Worshipping the Military

I am writing this article on Memorial Day (May 29), a holiday set aside to honor military personal who have died, ostensibly while “defending our freedom.”

What a load of bunk.

One has to dig pretty deep into history to find examples of military personal who truly died “defending our freedom.”  The most relevant would be the Revolutionary War, where about 6800 Americans died to establish this great nation.  The next runner-up would be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, where about 2400 soldiers died (not counting civilians).  It was more of a “battle” than a “war”.  Anyway, the vast majority of those were victims who were caught off-guard - not exactly “fighting” - when the military failed to defend the homeland on that sleepy Sunday morning.

The United States has been involved in lots of other wars, both at home and abroad, where soldiers indeed died - but it is a stretch to say these wars had much to do with “defending liberty.”  Going chronologically, next would be the War of 1812, fought mainly over naval trade.  Then the Civil War was about Washington exerting its vast power to stop secession, which it said was “treason.”

World Wars I and II had little to do with American liberties at home (excluding Pearl Harbor, mentioned above), but were more about European alliances, imperialism, fascism, and nationalism.  There’s a notion making the rounds that says that if Hitler not been defeated, he would have crossed the Atlantic, then attacked, and conquered the United States (where nearly everyone owns a gun, by the way).  Thus, if not for the brave American soldiers in Europe, we’d all be speaking German.  Sorry, but that scenario lacks plausibility - bigtime.

Then there were the Asian wars in Korea and Vietnam.  These were really all about halting Communism - all while government-run wealth redistribution schemes here in America were growing like crazy.

Which brings us to the 21^st century, where most of the military conflicts involve Middle Eastern countries:  Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and all the rest.  3000 Americans died in the Sept 11 attacks, where once again the military failed to defend the homeland.  But none of those victims were military personnel on active duty.  In the aftermath, much military action occurred, most of it motivated by anger and desire for revenge, or attempting to create an American-like society in the Muslim heartland.  It also ignored the fact that “enemies” like Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden were considered “allies” in an earlier time.  4400 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, and 2400 died in Afghanistan.  Again:  their deaths had nothing to do with defending American “freedom”.

Is this where we are heading?

Meanwhile, we Americans have at least two other national holidays which are 100% all about honoring the military:  Veterans Day, and Armed Forces Day.  In a month, we will celebrate Independence Day (July 4), a holiday that originally was all about American freedom and liberty, breaking away from British authoritarianism and establishing a new nation based on minimal government.  But as of late, this noble celebration has been perverted into yet another day to worship the military -  which by the way did not yet exist back in 1776.  It all makes America look more and more like North Korea.

Are active duty military personnel presently dying on the job?  Um ... yeah, but most of these deaths have nothing to do with fighting or defending liberty or anything along those lines.  Rather, they are getting killed in training accidents.  From 2006 to 2020, over 5600 soldiers have died thusly.  On Memorial Day, we don’t hear much about those brave soldiers who lost their lives

Let me say that I have a world of respect for the men and women who don military uniforms and promise to defend our nation.  But these troops don’t make the call over where exactly they will be sent, or what it is they’re supposed to be fighting for once they get there.  Neither do they have authority to question things like safety procedures to prevent accidental deaths on the job.  That is the responsibility of the upper brass, and the elected politicians in charge. 

Let’s cut out all this silly military worship.  The Republican Party, especially, needs to remove the military from the list of non-negotiable expenses that worsen the nation debt, and that we taxpayers must cough up big bucks for.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the military authorized to fight wars outside our national boundaries.  The government could save $Hundreds of Billions each year, and the lives of countless soldiers, by re-establishing one simple principle:  the purpose of the military is to defend Americans ON American soil - period.