Heres the thing, as I see it, about Rory Fannings TomDispatch piece yesterday on those endless thank-yous that Americans are supposed to offer to the troops: If you go to the grocery store, buy food, come home and cook yourself a dinner, you dont thank yourself for it. You only thank someone who cooks you dinner while you do nothing. Its the same with the all volunteer army. When the American military was a draft force and so a citizens army, in my childhood and youth, nobody thanked the troops the way we do now. It made no conceptual sense since they were us and it was considered a duty of citizenship. Only the demobilization of the American people in the post-Vietnam years and especially after 9/11 has made this farcical process the sole significant act of most Americans in relation to our military and its disastrous wars abroad. In that light, let me recommend a piece TomDispatch author William Astore did in response to the Fanning yesterday at his Contrary Perspective blog. Here are the first and last paragraphs. Tom I served for twenty years in the Air Force. Service in the military involves sacrifice even when combat isn’t involved, but it also conveys privileges and provides opportunity, or at least it did so for me. I can’t recall people thanking me for my service when I wore a uniform, nor did I expect them to. I just saw myself as doing my duty to the best of my ability, and therefore deserving of no special thanks or commendation. At TomDispatch, former Army Ranger Rory Fanning talks about his discomfort with the thank you parade directed at “our” troops. His honest words are a reminder that a thank you repeated again and again loses its meaning, especially when it’s appropriated by megastars and sponsored by corporations. Think, for example, of that Budweiser ad during last year’s Super Bowl that featured a returning LT. We see him greeting his pretty wife at the airport, then we cut to a surprise parade in his honor down Main Street USA complete with the Budweiser Clydesdales and teary-eyed veterans. The sentiment, however honest to many of the celebrants, is cheapened as heart strings are tugged to sell beer. Or consider those Bank of America ads for wounded warriors airing during this year’s World Series. Images of wounded troops continuing to triumph in spite of war injuries are appropriated to associate a huge bank with the sacrifices endured by ordinary GIs. Again, however well-intentioned such ads may be, heart strings are being tugged by a bank with a dubious record of sympathy for the little guy and gal. As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich has noted, elaborate thank you ceremonies can be a form of cheap grace in which Americans clap themselves on the back in spasms of feel-good celebratory pageantry. Some of these celebrations are so over the top in their flag-waving thanks that you just can’t help having darker thoughts. Is this a recruitment video? Are we even meant to think at all or just gush with pride? Are we simply meant to bask in the reflected glow of the medals on the chests of our young men and women in uniform?... More disturbingly is the thanks that allows us all to deny the reality of America’s wars (the reality of all wars): the sordidness of wartime bungling and mismanagement and violence and murder. Often the latter is drowned out by the bugle calls of thanks! thanks! thanks! coming from the cheering multitudes. My father taught me an empty barrel makes the most noise. I think that’s true even when the noise is presented as thanks to our troops. contraryperspective/2014/10/27/thanking-our-troops-for-their-service/
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 13:30:00 +0000
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