Memorial Day and Morale – Where Do We Go From Here?

DO AVERAGE AMERICANS APPRECIATE MILITARY SACRIFICE?

by Cody Robert Judy, ©2015, blogging at CodyJudy

(May 24, 2015) — A rather stunning SPECIAL REPORT U.S. MILITARY AND CIVILIANS ARE INCREASINGLY DIVIDED By DAVID ZUCCHINO AND DAVID S. CLOUD dawned today from the Los Angeles Times that revealed some very big problems that we have in America today that I feel really do need to be addressed in the public arenas of politics and popularity. This weekend being Memorial Day Weekend, and as we remember with heart felt gratitude those who have given their last breath in the service, dying in the line of duty in our Armed Forces, “giving all”, it seems a good time.

Reading the article, one grasps a real sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly presenting a very real and rare picture opposite the sugar coated perspectives we oft times find accompanies journalism today. By that I mean I don’t think you’d find the Military Brass and military families completely happy with what is written, nor is the Civilian Population going to find the article not tugging away in their conscience of increasingly insincere platitudes. Just highlighting very briefly a couple of the grim reapers to give you a sense of what I’m talking about without spoiling your own read of the article:

George Baroff‘s a 90 year old draftee of WWII as a Veteran posed a view: “..today’s all-volunteer military has been robbed of the sense of shared sacrifice and national purpose that his[my] generation enjoyed six decades ago. Today’s soldiers carry a heavier burden, he said, because the public has been disconnected from the universal responsibility and personal commitment required to fight and win wars.” “For soldiers today, the war is never over; the enemy is never defeated.” The result he added, is “a state of perpetual anxiety that the rest of the country doesn’t experience.”

Phillip Ruiz, 46 year old Army staff sergeant wounded twice during three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq said: “So many people give you lip service and offer fake sympathy. Their sons and daughters aren’t in the military, so its not their war. Its something that happens to other people”

Douglas Pearce a former Army Lieutenant said civilians seem to think they “can assuage their guilt with five seconds in the airport.” “What they’re saying is, “I’m glad you served so that I didn’t have to, and my kids won’t have to.”

The combining sentiment of all three of these statements might be more difficult to attribute to “Honor” or “Gratitude” for the opportunity to serve, then say, “Frustration” and or a “Disheartening dispiritedness”, but through these I sense a much greater sense of “Concern” and “Love” at the root of their hearts. There were statements made within the article also of civilians just as impervious and disparaging to the understanding of what exactly they are missing in serving in the military that does the population no favors as to the reasons we find such statements coming out of the military.

These are of course the ramifications of what we would call a “Job”, rather then a “Service” in the necessary circumstances of a voluntary Armed Forces – meaning there was no “Draft” or “Conscription”, we have today. Civilians now look at the voluntary means of which one enters the Military as “Employment”, no different then they had to do in filling out an application for their job. Of course their “job” comes with an occasional office party and award also and can be considered a ‘service to the community’ just as easily as any position in the military, where someone has the ability to say “I quit”, “I retire”, “I’m not going to do this anymore”, or even “Take this job and shove it.”

We all get up and do a job of some sort that are not necessarily honored with parades, or greetings, or a lot of fan fair to keep up our morale. Why does the voluntary military service of our Armed Forces require more than what we do serving in our regular civilian jobs that are all necessary to keep society running smoothly, and incorporating the tax money necessary to pay them for their jobs?

This actually is the dis-service or dis-connect of “value” inappropriately attributed to an ego of dis-connect rather than managed or taught as a connection of mutual appreciation. The “My JOB is MORE important then YOUR JOB” syndrome that is a division of classless enmity and that is the dereliction that leads to “might is right” rather than the protection of “individual rights.” Of course there is a balancing act that needs to be mastered every day and that it is where improvement and skill can be made. When the first is honored by the last, and the last is honored by the first, a mutual respect and honor is equally observed and provides a real joy. That joy is the greatest morale booster known to man.

Read the rest here.