Most teenagers would view it as a senseless routine.
I awoke to an alarm clock that had been set to way too early an hour. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I applied liberal amounts of Brasso, a rag, and an old toothbrush to the unreachable crevices of ornate buttons and insignia to rid them of their tarnish. Next were the shoes – vigorously spit shined until they resembled black glass. Over four years, I never was able to get them to be as shiny as some of my fellow cadets – no matter how hard I tried.
Participating in Junior ROTC and considering a career in the military seemed like good ideas to me at the time. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to experience, as a teen, some of what the military had to offer because discipline, camaraderie, and respect are good things for a young person to learn. Target practice at the rifle range in the basement of the school was a bonus.
After graduation, I opted not to go into the military. It seemed too restrictive. Not in the sense of what I could do, rather I found the culture of the military too restrictive in what I could think and act upon. There are, of course, good reasons for the military to operate in this manner; they just weren’t good enough reasons for me to want to join them.
Since then, I’ve felt an affinity for our military and their plight, even though I have never served. Under peacetime conditions, they have a difficult job. In times of war, their work is dangerous. When our leaders and policies place them in untenable situations, their job becomes impossible.
We ask too much of our fighting men and women.
We give them very little in return.
The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, barely a month after the attacks of 9/11. Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks and the Taliban provided them with their base of operations, so, naturally, we invaded Afghanistan. America had good reason to be angry, and when America is angry, someone has to pay. We unleashed our might on that misguided and troubled nation.
Nearly nine years later, Al Qaeda has fled to other environs, the Taliban still controls large parts of the country, the Karzai government is ineffective outside of Kabul, and the bloody insurgency continues.
Our troops are their targets.
Presidents Bush and Obama have saddled our military with shifting strategies and nebulous goals. They are both responsible for the fix that we are now in, but they are not the only ones. All Americans share in the blame because the chief executives have acted in our name, and we have done almost nothing to stop them. As we near the nine-year anniversary of the conflict, shouldn’t we all be asking the obvious question?
Why are we in Afghanistan?
Source of Casualty Figures: iCasualties.org
It is clear that we are no longer avenging 9/11. The blood lust has waned and only the apathy of the American citizenry remains. Soldiers die and nobody seems to care – except for the loved ones of the dead, the military, and their families. This week, Lindsay Lohan, Arizona’s SB 1070, Snooki, and the women of The View have all garnered more attention than the war in Afghanistan.
Oh, Afghanistan has been in the news, but only because of the leaked documents.
Consequently, recent debate has focused on whether or not the documents should or should not have been leaked, rather than on the preposterously unfounded justifications that continue to be forwarded for our involvement in this war.
Our attention is easily diverted.
Many of the casualties of this war are almost boys – not very much older than I was when I played soldier in high school. It’s tragic that their lives have ended at a time when they should have just begun. The annual remembrance of the fallen on Memorial Day does nothing to lessen this horror.
Source of Casualty Figures: iCasualties.org
So while we live our comfortable lives and worry about our petty problems, soldiers die and nobody seems to care. The view of the war that we are spoon fed by a complicit media is sanitized for our consumption and we lap it up willingly. The more stubborn among us insist that it is in our best interest to continue the struggle. Theirs are the voices that are being heard by President Obama. The rest of us either hope, or pray, or simply shrug. There are few signs that opponents of the war are doing much else. We’ve had nearly nine years of death and destruction in this inhospitable land, seven thousand miles away, and there’s no end in sight.
Where is the sanity in that?
Ray } – 
