Precious Little Glory

I'm in Tallil again, for the moment.

Been a while--still trying to lay low. Started working on a book--a children's story, actually. Things are quiet--haven't been attacked since last I was in Balad, when we took direct fire in our mortar pool, aimed at the guard tower across the road from us. After you hear it once, trust me, the sound of a passing bullet never fails to make your heart seize.

I've been thinking about this war, and about the events of the last couple of months. I was kind of put off by the flood of fanatics who suddenly began slandering and threatening me at every available opportunity, and now I see talk that they've done it again, to a blogger writing under the pen name of Scott Thomas.

The people who, in each case, have attacked us most ardently were those who would have presented themselves as being our country's most ardent supporters of "the Troops." And yet, nothing I can find in my old comments section really strikes me as having been all that supportive. Unless in that definition, you include death threats and threats of career repercussions (How Stasi).

I suppose the first thing with which I should take issue is this whole concept of "the Troops." Why does it never seem like "The Troops" as a phrase never refers to individual soldiers overseas, but rather some amorphous band of superheroes distinguished only by their respective service uniforms? Why do I hear endlessly about how much people support us, without hearing that people have any real understanding of what our jobs are like?

Supporting "The Troops" has become one of those examples of cultural conditioning. Too often, I find, it has nothing to do with actual "support."

It's easy to "support" us. We're your sons and daughters; your husbands and wives and children. Of course those of you with ties support us--you love us, and pray for our safety, and eagerly await our return. Believe me, that kind of support we appreciate.

And yet, the ones I hear trumpeting their support the loudest never actually know us. They've never seen us outside of a recruiting office, or a John Wayne movie. They're not supporting us as human beings. They're supporting us, it seems, more as warfighters, as resources to be allocated. They support us only insofar as we support their cultural agenda. They support us as cannon fodder. They cease to support us when we tire of not seeing our familes. They cease to support us when we try to differentiate between the moral high grounds of various wars. These people see us as tools, and idols, and whenever we do something that doesn't fit their highly narrow and simplified worldview, they attack us like rabid dogs.

These days, it seems, "supporting the troops" has become a Pavlovian response. You hear it brought up in conversation, and suddenly you have to trump up your own patriotism, lest you risk isolation from your friends. What is this? Imagine that, whenever someone mentioned the American flag in conversation, you were suddenly required to bow your head, plug your left nostril with one finger, and mimic a kazoo rendition of "Under the Big Top?" Imagine further, then, that people felt it necessary to embellish their personal renditions with ever-more-extravagant flourishes and interludes? Would this reaction seem any more silly to anyone? Would anyone notice any less that, ultimately, it's still the same damned song played on the nose-flute?

The people I find supporting us the most passionately--and attacking our dissenters the most venomously--all share common traits. They belong to a cross-section of America whose worldview and moral infrastructure is based on one similar to that held in 1950s America. It's a form of capitalist nationalism, and it's hallmarks rest on the assumption of American economic, military, and religious superiority at all cost. It also, simultaneously, assumes that America is under constant attack from entities who want to see its primacy on the world stage brought to an end. These enemies are supposedly both without and within, and so it's easy to accuse anyone who disagrees with your ideals of being one of them. In the world of psychology--an area where I am admittedly no expert--is this not called paranoia?

The people I find "supporting" us the most passionately, it seems are the same people who watch nothing but old war films, and read only Tom Clancy spin-offs, and read no periodicals save for Soldier of Fortune and Armchair General. Meanwhile, the people who really support me--my parents, my wife, my friends--are accused of "emboldening the enemy" if they question the idea that maybe their soldier's life is worth more than some fading president's legacy in the Middle East. Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?

I once heard a young pro-war conservative pundit justify his own lack of service by saying this: "Just because I support the team doesn't mean I have to wear the uniform." That's true, I respond. But until you get up your privileged lily ass off that couch, and get out on the diamond, the actual significance of the game means nothing to you. You don't see the training, the struggle, the sacrifice. All you want is to share in the glory, without actually suffering the consequences.

Well guess what. There is precious little glory in this line of of work. There hasn't been a site recon for me in months. I am scrambling to help my leaders assemble critical MOS-specific equipment, much of which that remains in theater lies unserviceable. I am tired, I am hot, I am lonely. I feel less like a hero and more like so much grist for the mill; doomed to an endless cycle of 15 month troop rotations and doomed to spend more of my marriage in a misguided war than at home with Anne.

I love my job, and I am determined to be the finest soldier in my section. But I am tired of war. I am tired of loneliness, and fear, and sand. I am tired of feeling like the American public looks at me for a soap-opera-and-horse-race. And I am especially tired of having my professionalism or patriotism questioned by people who will never serve, or be able to let go of the fact that they did.