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Supporting the troops... is wrong.

By The Armorer on May 17, 2007 | | Comments (9)

Bill the Rotorhead breaks radio silence:

TINS.

March (or thereabouts) 1970. I'd just finished an all-day and all-night Green Beanie support mission and was slouching toward my tent, hoping to grab a couple of hours' sleep before the sun rose high enough to turn my GP Medium into a reasonable approximation of a convection oven and the traffic on the street outside generated a semi-permanent dust cloud inside. If I was lucky, the malathion fogger had already made its run, so I wouldn't get chased out of the tent by the fumes.

I'd been flying every night for weeks and had reached the chronic fatigue point where anything that didn't happen in the cockpit didn't happen. I thought I'd remembered to eat the C-rat I'd carried out to the aircraft the previous day, but I couldn't swear to it. My canteen was empty and there was no hole in it, so I was holding dehydration at bay, anyway.

Enter Company Clerk, stage left. "Mail Call, sir." He handed me an envelope addressed to "Any Soldier in Vietnam." Return address was some school in Iowa.

I just sat there and stared at it. Maybe five minutes later, I opened it. It was from a sixth-grader who wanted to know who I was, what my job was, was there a lot of fighting where I was, how I was doing and who had been saying a prayer for me every day. Nothing about what he'd been studying in school, or who his friends were or what was new in his own young life -- he just wanted to know about me.

Now, I realized at the time that the kid had launched that letter with nobody in particular in mind, but yet, at that particular moment, that letter meant that somebody other than my immediate family gave a rat's ass about me and the job I was doing.

I finished and sealed the who-I-was, what-I did, there's-fighting-but-we're-beating-the-bad-guys, I'm-doing-fine-thanks and please-keep-praying-for-me letter just before the malathion fogger chugged past and chased me out of the tent...

Last week CDR Salamander left a post on Milblogs:

Shipmates; this has been another one of my days I get in a Strategic Funk. I see the progress at the Tactical and Operational levels working towards what we want Strategically - but one thing keeps coming to mind. It is all for naught if the Political side fails us. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel better, but with the "Two month vacation meets Yankee go home" with the Iraqi Parliament; and the schoolyard games in the US Congress - my mind keeps going to the Table at Damascus.

You should read the linked post in the above, about the Table in Damascus...


This can be won. We are making progress, but the politician's feet of clay is crumbling in front of out eyes. Is my Gandamak at hand? I'm watching the Iraqi lawmakers - and I think of the good people of Iraq - but in my mind I see more and more, in both the US and Iraq, the Table at Damascus.

That post generated this comment, which Michael turned into an email aimed at some of us larger milbloggers:

I left this comment on Mudville Gazette's MilBlogs at this post by CDR Salamander... [linked above already -the Armorer] … and I wanted to get the thoughts of those of you in the military community.

My main point is that sending cards to troops is a waste of time, UNLESS we are also sending letters and making calls to Congressmen to tell them to support the mission in Iraq. Sending 'thank you' cards doesn't do much at all in the overall war effort. Our soldiers' morale could be sky-high and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans if they do not have the support of the American government. I am simply getting tired of the Gathering of Eagles and the Operation America Rising and the 'support the troops' letters efforts… UNLESS they are also getting all those people organized to not just stand around waving flags, but also to sit down and write a letter to their congressman/Senator or call them up. Standing around waving a flag is not going to win the war on Islamic Totalitarianism. But making sure our elected leaders support the war effort will help win it.

*****
I have been seeing the "One Million Thanks" commercial on TV the last couple days, regarding the girl who has been making the effort to send "thank you" cards to the deployed soldiers and now is working with GM (I think) to put boxes at each dealership for people to easily donate cards at those locations. This is nice and all, but really, when it comes down to it, it does nothing. Because one million 'thank you' cards are not going to matter when our politicians surrender in the war effort and things get a lot worse in the war against Islamic Totalitarianism in the future. The "One Million Thanks" is just another "feel-good" campaign for those who want to say they "support the troops".

Well, forgive my callousness, but the whole "support the troops" campaign is worthless. What would REALLY make a difference is a "One Million Letters to Congress" campaign to tell those defeatist f'ers to support the military in fighting our enemies.

But maybe I am wrong here, being that I am looking at this from a civilian standpoint. What do you all in the military think about this? Do you feel that it is more important to get one million 'thank you' cards or do you feel it is more important that Americans give Congress one million "hey defeatist jackasses, get your heads out of your asses and support the war on Islamic Totalitarianism" cards?

