"Don't Call This Veteran a Hero"

[silverweb]

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I've been traveling since May 20th, read this piece during that time and meant to forward/post it, but didn't get it done. It's a little late for its intended Memorial Day audience but no less true, so I'm posting it now, even though it's late.

Don't Call This Veteran a Hero

[Victor_c3]

1. Good article

The guy who wrote it obviously knows what he is talking about as he hit several of the emotions I feel surrounding my military service right on the head.

Even though my time in the Army is a central part of my identity and so are the military awards I received, I still hate being thanked for my military service. If people knew what I did in Iraq and what the war really was about they wouldn't be thanking me, they'd turn and walk the other way or cross the street to get away from me.

[silverweb]

2. Thanks.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I know the author of this article well and yes, he does know what he's talking about. Fully understand your mixed feelings about your service.

[delphi72]

4. May I ask, then?

What DID you do in Iraq and what WAS the war really was about?

[Victor_c3]

5. I'm not sure if I'm fully prepared to answer that in suitable detail right now

The war in Iraq was never about finding weapons of mass destruction or bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. It was nothing more than an act of revenge against Muslims for the September 11th attacks. If you don't believe me, listen to people talk about what we should have done or what we should do in Iraq. You'll hear things like "turn the whole place into a glass parking lot", "kill every last one of them", "bomb them back into the stone age", "we should let our Soldiers take off their mittens and fight this like a real war" etc. If the war in Iraq was about spreading freedom, democracy, and other things we inherently believe as being good and people believed or bought into that, you wouldn't hear comments like that.

The truth is we didn't fight this war with any level of restraint. The ROE (rules of engagement) was very lax and favorable. If we felt threatened under any circumstance deadly force was authorized and generously applied. We did as we pleased in Iraq and the numbers of Iraqis killed demonstrates that. My platoon, which was far from unique in its experience, managed to kill 46-48 people and wound more than 100 during my deployment. I'm not going into an in-depth discussion about this on a semi-anonymous forum, but I can assure you that not all of those were combatants.

The war was about killing as many Muslims as possible and completely obliterating that country and, in that sense, it was a glorious success.

[unhappycamper]

3. Thanks for the article.

k&r