Posts Tagged ‘National Guard’

This post will no doubt make certain in any hesitant minds that I am a brass-bound bitch. But I cannot even muster an attempt to stop myself. I am really trying to see the side of the guys who I am sure, ARE suffering what they say; but I admit I am losing that struggle when I think of those in the war zone suffering SO much more.

Just by way of introduction, let me relate a small story from my personal Army past. In Berlin, Germany, in a military field station for gathering intelligence about the Russians and East Germans across the Wall I had a younger soldier assigned to me for close supervision. He was trying to get out of the Army on conscientious objector status. He was, like me, a linguist and analyst, and he related to me that he was suddenly filled with horror. The reason?

Well, it apparently just had dawned on him that, if “the balloon went up” the information his job supplied would direct bombs and Gods know what else at people—killing them! He NEVER wanted to have to kill anyone, and yet, indirectly, here he would be doing it if anything “real” happened. I was shocked. I mean, I figured out early (possibly as an Army brat) that ANY job in the Army had one aim: to make the other poor sucker die for his country and keep as many of US alive as possible. So, I was astonished that anyone could join the Army without that little bit of information in the forefront of one’s mind. I mean, Berlin, you silly twit….you know spy-movie city par excellence? We weren’t there to pass out donuts to the infantry guys.

So, imagine my surprise at reading a story today that strikes me the same way. This one about the National Guardsmen who fly the “Predator” drones from nice comfortable, safe remote bases in California and Nevada. They sit in air-conditioned bliss with a video screen and search for real, live targets away in the war zone.

You know, the actual war zone, where our guys and gals get killed almost daily? Blown up, shot, all kinds of messy horrible things happening to them as they try to do their hot, sweaty duty on the ground? You know, the men and women some of us would do almost ANYthing to save? Yeah, them!!

Well, these video warriors are pretty good at what they do, they blow the crap out of the bad guys, apparently. This has to save those Americans out there in the dusty boots, right? And when the National Guardsman before the video screen ends his shift, he walks across a safe parking lot and drives home on roads not likely to blow up from IEDs, to eat dinner, watch television, drink a beer and go to bed with his wife.

Well, see, that is the problem. They saw bloody things that they did on those monitors, unlike those lucky bomber pilots who fly by at 500 mph and never see the splatter on the ground. And since they get in their cars and drive home, they don’t have the “locker room experience” of venting and blowing off steam first, it makes them snap at the kids. It is just a nasty job, apparently.

Now, I am not a completely thoughtless blood-thirsty bitch. It has to be hard seeing body parts go “kaboom”….but you know what, it SHOULD be. That is why war should be the very last resort of a nation, not the “Please, Pleeeeease, let me at them!” first resort of a President spoiling for it since his kids won’t fight in it. It is NOT really a video game, it really is “death from afar” in a whole new sense. I, too, am certain I would need a stiff drink after a day of that, and I, too, know the dangers of that sort of habit. But come on, focus a bit, please? The bodies of those folks are not the ones you need to be thinking about as you sit down at the console each morning (or night). Think about the ones that will NOT come home in an American flag draped casket BECAUSE you do your job well.

But let’s just get my nastiest, snarkiest thing out right now, shall we? SUCK IT UP! Stop fucking whining, you are lucky, fortunate bastards! You can save the lives of your comrades far away, and without risk of bloodshed, injury or maiming to yourself. Did you think you really joined the National Guard just to clean up after hurricanes? Come ON, why do you think things like weapons training was part of the job? Or is the very safety of your job part of the problem? Is it guilt that you so easily survive while others end up looking like the enemies you kill with impunity? Count your blessings.

This IS a scary weapons system. It is very Star Trek, and it scares ME that it is out there, because this would be so easy to abuse. I could see some elements of government only too happy to use it on Americans….not just a distant enemy. Count your freaking blessings that you are not be asked to rain destruction on your own fellow citizens; instead you are being asked to help SAVE American lives abroad. Take the help the military is hustling to offer, it may be inadequate—but they are trying. Or, well, you could apply for CO status, because maybe the college money idea just didn’t include killing. I’m sorry your military experience is not what you envisioned—my experience is that it NEVER is what most enlistees or draftees expected.