A Message of Apology to All Members of Armed Forces

beach@beachproductions.com

from Paul Beach

Gentlemen and women, I apologize; my opinion following in this essay is going to sound harsh. I can only hope that the reader will be able take it all in objectively, and give it due consideration, as I do with every opinion put before me.

It seems that society, especially our American society, puts great importance on honoring and paying tribute to the men and women that have fought and are fighting wars. Americans give credit to their warriors for preserving our freedom, our rights, and our quality of life, as do the citizens of many other countries. We are filled with pride at the sight of our young people garbed in a fine uniform. We pause with solemnity at least twice a year to remember those people that gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. War veterans that are still living receive adulation and respect from the rest of us.

To any red-blooded American patriot it would be the height of audacity and political incorrectness for someone to scoff at the sacrifice made by the members of the armed forces…

And yet, after much deliberation, I find myself in that very position. I realize that such an opinion would be extremely unpopular, but I’m going to suggest that the popular opinion needs careful re-evaluation on an individual basis.

Maybe there is one thing that we can all agree on right now – War is bad. That is an enormous generalization, but is the statement wrong?

With that said, I would like to pose another statement for your consideration – “There would be no war if no one joined the army.” Naturally, I’m not talking exclusively about Americans; I’m talking about everyone in the world.

To elucidate, let’s try to take an objective view on just what exactly an army is. An army is a body of people, organized to advance some particular cause. The organization specifically is a chain of command that all members of the body recognize and adhere to. At the top of the chain is one or more chiefs that dictate(s) exactly how the cause will be advanced. Is the cause always a righteous cause? No. Is the chief always right in his commands? Rarely!

Now, let’s take a look at the ideal soldier. The ideal soldier, at least from a commanding officer’s point of view, will follow direction without question. That is to say, he will surrender entirely his own internal authority and blindly follow the external authority. Further, he will not assert any of his individuality. This is the man (or woman) that we, the grateful civilian public, are supposed to revere and adore?

Why would anyone want to join the army in the first place? Through observation, I have identified five general reasons that someone might feel compelled to join an army, and for each reason, I shall endeavor or illustrate the error in judgment.

Reason Number One is being drafted, it is definitely the saddest. Calling for a draft, or mandating enrollment in the armed forces is one of the most despicable actions that a country can take against its own citizens. It leaves people with the choice of becoming a slave and possibly a killer, or a fugitive. Not much of a choice! I am outraged at people that speak with disdain of those that have the courage to stand up to their country and dodge the draft. But I’m even more outraged at armies that attempt to use force of arms to enlist more soldiers.

Reason Number Two that people have for joining the army is financial. The army is a no-brainer type job that provides its employees with a steady income, benefits, even education. Plenty of young people that lack the direction and internal motivation in their lives to succeed in the business world or the job market take refuge with good old Uncle Sam. For what they contribute to the Gross National Product, they might as well be on welfare.

Desire for important command is Reason Number Three that one might enlist. Here is a person that longs for respect and obedience from others. The desire to be the one barking out the orders is all the motivation they need to endure a certain amount of time as the underling in order to work their way up in the ranks. Obviously, these people are a big part of the problem, as they are endeavoring to exert their authority over others who are weak and willing to submit to that authority. This is the wrong kind of ambition, though often it is masked by…

Reason Number Four – patriotism; misguided patriotism with massive double doses of nationalism and altruism. December 8, 1941, was one of the busiest days that American armed forces recruitment offices ever saw. The same thing happened on September 12, 2001. Patriotism is the only reason for joining the army that is remotely justifiable, except that there are still better courses of action to take. And, this reason slides gently and easily into the darkest reason for joining…

Reason Number Five – homicidal tendencies. Testosterone is a powerful hormone. Most young boys over the age of ten have killed. We start with ants, graduate to larger bugs and finally rodents, varmints, and birds. By the time that a young man is full tilt riding the rapids of his raging hormones, he has probably wondered what it would be like to kill another man, and wondering if he would have the guts to do it. More than ninety percent of young men between the ages of fourteen and eighteen have dreams about killing others. Obviously, most men learn to keep this aggression in check; no problem. In the context of everyday normal life it is easy to stay rational. But war isn’t normal or rational. There is an alarming number of young men and women that join the armed forces actually hoping on some level, either conscious or sub-conscious, for the chance to test their mettle in a combat situation. Not surprisingly, if they do get such an opportunity, and survive it, they find more often than not, that it is easy to rationalize killing another human being.

