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Veteran's/Remembrance Day 2004
My father, paternal grandfather, one brother, and one brother-in-law all were in the military (Army, Navy, Marines, and Marines, respectively). My nephew (now in his senior year of high school) plans to go the ROTC route; we'll see if that happens or not. To put things in perspective, what this means is that on that side of my family, I, and two cousins that I haven't seen in a couple of decades, are the lone male "holdouts". (As far as I know, anyway; I can't swear that neither of my male cousins were ever in the military.)
Because of my extremely poor eyesight, I'm considered "unfit for military service" (what at least used to be called "4-F"); this is also true of my youngest brother, although his disability is different. This was true considerably before I turned 18, but before that happened, I'd considered being a military pilot--probably partially because my grandfather had been, but probably mostly because I thought that Jet Fighters Were Cool.
Now, when I think about flying attack aircraft, I tend to reflect more on the fact that Dad has said that Grandaddy Wally used to wake up screaming from the nightmares that his experiences as a military pilot in Korea gave him. (As far as I know, none of my other relatives were ever in combat, per se.)
During the first Gulf War, I was in college. I remember wondering what it would be like to be on campus if the draft were reinstated, and most of the men on campus left. It's not as if my disability were obvious--while I was in college, I wore contacts almost exclusively--and arguably, it's not even that debilitating; my eyesight is correctable, so I'd probably be just fine in a non-combat position. Part of what bothered me at the time is that the University of Oregon had (and presumably still has--it's that sort of place) plenty of folks that would be happy to claim conscientious objector status, or provide evidence of their homosexuality, as means of refusing a military that they would never willingly join . . . so a natural assumption on the part of anyone who saw me on campus would be that I had chosen not to serve. And I've always been bothered by people assuming things about my attitudes and opinions based on context. (To be clear, it's not the nature of the assumption--in this hypothetical case, that I was a conscientious objector, or gay--that bothers me; it's the assumption itself.)
My research (predictive models for social networks) is something that's of great interest to (military) intelligence types--and, in fact, it's already being supported in part by grants from three-lettered sources (only one of which is the NSF). (And those of you who want to make fun of the phrase "military intelligence" can go take a flying leap, okay? My brother-in-law was in military intelligence, damned smart, and moreover a great guy . . . and we lost him just about the time that I was starting to realize that I had a lot I wanted to talk to him about, and that I wanted to know him better.)
So while I am most unlikely to ever be forced to answer the moral question of whether I'm willing to pull the trigger for my country, I still have to decide what responsibility I hold for the use that my government might make of my work. (Whether or not I end up joining such an agency after I graduate--which seems unlikely at the moment.)
My brother has talked about going back into the Marines. I doubt that he supports Bush's policies (although I haven't asked him); I suspect that in his case, he would be going back in because his buddies--by extension, the military as a whole--needed help. While this is one of the qualities I admire about him, I'm not sure that's enough reason to join an effort (i.e., the war in Iraq) that I think is one huge bad idea.
Yesterday I was on campus and passed through a demonstration by the UCI Students for Peace and Justice. One of their platform planks is that all US troops ought to be taken out of both Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. I sent an email to them yesterday asking what they thought would happen if they got their wish. No response yet. And, to be honest, while I'm not sure what would happen, I don't imagine that it would be pretty.
Sometimes I wish that I could jolly myself into believing in a God that could hand me answers to questions like this. But, as I'm a pretty hard-core agnostic (as in, I find it difficult to imagine that anyone could present me with evidence of [INSERT DEITY HERE] that I would accept as proof of anything in particular), I have to come up with my own answers.
Anyway, enough about me. Regardless of my own qualms about the missions on which they are sometimes sent, and about the uses to which our military force is often put, I have a great deal of respect for the men and women of our military services, and appreciate the sacrifices that they have made.
This day is yours.
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Gulf War I
By the time of the actual invasion, I was living with Abe. His parents were Vietnam Era war protesters and they kept pressuring him to register as a contientous objector. Abe thought about it long and hard, but refused. He was against the war, but he wasn't a Pacifist. He rather felt that fraudulently regestering as an objector or fleeing to Canada would be a basic betrayal of what he believed. He could protest, but by choosing to live in America, he was agreeing to fight if asked to, whether he agreed with the War or not. I always admired his position, although his views on voting drove me up the wall.
I myself thought there should be the draft for both genders or not at all. My reasons for this are myriad, including 1. The draft discriminates against men by demanding that they risk life and limb without demanding it of women. 2. It descriminated against women by denying us the right to serve our country beside the men, and thus we couldn't really be full citizens.
Thank you for posting this.