Also, a Vietnam vet I know, perhaps reflecting the prevailing sentiment of the time, conjectures that the public sees war heroes, like all members of the military, as "suckers" for enlisting or, during Vietnam, failing to find a way out of the draft.
In a nation as divided as ours, a consensual hero of any kind -- from Audie Murphy to Martin Luther King -- may no longer be possible. But, Don Sterner, the proprietor of Website HomeofHeroes.com (both a clearinghouse for and data base of medal winners), refuses to accept that.
"First, no matter who YOU are," he writes, "there is bound to be a Medal of Honor recipient YOU can identify with. You can find your heroes on the sports field, but deep in your heart you know you can never be like them. . . . Medal of Honor recipients are ordinary people. . . [who] come in all shapes, sizes, ages. . ."
The deeds of medal winners, as well as their commemoration, seem to run in a universe parallel to ours. Sterner, who has dedicated his life to their merger, and his wife, Pam, authored the Stolen Valor Act, subsequently passed by Congress. It expedites prosecution of those who impersonate decorated soldiers on occasions like Memorial Day with medals they've collected.
You can be forgiven for thinking: "Sounds like flag burning. Does anybody actually do that?" But imposters are surprisingly prevalent, which would seem to indicate that decorated veterans are, in fact, heaped with laurels. More likely, it's just a reflection of the imposters' complexes.
Now Sterner is working with Senator James Webb (D-Va.) to secure passage of the Preservation of Valor Act. This bill would mandate that records, currently scattered, of decorations from all wars be aggregated into one digital database. Who better to tell us why decorated veterans slip under the public's radar?
"My answer might surprise you," Sterner replied. Turns out, in light of how traditionally patriotic this Vietnam vet is, it did. He continued. "Everybody wants to think the media ignores war heroes for celebrities. But it's the military itself that doesn't take the steps needed to focus our attention on them. Since Vietnam, it doesn't publish or publicize their deeds like it did during World War II and Korea.
"Worse, when you approach it for information, it's like pulling teeth. It uses the pretext of national security to stonewall you. That's hogwash. You can't obtain a copy of a citation even if it's to help the military by creating a national database? How can we expect the public to celebrate our heroes when the military doesn't even honor its own?"
Finally, we solicited the opinion of John Robb. He's best known for his "open-source warfare" concept, on which he discourses at his influential blog, Global Guerillas, and in his new book, Brave New War (Wiley, 2007), the sleeper of the season. He cited two reasons for the public's apathy.
"One is that war is now marginal to the existence of most Americans. We don't sacrifice, it's voluntary and it's remote. Wars appear optional." Then, in unwitting agreement with Woodward, he wrote, "This is in line with the idea that soldiers fight for the government and not us."
"Second, recognizing heroics makes people uncomfortable given the lack of attention, effort or sacrifice they have put towards our wars. They would rather not see that deficit in themselves." [Emphasis added].
"And finally, we live a post-heroic age. Anyone that ascends to that post is immediately put into context (usually aggressively)."
Today, "post-heroic" is a business term that attempts to consign to history the age of star CEOs, fund managers and financiers. Collaboration and corporate politics are supposedly the operative words these days. (To the cynical, the term might sound like a smokescreen behind which anonymous hedge fund managers amass fortunes even larger than the "heroes.")
It's hard to fault elevating the team above the individual, whether or not one thinks that's borrowing a page from Communism. But, at the most practical level, has anyone heard of the Army in recent years using the name of a military hero like Audie Murphy as a recruiting tool? Whether it assumes kids can't relate to the past or the Army's legal department prohibits it from dealing in body counts, the lack of role models can only make a recruiter's difficult job harder.
To once again give the public the benefit of the doubt, there may be another reason lodged deep within our psyches that keeps us from showering decorated soldiers with honors commensurate with their deeds. Could it be that defending our country and rallying the public are not their primary functions? What if their courage under fire is only a trial-run for another role?
In his biography of Murphy, Don Graham writes: "He symbolized the American GI who had endured combat and returned home unscathed by it all. The country needed to believe that our boys could be sent into violent encounters with death, dispatched from the safe haven of American homes. . . into the bloody, war-ravaged, ancient cesspools of human iniquity in Europe, be trained and praised for the act of killing, and return unaffected by it all, remaining psychologically innocent."
Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth." -- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
it was very good. But in all fairness this attitude towards the ' heroes' is not new and not indigenous to the US. It was a prevailing attitude towards the heroes of the ' un generation purdue'- the ' lost generation' of the veterans of the WWI in the 20th and it is described by Hemingway, Remark and Oldington. It is a bad thing. But we here and now are just awakening to many-many bad things we happen to be guilty of and yes, that awakening is painful.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Friday, October 12, 2007 at 9:16:41 AM
"Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but beggard that Nation that has and forgets them."
