“. . . and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.”
Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms
There is a strong undercurrent of anti-military sentiment in our part of the web. This community is supposed to be about men. The people who come here, male and female alike, espouse certain conservative, traditional values. They do this while grappling with the changing social, political, and economic realities of our rapidly globalizing world. They (we) are struggling to understand the role of men in these woeful times, so it saddens and disheartens me to see so many people dismissive of the most traditional male role there is.
The negative sentiments run strong when I write things about the military, or military life. They are especially hard when I talk about my own coarse behavior, and some of my internal motivations. At its worst, the criticism calls soldiers stupid, drunken louts and violent sociopaths. Typically it leans on some sort of philosophical argument about the morality of whatever conflict, or of having a military at all. The line goes something like – I pay taxes, I don’t approve of . . .
This is a far cry from the sentiments I heard in the days after 9/11.
I first enlisted in September of 2001. The American thirst for vengeance was so strong at the time that the military could have turned the whole Eastern Hemisphere into a free-fire zone. Then the reality hit home, and people realized that war is expensive. The economy took a dump, and Americans soon began to equate military spending with their own paychecks.
That led to the sentiment Love the Soldier, Hate the War.
You can no more simultaneously love the soldier and hate the war than you can love the whip and hate the sting. To love the soldier is to accept him for who he is. A soldier is a fighter. War is more than what he does. War is who he is.
In his book On Combat, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (ret.) expounds upon the idea that society is made up of certain kinds of people: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle.
Whether you like it or not, there are people who were born with (or developed) what Grossman calls “the gift of aggression”. More than likely these people, these men, were mistreated. They were bullied, neglected, ignored. At some point in their lives they were made to experience the worst side of human nature – the side where self interest becomes predatory.
Soldiers are sheepdogs; men with a profound internal sense of justice. Soldiers don’t need to ask why to fight because they are already predisposed to fight. Just point the bad man out and they will take the fight to him.
Civilians do not hate soldiers because soldiers cost money. They hate soldiers because the existence of soldiers reminds them that the world is a hard place. Somewhere outside the quiet comfort of your home there are people who want what you have. They will steal from you, they will rape you, and they will kill you. Living in denial of this fact will not make it less true.
And yes, the soldier is a rough son-of-a-bitch. What would you expect of a man whose reality consists of hardship and discipline? You can no more expect a Joe to be a warrior monk than you can be angry at a dog for pissing on your flowers. Lock up your women and hide your booze. If a man’s life can be bought with hot chow and pretty ribbons, can you really complain?
None of this should come as a shock to anyone. We all know, in our hearts, that soldiers are as they will always be.
The resentment I encounter has nothing to do with justice or budget gaps or money. Resentment is never truly ideological because resentment is felt, not thought. If there is resentment for soldiers in a community of men, it is because the soldier has something many men lack: a feeling of purpose.
I spent most of my life feeling lost and without purpose. I would still feel that way if I had not looked deep within myself and accepted that there was something I felt I had to do. To Hell with the risks, somewhere there was a fight and I needed to be in the middle of it. I had no right to complain about the character of the fighting if I honestly thought I could do a better job myself . . .
What could be more manly than that?