Have a great day,

Michael

The responses in email, at least those that were sent out as a 'reply all' - were uniformly in support of "Write your Reps, but you are flat wrong on the issue of supporting the troops in context."

I'll tell you - write your congressional delegation. Email them. Do not *ever,* *ever* use the mass mailing card approach. For anything. Always write it yourself. They figure if you only care enough about something because AARP/NRA/NARAL/Fill-in-the-blank sent you a mailing card or set up a mass email generator - you don't *really* care. Take the time to dash a few words on paper - or actually fill out the email contact form from a website - with your own words, then you care. I know this has greater impact with the people in Congress. Depending on the politics of where you live - you may be tilting at windmills - but tilt we must!

Guess what. Writing anonymous letters to "Any Soldier" has impact, too. My wars were easy ones. I served in the period of time where we just puffed our chests out at the Russians, and fought small, sharp, limited wars or tried to keep the peace. Easy duty compared to those were *just* before and *just* after me.

So, here's a TINS that supports the thesis that it *does* matter. From one of us who was both *just* before and *just* after me. On the value of supporting the troops. But Michael is right, too - send *three* notes to Congress - your delegation - for every one you send to a deployed warrior. That makes it 100 percent of the retired warriors who blog here. Just sayin'.

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9 Comments

By BloodSpite on May 17, 2007 4:40 PM
Doin' that Devils Advocate Thang (or DAT Thang for those who prefer Acronyms) I can see where Michael gets his anger. I mean if we actually consider points like: How many of the Twin Tower T Shirts profits went to Twin Tower victims? How many Yellow ribbon and bumper sticks, and little flags for our cars and for our lapels sent a solitary dime to our troops? How many of these groups have made an appeal to Congress? The senate? How many of these groups have staged a Pro-War Protest on Capitol Hill? How many of them are camping out in representatives offices? Thats not to say it doesn't happen. Rather than the average Joe, no punt intended, never hears about it happening and thusly equate it to never happening. So what they see is all these folks supporting the troops on the front line.....while doing to stop the authoritarian erosion of support from the higher ups. Again, not saying they don't do anything, just that thanks to our wonderfully *cough* unbiased *hack* "....southern..." *clear throat* media they never hear of these items. Just the Anti-War, McChimpyBushitler rhetoric. What Michael seems to propose, and I think rightfully so I must add as I've asked the question myself, is that we get off our collective duffers and feed the anti-war left what they have been feeding us: action and reaction. Letters, as you pointed out John, telephone calls, groups, appeals, gatherings on the Hill, notices, lists of names in support, basically a counter movement to usurp the notion that the majority of America thinks we should throw our hands in the air and walk away..... .....unless of course that is precisely what the majority of America wants. Dangerous words I utter, I know, but if we can manage, as you point out, to write a letter to a soldier, but can't be bothered to write our Congressional representative, then what exactly, are we supporting? Before I get crucified at dawn I have written my reps so I am indeed playing DAT Thang here. I'm just curious as to others thinking on the subject.
 
By CDR Salamander on May 17, 2007 5:15 PM
John, I think you hit it, both here an in your email, pitch perfect.
 
By kat-missouri on May 17, 2007 6:03 PM
An interesting thing happened this weekend. My site graphics had been missing for several days because the server that supported them was down. So, I spent the weekend updating the middle ground and soldiers angels kc. When I took down my old header URL for the image, I discovered words that I had written in the header in 2004 when I started the blog and before I was html savvy enough to put a picture there. It was a quote by TE Lawrence, "I drew these tides of men into my hands to give you freedom." And, strangely enough, just as Cmdr Salamander wrote on his blog, I was reminded then of all the sacrifice and struggle of TE Lawrence to give the Arabs their freedom so long ago and how they had squandered it in political infighting and power struggles at that table in Damascus, to end up parted into little states, governed by the imperial west simply because they could fight, but they would never stick together or imagine their survival and freedom depended on their mutual respect, defense, or some idea of equality. They were still stuck in their tribal mentality. Whatever the cause, tribalism, simple thirst for power, etc, I really did think of it on that day when I was fixing my blog, probably the same day that Cmdr Salamander wrote about the table at Damascus. I almost wrote about it, but I didn't. I didn't because I am not yet ready to give up, however I despair of the outcome. I left those words on my header and they are behind my current image. I wanted to be reminded why I started that blog in the first place. Yet, there are days that I think I can totally empathize with Lawrence, the way he must have felt, having worked tirelessly to keep these people together and fight off the Turks, sacrificed so much personally, only to see it come apart in a little room around a table in Damascus.
 
