It is without question that Americans are in love with the military. Even worse, though, is that their love is unqualified, unconditional, unrelenting, and unending. I have seen signs praising the troops in front of all manner of businesses, including self-storage units, bike shops, and dog grooming.
Many businesses offer discounts to military personnel not available to doctors, nurses, and others who save lives instead of destroy them.
Special preference is usually given to veterans seeking employment, and not just for government jobs.
Many churches not only recognize veterans and active-duty military on the Sunday before holidays, they have special military appreciation days as well.
Even many of those who oppose an interventionist U.S. foreign policy and do not support foreign wars hold the military in high esteem.
All of these things are true no matter which country the military bombs, invades, or occupies. They are true no matter why the military does these things. They are true no matter what happens while the military does these things. They are true no matter which political party is in power.
The love affair that Americans have with the military – the reverence, the idolatry, the adoration, yea, the worship – was never on display like it was at the post office the other day.
While at the counter shipping some packages, a U.S. soldier, clearly of Vietnamese origin in name and appearance, dressed in his fatigues, was shipping something at the counter next to me. The postal clerk was beaming when he told the soldier how his daughter had been an MP in Iraq. Three times in as many minutes I heard the clerk tell the soldier – with a gleam in his eye and a solemn look on his face – "Thank you for your service." The clerk even shook the soldier’s hand before he left.
I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing, and I am no stranger to accounts of military fetishes in action.
Aside from me not thanking that soldier for his service – verbally or otherwise – I immediately thought of four things.
One, what service did this soldier actually render to the United States? If merely drawing a paycheck from the government is rendering service, then we ought to thank every government bureaucrat for his service, including TSA goons. Did this soldier actually do anything to defend the United States, secure its borders, guard its shores, patrol its coasts, or enforce a no-fly zone over U.S. skies? How can someone blindly say "thank you for your service" when he doesn’t know what service was rendered?
Two, is there anything that U.S. soldiers could do to bring the military into disfavor? I can’t think of anything. Atrocities are dismissed as collateral damage in a moment of passion in the heat of battle by just a few bad apples. Unjust wars, we are told, are solely the fault of politicians not the soldiers that do the actual fighting. Paul Tibbets and his crew are seen as heroes for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Before he died, Tibbets even said that he had no second thoughts and would do it again. I suspect that if the United States dropped an atomic bomb tomorrow on Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing everyone and everything, and declaring the war on terror over and won, a majority of Americans would applaud the Air Force crew that dropped the bomb and give them a ticker-tape parade.
Three, why is it that Americans only thank American military personnel for their service? Shouldn’t foreign military personnel be thanked for service to their country? What American military worshippers really believe is that foreign military personnel should only be thanked for service to their government when their government acts in the interests of the United States. Foreign soldiers are looked upon as heroic if they refuse to obey a military order to shoot or kill at the behest of their government as long as such an order is seen as not in the interests of the United States. U.S. soldiers, however, are always expected to obey orders, even if it means going to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Libya under false pretenses.
And four, what is a Vietnamese man – who most certainly has relatives, or friends or neighbors of relatives, that were killed or injured by U.S. bombs and bullets during the Vietnam War – doing joining the U.S. military where he can be sent to shoot and bomb foreigners like the U.S. military did to his people?
And aside from these four things, I’m afraid I must also say: Sorry, soldiers, I don’t thank you for your service.
I don’t thank you for your service in fighting foreign wars. I don’t thank you for your service in fighting without a congressional declaration of war. I don’t thank you for your service in bombing and destroying Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t thank you for your service in killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. I don’t thank you for your service in expanding the war on terror to Pakistan and Yemen. I don’t thank you for your service in occupying over 150 countries around the world. I don’t thank you for your service in garrisoning the planet with over 1,000 military bases. I don’t thank you for your service in defending our freedoms when you do nothing of the kind. I don’t thank you for your service as part of the president’s personal attack force to bomb, invade, occupy, and otherwise bring death and destruction to any country he deems necessary.
Thank you for your service? I don’t think so.