"Tough Deary, you knew what you were getting yourself into."

"Tough Deary, you knew what you were getting yourself
into."

I've not written on this in quite a while. It's past time to
do so again.

In a private room, shielded from all outside observers, a
police photographer's digital camera clicks away, taking pictures of the black
and blue bruises that are ghastly decorations on the married woman's body.
Evidence.

Down the hall, not far away, a female police officer takes a
statement from another woman, wholly unrelated in any way to the first. This
woman's husband has been degrading his wife with a series of insults. "You fat,
ugly bitch" are among the tamer insults she has withstood. Her husband has
thrown dinners she's prepared for him against the walls, then ordered her to
clean up the mess. Doors have been ripped from hinges and kitchen counters
slammed with his clenched fists.

The officer inquires as to how long this has been going on?
"About eight months," is the woman's sheepish reply.

(WARNING! The first sentence outside this parenthetical
comment is naught but intended sarcasm, to make as dramatic a point as I can.
Indeed, domestic violence, regardless how I loathe the first inclination of any
assault on anyone's dignity or person, isn't even among my thoughts here.
However, my point concerns an issue that is at least as horrific and
disreputable and loathsome as any episode of violence that has ever been
visited upon any woman.)

To the first and to the second victims above is sounded the
same official response: "Well Deary, you knew what you were getting yourself
into when you married the fellow."

I can well imagine, at this point, armies of women falling
apoplectic in rage over just the callousness that inheres in such a notion. And
they would be fully justified. The correct answer, of course, is that no they
did not know, even if they may have suspected as much. They just did not know,
and should not be expected to have known. In any event, no one would condemn
them to having to further endure such outrages. Period.

But I now ask, how is that, while on the one hand we are
readily prepared to excuse a physically and/or emotionally-psychologically
battered spouse from a legal contract they freely entered into "for better or
for worse," yet we expect those who have volunteered to serve in the Army or the
Marines to "have known" what they were letting themselves in for?

For the record: Whether it's a long-term romantic
relationship, a marriage, becoming a parent for the first time, or enlisting in
the armed forces . . . no one, but no one has any idea what he or she is
getting himself or herself into.

There exists a gnawing lapse in the consistency of our
reasoning. On the one hand, we fall all over our social selves trying to be as
empathetic and protective as we can of the one, yet on the other it's more a
case of "buck up - you knew." In the former, it's a case of someone being the
object of a little physical and verbal sniping (Again . . . SARCASM!) and the
for the latter it's interminable, day-in-day-out, month-after-unending-month of
unrelenting "fight-or flight" assaults on the person and his or her emotional
and psychological being. For the former it's a society's criminal justice
infrastructure raising a communal ire, screaming "HALT!" For the latter, it's
get back in there for another four or five year-to-18-month tours, where the
only permitted out is via either horrific physical mutilation, the consequence
of combat, or a discharge loaded with negative baggage the soldier or marine
will have to carry for perhaps the rest of his or her life.

In January of 1973, President Nixon terminated the draft and
ushered in the all-volunteer military. At that moment he also terminated
citizen involvement in the consequences of this country's military adventures.
From that moment, citizen involvement was relegated to very safe and very
removed from all peril cheerleading those who volunteered to serve: Disgusting
in every way imaginable. Yellow looped "Support our troops" and Pray for our
troops" ribbon decals on bumpers and the backs of trunks proliferated.
Disgusting in every way imaginable.

Send 'em here, they volunteered. Send 'em there, they
volunteered. Now, send 'em again, they volunteered. Move 'em from Iraq
to Afghanistan
because we just don't have enough forces to spread the pain of the sacrifice.

Divorce rates at an all-time high: tough, they volunteered.

Suicide rates at an all time high: tough, they
volunteered. 

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