The biggest flaw inherent in the design of the army is that the army as a collective entity is not conscious. It is not even all that smart. Through the use of propaganda, the army, like the government, attempts to hold itself higher in value than the conscious individual. It does not produce as many resources as it consumes.

Undoubtedly, there are some readers right now that would be quick to argue these points. What about defense of the nation? Shouldn’t we have some kind of army at least for that? Where would we Americans be today without the war victories that we have enjoyed over the last two-hundred and thirty years?

Honestly, it would be easy to look back in hindsight at every war ever fought and suggest a more peaceful course of action that would have had an improved outcome. But playing the “What-Would’ve-Happened-If” game won’t change what happened. The only thing to do is to study history and try to learn from the mistakes of our forbears. And that is the purpose of this essay.

Throughout the course of history, wars have been fought for quite a few different screwball reasons – religion, racism, a woman. But generally they are fought over resources; land primarily, sometimes gold, drugs, even human resources, and now most recently, oil. One army rises up to take resources, and another rises up to defend against the oppression. Only the defense is truly justified, and it is a travesty when it is needed.

How does one organize an aggressor army anyway? It’s not easy, but it helps if the young soldiers aren’t smart enough to analyze the big picture and see exactly what is going on. Because, it would require quite an elaborate hoodwink, wouldn’t it? Hitler did it by convincing an enormous number of young men that they were superior to other races. Incidentally, so did Japan, and America. They all used racism to motivate, but acquisition of resources was at the heart of the cause in each case.

Take a second and put yourself in the shoes of a soldier in the British army in 1778. Precious few of those poor chaps enlisted in the army voluntarily, but there they were, enlisted none-the-less, and shipped across the big ocean to the new world, stationed about as far from their families and loved-ones as they could be. Their official job was to put down a rebellion in the colonies, but their only real motivation was merely to survive, make it back home to their families in one piece. Do you think they really cared whether the colonies gained their independence or not?

Great Britain was the aggressor. The colonists on the other hand were defending against the oppression. What if they had not prevailed? Would life be all that different for us today as Brits instead of Americans? Is life in America different from life in England? Not substantially. Incidentally, the average American pays nearly forty percent of his gross earnings in taxes, about twice what the average colonist paid to King George. The colonists protested about taxation without representation. How much representation do you think we have today? Uncle Sam is actually more oppressive than King George was!

Rights, even moral rights, are not one wit guaranteed beyond the strength of force behind them. For this self-evident reason, even with all of our wonderful civilization, at the end of the day 'might' still makes 'right'! So let’s say that an army did stand up and defend my personal rights from an aggressor army. After a fierce war the victorious army pronounces me free. They give me the rights of free speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom of religion, freedom to own private property. But there are two problems with this. First of all, as I already pointed out, these rights last only as long as the defending force remains victorious against aggressors. Secondly, because the defenders granted me these rights, they can take them back at any time, and I, as a single individual, would most likely not have the strength to defend the rights for myself. So you see it doesn’t really work to have an army fight for and grant to you your freedom.

Is there any way to guarantee moral rights without strength of force? Maybe, and the first step would definitely be for everyone (in the world) to recognize certain un-lien-able, individual rights for everyone else; that is, to stop aggressing (stop working for or supporting an army).

So, to all those who had their lives shattered by the terrible experience of fighting in a war, I am sorry. I’m sorry that you didn’t have the means to avoid that experience. I’m sorry that you were forced to fight essentially to the death for no good purpose. I’m sorry that you are a victim of your government. The best thing you can do now is to make sure that your children don’t fall for the same hoodwink.

I know a smart gentleman that was forced by the draft to fight in Korea. The experience left him scarred physically and emotionally. But he saw the con, and learned from it, and when his own son came of age he told him, “If you try to join to the army, I’ll break your legs. There would be no war if no one joined the army.”