" Poor is the nation that oft lies to fights wars, and beggard the nation that thinks a soldiers fight for survival is heroism"
You expect me to think Audey was fighting for America, or was he fighting to stay alive? And yet how much can a man do to prove heroism? In fact killing is the easy part. How much harder for him to throw down his weapon and engage the enemy without violence, without knowing the language, without hiding and lurking from tree trunks and holes in the ground? Seems to me there are heros everywhere in the USA, who don't need guns to show the way for humanity. Who is the stronger? Who is the real hero? Let's not pretend here.
Soldiers who claim they fight for you and me, really fight for themselves first, and if they really wanted to do good...they would be doing things that disavow war, disclaim war, refuse medals, and understand that if they don't; they are themselves the ideals of war and hatred.
Whether we call them foreigners and can't communicate is reason enough to be our enemy, what purpose is it to believe the other side would win, when they are as at fault. I will never believe that Iraq was the only lie to go to war. Certainly WWI and WWII, Korea and Vietnam were lies in action.
Commemorate Precept
The Media is the power in America; not the process of Democracy. Therewith we can understand that there is good or bad. And so how does Democracy stand upon that scale? I truly think good is good and bad is bad. There is no such distinction that good is bad or bad is good. This is the hypocrisy our current lives are driven by through this Bush administration and the Media liars who drive it. The conclusion is that it is not really about Democracy but about the way the Media has created its own 4th branch of government called the Right to Incite Violence Branch, all neatly packaged according to the precepts of free speech. Come on boys join our army and become men, become hero's.
Mind you free speech in the days of early yore was toward escalating the decency and right to do the good, which was to never put War before the issues of morality and goodness. That goodness is the ability and want to preach the end to conflicts, the urge to decommission and reduce military perceptions, and show the providence hand with its bounty and alms. The foregone has accepted that freedom of speech connotes the disregard of law and civility, in order to nurture the carnal desires of the flesh of men...meaning the perverbial clause you've sold your soul to the devil and his profits. A time will come when the people who have caused this great harm to our nation, will seek the capes of retirement as a shelter toward the collapse of their said intended purpose. For what good is it to continue the guise of carnal sanguity when there is never the perception of its goal which is real peace? In fact they fail; and the test of Democracy because of that, and sadly perish with the sins they have claimed. While laws state the books, and books state the men wherewith knowledge is in conflict with the values of society, the society that wanders away from its core of benevolence is and always will be conquered, whether by the use of the gun and its violent intent, or by the absence of mans integrity.
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Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Friday, October 12, 2007 at 9:43:48 AM
I believe that the citizen soldier should still be honored for heroic acts.Even though I believe this to be an illegal war of choice, it is not the military’s fault that the civilian leaders have put the military in this mess.
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Michael Chavers (42 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 172 comments)
on Friday, October 12, 2007 at 12:09:54 PM
is that when they swear to obey orders they place themselves under the control of someone else's judgement. And if there is one scoundrel in their chain of command that soldier needs to have a great deal of wisdom in order not to become a deadly instrument of harm.
Specifically, under the command of the President of the United States in the case of US servicemen and women these would have had to have been exceptional people to have refused to invade Iraq once the order was given the grounds that it was illegal and/or unconstitutional. Many of the troops were deployed to the region well in advance of the time when it might have been possible that the invasion might have been lawful (endoresed by the UN security council). At the time of March 2003 the majority of Americans (let alone the Congress) were not obviously opposed to the invasion of Iraq. I would not have opposed it had it had UN security council endorsement.
It is easy to respect the bravery, courage and sacrifice of someone who "lays down their life for their friends", but it is another thing to place oneself uncritically in the service of dishonorable and potentially dishonorable people. Iraq was not a just war. It was not a lawful war.
One might just as well (at least) respect the bravery, courage and self sacrifice of insurgents who are resisting an occupying force.
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Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 21 diaries, 953 comments)
on Friday, October 12, 2007 at 6:22:57 PM
I had a father who overpowered by patriotism not yet 17 ran off to war. He had his 17 birthday as a prisoner of war on the Burma railway for 3years. He died of long-term injuries including what we now know was untreated PTSS 22 yrs later prematurely His only battles were firing at an enemy he couldn’t see.
He also said that heroism were usually as a result of circumstances and reactions. Medals were for acts of bravery not necessarily the man the result of normal men in extraordinary situations doing extraordinary things. Neither did they always reflect the true nature of the circumstances or the man. He compared a soldier who when pinned down by a machine gun nest ‘went troppo’ and wiped out the nest and Edward ‘weary’ Dunlop a surgeon who risked his life on a daily basis (in many ways) for the men on the Burma railway.
