National Force

I have lost my former allegiance to this country, the allegiance I had while in the Army. Two reasons-- our engagement in discretionary wars and age.

At 40 with type I diabetes I'm aware of my mortality, something I didn't think of twenty years prior. No one does when they're twenty. On a voluntary basis we join the services, we remember the mock gunfights we used to have as kids, it's male fantasy, it's not really fighting. Until it is. It's acceptable when you are invincible.

Secondly I cannot willfully accept the two trillion borrowed dollars and thousands of lives for wars of enrichment, wars to preserve our excessively consumptive way of life. An extremely polarizing position to take, my view is borne from the direct application of a lifestyle not dependent on the resources of foreign nations. If we had true energy independence, please, tell me we'd be prosecuting the Iraq war.

For this reason I am not one to support our troops. I might as well stand outside a WalMart and thank every patron as they walk out, thank them for consuming, for preserving our way of life. I might as well stand outside the Texaco station, thanking each patron who fills up for their services to our nation. The actions of a solider abroad and a domestic consumer are unequivocally tied at the hip and every one of us conveniently refuses to acknowledge this link. It doesn't matter to me whether or not either one is or isn't subjected to the terrors of war. Every action the soldier, the WalMarter, or the gas pumper takes is voluntary.

It really does seem stupid, in my opinion, to wave a flag on a freeway overcrossing while a dead soldier is paraded to her grave and then to drive my car ninety miles to work and back everyday. But hey, "this is my way of life and I will wave a flag and thank that vet and consume as much foreign oil as I damn well please. This is worth dying for. Indeed, it's worth her dying for."

I would absolutely, without question, honor these sailors for their service to Haiti:

Now, to me this is an appropriate use of national force. This provides a net gain to our human existence. American national security is improved more by the actions we will take in Haiti than anything we do in Afghanistan. In my opinion, American national security is not in the slightest degree threatened by the Taliban.

Problem is, while the American public cheers and throws parades for every C-130 going overseas to fight in countries that half of us can't find on a globe, we will ignore the real and valued impacts many of our service members will make in our own hemisphere. If we did this instead, perhaps I'd feel better about being an American. Perhaps I'd retain some allegiance towards our nation.