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On 18 Jun 2005 09:06:11 -0700, wrote:

With all due respect Chuck, the troops are the war. You can't hate
one and love the other - they are one and the same.

**********
And with equal respect, that's not correct.

Surely you remember Viet Nam?

I was there.- '67 through ''69 - 1st Marine Division.

By the end of that mess, something like 80% of the public was sick of
either the flawed motivations for the war or the inept way it was being
prosecuted. When the troops came home, the were often shunned, and
sometimes even abused, by a portion of the people who opposed the war
that the troops had been sent to fight. That was wrong, but the excuse
that the bad actors who gave the troops such grief when they arrived at
home relied on *exactly* the same
logic, (in reverse). "The troops are the war. They cannot be separated.
If you support the troops you must support the war, and if you oppose
the war you cannot respect the draftees that were
hauled off to fight in it."

And they were exactly right.

One of the lessons we should have learned from Viet Nam is that the
troops don't make the policy, they simply go where they are sent and do
the job they are ordered to do. I don't blame the troops for the war
in Iraq. Nobody yearns for peace more than a soldier. I can freely say,
"Mr or Ms Troop, while I disagree with the national foreign policy that
has sent you to fight in Iraq I respect your service to your country
and that you are obeying your orders to do your duty
in a perilous situation. I wish you a safe, and speedy, return."

Wishing somebody a safe and speedy return is entirely different from
honoring and respecting the very people who are paid to kill people
and break stuff. That's most of the problem I see when I talk to
troopers who return - the problem of reconciling the warrior's code
with peace, love and happiness.

You cannot separate the two - war is the army - it's the reason an
army exists - it has no other function in society. It's been that way
since the first protohumans began fighting over the T REX that one
gang found and killed. Sometimes it takes an old grunt like me to put
it into perspective for them.

I've spent a lot of time studying war and have come to believe that it
is the essential state of civilization - without it, we would still be
living in caves. All things are, in fact, conflict of one sort or
another after all.

I suspect that we will not come to a meeting of the minds on this
issue, so we will have to agree to disagree. :)

All the best,

Tom