Dad was indifferent to his chest full of medals (one was for bravery) but marched most ANZAC days (Veterans Day) the emphasis was on mates. Surviving war was for him about mateship…sticking by your mates and they stick by you.He often said that you quickly take the view that all you really want is to do your duty and go home as near as intact as possible.
In fact he advocated in the next war I should choose “B” Company. Be company for those who stay and be here to give company when they get back. He went a patriot and returned anti war.
It is inevitable that we should honour our military vets regardless of the theatre of war….they have risked their lives in answer to the call from the country. From this position I see no difference between them and those who do likewise at home i.e. Fire-fighters, police et sec.
How about the fiery who risks his life to dash into a burning building to save three children? Is he any less brave than the machine gun nest hero? Likewise the heroic beat cop that spends 30 years risking his life working in a dangerous area comparable to a lesser ‘weary’ Dunlop?In this way reduce the emphasis on war (legal/illegal, moral/immoral). The emphasis would be on life threatening service to the people instead of immorality of non territorial threatening wars (see Charter on just wars)
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Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 532 comments)
on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 2:32:30 AM
History indicates the need for a standing army, what we seem unable to learn is the right use of force. Currently we seem engaged in a war that strokes one man's ego and fills the pockets of many others with the treasure of our country, which happens to have been REMOVED from the pockets of the citizens. Hero's? I've been in the military and also served in the fire department and never noticed anyone doing anything we were not trained for and expected to do if the situation required. It's like calling someone with cancer a hero, they are just dealing with their reality the best they can.
I have a nephew in the Marines. He had a great time playing paintball when he was younger, now he is being prepared for his second tour in Iraq. The first one gave him the experience of having his best friend's brains splattered all over his face. Certainly he does not think he is any kind of a hero. He's not quite 20, if I live long enough I will get to see the damage that has been done to him.
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Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 332 comments)
on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 8:52:23 AM
A standing army is one thing as is the right to defend one’s self these are rights under the ‘Charter of a Just War’. This international charter doesn’t sanction adventurism or wars to enhance financial opportunities. It is these type of wars that have alienated the US and as a consequence created most of the USA’s current international problems. Think of it this way if you continually poke a snake with a stick (despite its natural reaction to flee) it will strike with the intention to eliminate the perceived threat.
If a nation has a culture of militarism and bellicosity can become self perpetuating i.e. military are revered beyond their role IN society they eventually become the reason FOR that society e.g. the ancient Spartans.
If one is to break the link with war then it must be replaced with an alternative another opportunity for ordinary people to garner community respect (Psych 201 Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Sociology 101 Theory of social interaction).
Theoretically the military are doing a job for which they’re trained. But there’s a big difference between training and the real thing. This same distinction can be made for the inherent risks for Fire fighters and Police. An enemy’s bullet can kill just as surely as friendly fire, some individual publicly going ‘postal’ or unsuspected chemicals exploding in a fire which are ‘all in a day’s work’.
I see no logical reason why their service shouldn’t be celebrated or more respected in the final analysis it’s the high risk service to society that is being recognized. Simply put not every can physically or mentally cope with such essential services so the rest of us should respect the service of those who can and do.
Medals are for service or acts of Heroism where that heroism took place are irrelevant. ‘Soldiers’ don’t choose their theatres anymore than fire-fighters choose their fires. When the latter get citations the citation don’t differentiate where the fire was (which suburb or even who it was that they may have saved) only that an act of bravery.
Why then should armed service courage be differentiated by theatre? I suspect this is for the political reasons of selling particular conflicts. My concern is for the vets after the hype has faded and all that is remembered is that the middle east war wars a war without honour.
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Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 532 comments)
on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 7:23:11 PM
This is what happens when the meaning of the awards is discredited. I got an Air Medal for hours aloft (no combat involved) and everybody in my unit wore the Distinguished Unit Citation for modest accomplishments that rarely involved any risk. Bronze Stars went to just about every officer who set foot in Vietnam. They give a Purple Heart now to noncombatants. Pat Tillman got a Silver Star to cover up his murder at the hands of his comrades. Plus, there's very little valor to recognize these days, what with the kevlar vests and shoot-first rules of engagement. Part of the destruction of the armed forces at the hands of the right wing.
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Steve Fournier (31 articles, 17 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 41 comments)
on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 11:11:11 AM
I suspect that this is why my dad was ambivilent to his medals . Two of his medals were theatre medals, one was for overseas one other was for over 4 mths military servce. But the last was for bravey...he never told me why he got it! The approach I offer would reinstate the meaning of the medals
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Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 532 comments)
on Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 7:28:56 PM
