Are Veterans Heroes?

Today is Veteran’s Day, and David Masciotra from Salon.com has penned a provocative article entitled “You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy.” I don’t agree with all of it, but it makes some interesting points. I do see that we’ve gone on quite a journey since the days of the Vietnam War. In those days, a lot of soldiers really did return from that war to a reception that was not very welcoming indeed. Why did you go and kill innocent Vietnamese?, the silent accusation went.

Personally, I admire the physical courage of the members of the military, and their willingness to serve. How well we’ve deployed them, that’s another story. Obama — Nobel Peace Prize recipient that he is — is sending another 3000 or so “advisers” to Iraq to help the Iraqi military train. I think we know how that’s going to end. While Saddam Hussein was indisputably a bad guy, it doesn’t seem that any of our interventions have produced the results we’ve wanted them to. What’s the likelihood that this will change? And Conservatives are notorious for lauding veterans for their service and then defunding their medical facilities and ignoring their post-war needs.  There has to be a better way.

It would be nice if we could honor our veterans by creating fewer of them.

About a1skeptic

A disturbed citizen and skeptic. I should stop reading the newspaper. Or watching TV. I should turn off NPR and disconnect from the Internet. We’d all be better off.
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1 Response to Are Veterans Heroes?

  1. anonanalyst says:

    I believe we should honour them. But I do believe society has taken something away from what is important. We have two minute silences which is amazing but in London we have an art installation (thousands of poppies on the green at the Tower of London) which cost thousands of pounds to make and it will soon go on tour around the world, costing more money. I don’t believe it is a commemoration. I believe it is a farce. A way to make money and spend more money. When instead more time and money should be spent on stopping soldiers dying and building a better world. Yes we should remember those who died in previous wars and honour them, but doing that does not take away the fact that it is all still going on. Nothing has changed…

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