'm biased. Everybody should read Jarhead and Catch-22.

Rhode Island still celebrates Victory Over Japan day, though now it's just called Victory day. Fucking awful.

Anything but.

also, was it ever called Armistice Day here in the U.S.?

Wow, three years after the war even. That's some dedication.

served on two cruisers before that. after he left, they eventually were sunk.

It might seem, odd, therefore, that I am anti-war, indeed, a pacifist. But in a way this makes a lot of sense - the servicemen I know have a lot of cynicism about war, and growing up on military bases is vaguely unpleasant, so perhaps I have an automatic dislike for guns as I associate them with my childhood. War was also something that took parents away on duty, and friends away when their families got posted. I guess I don't understand how my pacifism relates to my service background but there it is. One thing I like about the services was spending 3-4 years of my childhood in Berlin, before the fall of the wall. I have been to a communist nation, and seen soviet tanks (we were stationed at the wall, and there were always soviet tanks on the other side. No-one was scared though, because no-one in the forces thought the Russians had any desire to invade, and it was speculated that had they done so they could have taken the base before anyone was able to raise the alarm, which seems to have been the bases primary function). So yeah, you get to see a lot of different places, but moving school every 3 years sucks really badly.

Anyway, sorry for this ramble, it's after four in the morning and I'm bored.

I was lucky in that we kept coming back to Coronado, so I had some continuity -- and for the final years of my dad's service, my sister went all seven years through the same middle school and high school setup, so that was good. :-)

However, I observe that a lot of killing seems to happen in wars anyway and whether you're at the tip of spear or well back on the handle, your purpose is to make the spear thrust effective. Effectiveness usually entails a lot of killing. The other side rarely lays down its weapons without some encouragement of this nature.

Now, if only there was a commensurate national observance for the innocent victims of all wars, including those who are currently dying as a result of our government's policies. Would it be utterly meaningless to declare a national Peace Day?

Dubya's probably going to get right to work on this one.

And here I was thinking that was a great post.