A New Word

Un-volunteering.

When certain groups want to white-wash ugly character traits such as cowardice, deceitfulness, shiftlessness, immaturity etc., new words must be coined. Does the new word contain its own contradiction? This is irrelevant to the coiners. All that matters is that the coward is “redeemed” somehow or is recast as a figure of empathy/sympathy.

Just for clarity’s sake:

1. Fear does not equal cowardice. It’s what one does in the face of fear that determines whether or not one is a coward.

2. Someone who won’t volunteer for military service isn’t a coward.

3. Draftees who dodge the draft aren’t necessarily cowards. Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War. Did the rich, resourceful then-heavyweight champion run off to Canada? No, he stayed and suffered the consequences of his actions. That’s what adults with backbone do.

4. Military volunteers who later apply for Conscientious Objector Status aren’t necessarily cowards. Applicants, however, must wait for approval. This means that if you are given any orders in the intervening time period, you must follow them. To be blunt, the CO application doesn’t give a guy license to stay home hiding behind his wife's skirts when his unit is shipping out.

Look at it this way: if you volunteered for the military without thinking it through, why is the military supposed to believe that you’ve thought through the decision to apply for CO status?

5. Those volunteers who were willing to bear the consequences of the good aspects about the military, but balk at the bad aspects are most definitely cowards.

Time to grow up, children, and face reality.

(Thanks to James Joyner, whose also got a Beltway Traffic Jam)

Comments

[Arnold]

Wouldn't a tour in the Texas "champaign regiment" while supporting major combat in Viet Nam count as the same type of cowardice? How about making a war to remove WMD ...oops -I mean Iraqi freedom while ignoring verifiable genocide in Sudan because the poll numbers show it woudlnt be popular with "the base"? Even Evangelicals are out in front on this.

[baldilocks]

No.

And do try to use the search function on this site. I dispatched those kool-aid dribblings long ago.

[Fred Schoeneman]

Baldi,

Interesting point about Ali. I have respect for people who faced prison as a protest over war. I don't consider it "dodging," as I think that's a term best reserved for people who used college deferments or simply manipulated the system without paying any price at all.

I don't have much patience with CO's. I think it's a bunch of crap. The same people who "advise" young people on how to put together a CO package aren't actually CO's themselves, but people who simply disagree with the Bush administration.

f

[arnold]

I will attempt to use your search function which you mentioned but I think you will have to figure out how to make it work properly first.

[baldilocks]

Just tested it, Arnold. It works fine on this end.

[Synova]

It works just to scroll say down until you see "The Last Word on AWOL" on the side bar. Excellent article.

The son of a friend had joined the Marines, had second thoughts before leaving for basic training and managed to get out of it and joined the Air Force instead. It's the sort of thing young people are likely to do... dad gets on your case and you decide to make a statement and do the thing most likely to annoy dad and then regret it. So now he's about to head off to Security Police school and has a guarenteed tour in Afghanistan or Iraq following. His dad finds this amusing. ;-)

Even though it was before the Marines invested in his training, it's still not admirable. He'd given his word. And at least he's going to serve in another way.

Anyone smart enough to pass the ASVAB is smart enough to figure out that being in the military means you might have to fight a war, and no promise it won't be a stupid war either. Unaccompanied tours are a sure thing. Deciding that this isn't fun anymore and expecting to be excused is infantile. (As if everyone else *likes* to get shot at and you're just special.)

[StinKerr]

I only ever knew one CO while I was in the Navy (67-73). Leo got deeply involved in his religion and decided to file for CO status.

He stayed and did his duty while pursuing CO status. He never "fought the system" or dissented in any way. He was dependable and a good shipmate and, other than filing the CO papers, caused no problems at all. Rather than just talk the talk, he lived the life his beliefs prescribed and he succeeded.

People deserting to miss unit movment are deserters. Filing for CO status after the fact is just an attempt to escape responsibility for their actions.

I note in the article that they proclaim that the "...Marines reported about 1,300 deserters in December, some of whom disappeared last year and others years earlier." [emph mine] The writer get a little sloppy at the end there, not saying how far back "years earlier" goes. I suggest that it's many years, maybe back as far as the 50's, and that the number of recent deserters is actually quite small.

[StinKerr]

Arnold,

Why aren't you out in the streets promoting the cause of Darfur? Agitate for more action there. I say 'more' because we are already bombing Darfur...with food and humanitarian aid.

Forget Iraq, democracy has won another one. You lost, Iraqis are free, get over it.

[Synova]

StinKerr, I saw something similar about thousands of deserters (though I don't remember what service, etc.) and someone made a good point... how many no-shows are normal? If someone is going to make a point about how many military members are deserting because of non-support for the war the numbers are meaningless unless the number is given for how many idiots don't show for deployment or just quit showing up to work during peacetime.

[StinKerr]

Synova,

We're not going to get real numbers, especially when they are filtered through a "journalist" with an agenda, as in the case noted above.

I just remembered something that happened on my first ship: Just before we were to deploy to the Mediterranean we had 23 guys go AWOL.

The crew on this Destroyer numbered about 250. That meant that nearly 10% of our crew went over the hill. At one point they stationed a guard on the 01 level torpedo deck to keep people from jumping ship. It made no difference.

We weren't going to war, we were making a peacetime Med cruise. Imagine what today's MSM would have done with that bit of information.

We made movement on time by drafting personnel from other ships in our homeport. You just know that they gave us their best *cough* *cough*.

The Kenneth D. Bailey (DDR-713) was not a happy ship. The officers were looting the welfare and rec fund, the equipment was older than most of the crew and the command structure had enough attitude that it made life miserable for everyone.

I doubt if any of the AWOLs technically deserted (i.e. stayed gone more than 30 days). I assume that they turned themselves in after we were gone, took some non judicial punishment and got assigned to another ship.

This occurred in 1969 before Admiral Zumwalt and his famous Z-Grams made such a big improvement in the life of the enlisted sailor.

I served on three other ships after that and never saw anything like that happen again. There was the occasional fool who didn't make muster, including me getting up late one morning, but I can't recall anyone missing movement.

[wayne]

I was on a yahoo message board the other day commenting on Ted Rall's latest uttering and this poster (child for something) was complaigning about how the folks he knew in the military were getting out because they were offended that they might get killed while serving. Also it was apparent that he (or she) lived in one of those places where "everyone" believes that this (and any other) war is wrong and the whole "Bush is evil, Bush doesn't care if people are getting killed" drek.

Simple truth...when put on the uniform, you make the choice that you might get killed. The idea is that if 10,000 folks in uniform get killed, it is so that 10,000 or one or millions of civilians don't get killed. Putting on the uniform means you are making your life less valuable than everyone elses. BUT IT IS YOUR CHOICE TO DO SO KNOWING THE CONSEQUENCES.

I really don't have much sympathy for the view of folks that don't understand that being in uniform means that while you are in it you ARE dead. You just fight as hard and as smart as you can not to be dead today. We have won the great victories in the past only when the people (especially those in uniform) understood this. The folks who are proud of what they are doing and who are staying in Iraq believe in what they are doing.

They are seeing that they make a difference in the world. The folks that don't see this bail when their enlistment is up. It seems as if the folks this guy knows are amongst those. It is too bad he hasn't had the chance to spend the time with some of the others. I think that much of the problem with the folks on the left (who talk so much about how the government is destroying the world and threatening their freedom) is that they only know and talk to people who agree with them and hate and disparage those who don't. Maybe the ones who believe in what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't stupid and wrong. Maybe they understand the world in a way that few people here do.