Where Are the Brave Military Voices Against the Forever War?

After being stateside for a while, there were rumors that our unit would be deploying to Afghanistan. A Lt. Colonel came and gave a presentation to the company about conditions there. During the Q.A., I stood up and asked, "Sir, what are we really doing there? For the life of me, I can't understand the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan. They're not even the ones who attacked us on 9/11."

To put it mildly, that did not go well. I exited the Corps after my first enlistment and I'm a bitter old veteran now.

The point I want to make here is that the voice of integrity in the military are in the lowest ranks, and they leave as soon as they can, as the situation is intolerable for them. You don't rise in the ranks as a career officer or NCO if you don't believe in the mission.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colby_Buzzell

I enlisted in the USMC in 2005. 0311. Felt like I had been ready since I was 11 or 12.

I went to Boot Camp, and then SOI. First taste of reality is bitter. My entire generation of Marines were called the 'X-Box' generation for our complacency and lack of earnest effort. Our ranks had swelled up to ~215K in the Marine Corps, and with it, a lower of the bar to join. That's just the way it was. Kids were already getting kicked out - hardship, drugs, etc. Still didn't mind - it felt like everyone was on the same page. We were crusaders to be, and our religion was America and deliverance was provided in the form of 5.56mm. Felt good, the narrative. Felt right.

And then I joined the fleet, and that's when I realized I was a fucking idiot. This whole time, I had believed in something grand, some kind of romanticized view of war and life and how boys - no, men like me - could make a huge impact and different in the world against a nefarious enemy that struck out at all that was good. And you know how many people shared that view? Maybe 5, 10%. We were intelligent, idealistic, and had some 'reason' to be there. That is not the case for the vast, vast majority of people who enlist. It usually takes some life experience for you to join up, hit the fleet, and not be bewildered by it, and that was something virtually all of us, with the precious few best of us, lacked.

When we got in country, the shock was amplified. The aimlessness/worthlessness of my generation was reflected in both wars. I was in Iraq twice, and both times, it seemed like our only job was to just maintain the security of Ramadi, and then Al Asad. That was it. Occasionally hunt bad guys, get blown up all the time, be bullet/bomb shields by proxy for a populace that wasn't 100% sure what it wanted.

What exactly was the mission to stop foreign fighters from flooding into the country? Beats me. What exactly were we going to do to uproot and prop up a culture that is has no real concent of loving thy neighbor and working together to achieve some state of sovereignty? Beats me. How do we turn this society into a capital G Great society? How were riflemen supposed to achieve that? Would it even meet the objectives of the mission? Nah we thought, we should just keep handing out generators, heavy equipment, and speedballs (not the drug) to the populace. We were just enlisted men on the bottom, evoking smiles when we did good and hate when we accidentally kill some guy's brother because he ignored the red flag not to go down this road towards our base.

Nothing changed, day in, day out.

I knew quite a few devil dogs who were in OEF, Kandahar and Helmund, before + after Marjah offensive. The feeling was the same. What exactly, are we doing here? For an organization that prides itself on achieving objectives, even at great individual cost, we sure did a shit job at explaining what exactly our goals were to the operators.

All this to say, what CAN I say that hasn't already been said? I don't need to 'protest' anything, because I don't hear a lot of people supporting our operations over there except for chicken hawks. I'm glad McCain's son, and John Kelly's children served with me. At least they put what is most dear to them on the line for what they believe. Can't say the same for most of modern day 'conservatives'. They have nothing on the line when they send people over, and that's the best I can protest, but what's the point? Nobody else seems to care either way - it seemed like the wiser of us had realized the whole thing was bullshit from the beginning, and now just don't care and have accepted it to be the way things are, sixteen years later. To top it off, we just have too much shit going on at home. Politics is really showing how bad democracy can get when the people themselves, the vessels of power, are fucking idiots and care more about feeling good than making good decisions for the future. I've got a housing crisis here, insurance crisis there, financial security crisis everywhere, so where can I fit in some good old protesting time? If I did, who would hear me? My old friends wouldn't want to hear it either. We just want some kind of peace of mind and happiness in our life, not dwell on the pointlessness of it all.

We are the aimless generation, just trying to survive the journey through the minefield our forefathers had left us, day after day.

