On a more serious note, I don't support the troops because of the sense in which most people wave the flag and write, type, and paste "support the troops". What does supporting the troops really mean? Does it mean supporting their mission? Does it mean supporting them unquestionably no matter what the individual character of the soldier is? And does "support the troops" sometimes mean that if you disagree with the missions in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the myriad other places our troops are, that you are Anti-American, and that you want them to fail, in essence die?
I don't support the troops because I want them out of most of the places they are in. To me that is supporting the troops. It's taking them out of harms way when they don't need to be. It's supporting the ones who have done their job when they come back home, instead of letting them fall into physical and psychological despair. It's prosecuting the ones who savagely murder innocent civilians, or who defile and debase their remains. Supporting the troops is not just pasting a bumper on your car, and instead voting, canvassing, and lobbying for more support for veteran's hospitals and health care. It's supporting just causes and judicious use of the military, not as a tool for imperialistic expansion, and world hegemony. It's not supporting crazy gun toters who get a thrill off of shooting innocent civilians like they are white tailed deer.
Support the Troops has become a mantra for the right and the propaganda that they have spread. We are in the midst of a new era ( I hope) in America, it will take years to overturn the civic regression this country has been experience lately, but there is just something about "Support the Troops" that really really bothers me. This country is obsessed with guns, the military, and beating up the rest of the world. Call me a pacifist, but I find every war debatable from a "just cause" standpoint, and I think this mantra only fuels the fire.
What is it about the soldier that they have always been glorified. The American worker does just as much, if not more, than the American soldier to help build this country (Though they are essentially in the same category; Soldiers are workers) Why not a "Support the Worker" bumper sticker. I must say I greatly respect the World War II generation, even the Vietnam vets, because most of those soldiers had no choice. The one's who were drafted just put their heads down and went to war as a duty, there is something that a person has to respect about that. Though the world politics that surround these events are disgraceful, and wrongful on both sides, you have to respect a man or woman that does something they may not want to because they are called up.
So maybe I do support the troops, I just don't "support the troops". I support the troops like I support my mom or dad going to work, nobody wants to do it really, but they have to in order to survive. And who doesn't want those men and women to come back safely? And leaving a quagmire isn't disgraceful for the troops. That prospect is nonsense, but what isn't is the fact that it is dishonorable that they have been used like pawns for all of history, especially in recent American history. Rich men and women make war, and the poor generally fight them, and then they are cast aside like the dispensable worker in civilian society. You want to support the troops? Stop saying it with a bumper sticker, and start questioning the pretense for any war, question authority, and just think about the power "support the troops" had for our incompetent former president. It squelched dissent and honest debate, it was used as a weapon, and that's why I don't "support the troops".