By MaryAnn on May 17, 2007 7:04 PM
I can see where CDR Salamander and Michael are coming from. Bottom line, if the will of the people and the government fail, there will be no troops to support. That's not to say the question doesn't present a bit of a false choice, as you've noted, John. Of course there must be both, and obviously some people are better at one type of activism than the other. But the fact is we need more political activism. Much more. To end this on a positive note, I'll share part of an email I received from the uncle of a Soldier currently at Landstuhl hospital. He found SA and asked me to look in on his nephew. I think it does a good job of illustrating how support for today's soldiers is helping our Veterans heal their old wounds, too.
I want to thank you for all that you have done on behalf of my nephew. When you see him, please tell him he is in our prayers and that we all love him. My brother and I were in the Army in Vietnam in the 60s’. I don’t remember any organization like yours. So our family is really grateful for all that you have done.
 
By MaryAnn on May 17, 2007 7:36 PM
I guess I should add that the main point I'd like to make is that support activities can have side effects which may not be immediately apparent. For example, I believe Veterans - particularly Vietnam Veterans - have become more empowered than they have been since the end of that war. Perhaps more of them will become politically active, or simply vote in larger numbers. Perhaps someone who has written a letter, and received a reply, now takes these issues more personally than before. Those people will engage others and not remain silent. They will vote in larger numbers as well. Any type of involvement is positive, and I believe it evolves into engagement. But we need more politcal engagement, faster.
 
By Trias on May 17, 2007 9:08 PM
This is really just a rehash of the you can't support the troops without supporting the war concept. I believe the concept is wrong. No doubt that throws me in the usual unpopular light. Yes supporting the troops but not the war does cause dissonance but at the end of the day it's a job and a goal, not the soldier themself. A demand to move into politics is not always well received especially if the political beliefs of the person do not align with the desires expressed. Trying to influence congress is nice but I would say congress has already been influenced. Those elections already held spoke loudly of the will of America and so the damage was done. It was a pivotal moment in this war. This war in Iraq is being opposed by the majority now. That majority carried into congress and may well carry into presidency. I'm saying the point of political influence in congress has passed it's too feckin late. Influencing should have been applied to the voters before the vote. The media, our most powerful influencer, did a sterling job influencing. Doom and Gloom? Maybe. Bush has bought time it's all he could do but the hourglass will run out. Not on Democrat defeat agendas but when Bush can no longer veto. If the military wins or looses in Iraq the wider war still goes on. And there is another vote. That one is not exactly too late.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2007 7:52 AM
I don't think it's as simple as that, Trias - this is actually a critique from the pro-war side of the pro-war side that says, if you support the war but aren't trying to influence the Congress, you are misdirecting your effort, if all you are doing is sending letters to the soldiers. My response is that the choice isn't binary. As for the sweeping generalization about the majority being against the war, nothing is that simple, though the media and the Dems in Congress are trying to spin the election and the polling that way, the issue is much more complex. I tire of politicians who decide that a narrow change in political alignment (in terms of the size of the majorities) signals some tectonic shift in support of Their Pet Issue. The voters sent a clear signal that they wanted a change, that they had lost confidence in the Republican's ability to govern. As the mixed polling results show - there is a clear majority that is not happy with how the war is going, and by obvious extension, with how it's being run, and they want a change. They are less clear that they want to just withdraw and call the whole thing off - which is how the anti-war side spins it. The bulk of the public wants it to end. And they wouldn't mind it ending with something approaching a win, but they have lost patience with the status quo. Which is not quite the way I read your comment.
 
By Trias on May 18, 2007 4:08 PM
So you think Micheal is only talking to the pro war side. You could be right. Probably only talking to the active side too. ie bloggers etc I still think influencing voters is more important than congress. Sure congress can do more but they are highly resistant aren't they? And one petition from pro war probably gets 3 from anti. In some ways this needed to be done well before the war. Things like attitudes to the military which I myself had, and it was not at all easy for me to remove poor assumptions. On the other hand that's here perhaps it's not the same in the US. There are many more things that really need addressing because arguing to support the war at this last minute is hard with a lot of the attitudes out there. Politicians often do that. Over here they claim 'mandate'. I suppose you might be right on that (see isn't that much easier than admitting I'm wrong). Not being happy with the status quo and really who was? is not the same as wanting out even to trigger a loss. Maybe it isn't all doom and gloom. But then there's pelosi and her lipstick. It moves too often. Do you really think a win will come soon? I mean if this is a matter of lost patience time may be of the essence and it's not really true anymore that the US hasn't had any time given to them.
 
By Stalin on May 19, 2007 10:50 AM
I support the troops wholeheartedly. I know you guys don't intentionally kill children and all that. Go USA!