It failed to bring most of the wars (or "police actions") into the picture. Maybe because all of the 'major' conflicts prior to desert storm (C/WW1/2/K/V) were headed by the opposite political party than that mentioned. This is not to say other conflicts didn't happen under other parties as they obviously have.

While the reasoning is sound insofar as the 'unmentioned' conflicts were fought primarily by draftees (again - politics?), it really gives no satisfactory reason, only conjecture and opinion (politics) on the current military actions - which SPANS political parties.

Sadly, the introduction of politics into an article initially put forth as something about the "morality or war" says more about the intent of the author than the question the article brings up.

Possibly the difference between than and now is the sheer number of people directly involved in the War. With great respect to those who have been affected by the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, it is possible for many people (especially here in Western Europe) to ignore the conflict altogether in ways that it was not possible back then.

Cool. Think of all the amazing things we could have done with that surplus capital not going to bechtel...

Interestingly enough, the bulk of Israel's army to this day is composed of drafted 18 year olds, and despite that, the only time there was a major public outcry about the necessity of a military campaign was during the first Lebanon war (1982). that war was perceived by the public as a reckless regime-changing adventure by a particular general (Ariel Sharon).

I assume that the IDF's decades long policing mission (=occupation) of the West Bank along with the periodical campaigns in Gaza & Lebanon do not generate an outcry of similar size, presumably due to the much stronger indoctrination level of the Israeli public, as opposed to that of the American. There is a general consensus around the absence of a less violent path to coexistence in the Middle East.

to this day, I've been a supporter of reforming the IDF into a smaller professional army with the express purpose of making it more difficult for the state to apply foreign policy using force, with the added benefit of keeping unwilling citizens outside of the cycle of violence.

The article, however, implies that the US has achieved the ability to increasingly "project power" by detaching its military apparatus from the society as a whole..

I was off by a couple of years, but in 2003 when we went back into Iraq to finally take care of Hussein, I was pleased. Of course, I had long since left the Army and now it was some other bunch of soldiers sitting in a tent. When they pulled Hussein out of his spider hole, I was thrilled. Justice, right?

But Iraq didn't turn into a shining example of emerging democracy; it was a shit-show of tribal feuds, incompetence, waste, fraud and abuse that continued to kill decent American kids. The contemporary Iraqi WMDs -- the reason for our costly endeavor -- never really materialized (though their historical presence and usage against Kurds and Iranians was often downplayed). It became increasingly clear that all our involvement contributed to was a power vacuum in which something nastier could breed.

Afghanistan, a seemingly more focused war due to the Taliban's sheltering and support of al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11, at this point appears to be no more productive. Different tribes, different waste, fraud and abuse, different American kids killed so career politicians can check a box on their list of accomplishments.

While I still respect men & women who join the military, my disdain for the "warrior worship" culture that has become the norm has grown. When I returned from the Gulf in 1991, I was amazed by such goodwill and support for the military; it was, I believe, a collective reaction to the infamous reception Vietnam-era soldiers received upon coming home. I would not want to deprive returning troops of the same feel-good experience, but at the same time I've grown weary of almost seventeen years of "thank you for our service" and the obligatory shots of troops abroad watching the sportsball game du jour, the abuse of the term "hero", and this somehow normalized condition of young men and women being sent to shithole third-world countries "to keep America safe".

We're in the second decade of this madness, with no clear goals for victory or even to declare a statemate. As much as I love my country, at this point were there even a hint of a draft I would be the first to drive my teenage boys to the Canadian border -- a concept that would have astounded and enraged a younger me.

Amidst the author's pious wailing and gnashing of teeth, the question "where are today’s skeptical veterans?" is posed.

Well, here's one. And I'm far from alone. Most of us, I suspect, aren't vocal because of one simple reason: it will accomplish nothing.

As with other causes, such as the environment, drug legalization, investment in national infrastructure, additional funding for scientific research, our political class turns a deaf ear to the populace. We the little people have our designated role: fly the flag of Team Pepsi or Team Coke, pay our taxes, and become enraged at each other while the aristocracy does what they will.

We are largely jaded, and having assessed the impossibility of stopping the tide many of us merely do what we can to stay on higher ground and be cognizant of storm surges.

The article doesn't mention it, but it is capitalised suggestively near the end. Also, Haldeman's novel is widely regarded as a criticism of the Vietnam war, and the article does discuss the lack of literature critical of recent wars.