Wounds and Body Bags

Like my friend Ed J. says in his comment to my post, “Now I’m Starting to Worry,” the old soldier in the article was a “volunteer.” So, I guess Ed means we shouldn’t be concerned that older folks are being asked to go to Iraq and Afghanistan if they choose to go. (I don’t disagree with Ed. I think we should activate the 101st Chairborne Division. Set loose the feared “Snoring Eagles.”) But many of our troops are not volunteers. Yes, they volunteered for the military but might differ with the President on the need to patrol in Iraq, for example, in improperly armored vehicles. They didn't volunteer specifically for Iraq. They volunteered to defend their country. It’s important for those who support the “War on Terror” who haven’t been in a combat zone or had breakfast one morning with a guy who got blown up that afternoon to stick their nose a bit deeper into the reality of high explosives and projectiles. I’m of the opinion, formed during the Vietnam era, that if we are going to go to war the need should be irrefutable and  not debateable. As this article from the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates, many are paying a high price for  a very debatable neo-con geopolitical theory. View photos in the NEJM article “Caring For the Wounded in Iraq—a Photo Essay.” The photos are not pretty. That’s why everyone should look at them. In fact, it would be a good idea for the recruiters to have them in an album to show them to prospective volunteers.
While I’m riding my high (I’m a vet and you’re not) horse, here’s a sad little anecdote: On my first tour in South Vietnam I was sent on a mission to gather information from other Air Force units based in Thailand. As we landed at Nakon Phanom, I noticed that there was smoke from a wrecked A-1 fighter at the end of the runway. It had crashed on landing after taking ground fire on a mission over Laos. I was the only passenger on a C-123 cargo plane making a milk run to all the bases in Thailand. I got off for an hour and remember eating a dish of pineapple ice cream. “War isn’t so bad,” I thought. But when I got back on the airplane there was another passenger. Except he was dead and in a body bag—the pilot of the crashed A-1. He was on a stretcher racked up directly across from me. I was uncomfortable traveling with a dead guy and really didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t look away. As we took off the C-123 started to vibrate. The stretcher shook in the rack. The zipper on the side of the body bag gave way slightly and the dead pilot’s hand and arm slipped out and waved up and down with the vibration. It looked like he still had life and was trying to signal me. It was his left hand, the one with the wedding band. I looked for help but there was no one else but me. I grabbed his arm and shoved it back into the bag and secured it. We traveled together to the next base where I got off. My dead companion continued onto Bangkok for shipment home. The point of this story is that I learned experientially that people get killed in combat. Because of the pecularliar circumstance of our journey, I had to touch him. I had to be in touch with him and with the reality of the agony that his family was about to face. We all can’t touch a dead or wounded soldier. But we can, at least, look at the photos and gain, visually, an understanding of the cost.

Comments

[Ed]

While I can appreciate Randy's "I am a vet and you're not" approach in the tongue-in-cheek vein it was offered, too many people use this logical fallacy as a crutch to establish their unquestionable credibility and to disdain others not up to their perceived standing.

If that were true, then since I have not been a school principal, I can have no valid opinion regarding local school board decisions or policies. Since I have not murdered anyone, I cannot sit in judgment of an accused murderer, since I have not "walked a mile in his shoes."

Baloney. If we based all of our decisions on this standard, none of us would be qualified to vote - on anything!

As for the military and what the poor solider did or didn't sign on for, that is irrelevant. He volunteered and signed a legal, binding contract. Perhaps if he can prove that he really didn't understand that by joining the military he might have to obey some orders he disagreed with, or possibly even go to a war, well then he might get out of the military by reason of insanity.

If I put my signature on anything and then take an oath to boot, I have taken two voluntary steps of my own accord. If I didn't read the fine print on the real estate contract or the job contract, tough luck for me. So it should be for anyone who enters a legally binding contract of their own free will.

Randy, I think you give too little credit for the self-determining powers of the older veterans who are VOLUNTEERING to go back to service. You wouldn't want to be condescending to someone who is doing something you wouldn't do -now would you? ;-)

[Randy]

My point, Ed, is not about volunteering, per se. I'm more concerned about the disastrous planning by the administration which leads to a situation where we are woefully short-handed. I think it’s pathetic that folks even older than I am are being asked to volunteer and others, from what I can read, actually being called up involuntarily. I also have to argue that knowing dozens of mates killed in combat is a different, stronger, more emotionally charged experience than ‘not having been a school principal’ or ‘not having murdered someone.’ I might possibly put more weight on the opinion of a school board member regarding school policy than I would yours, even though I know you taught school years ago. Of course, you have a right to whatever opinion you wish to take. And, I always enjoy and am challenged by hearing it. What I was trying to point out in that blog was that there is a very high cost being paid in Iraq in terms of flesh and blood by our “volunteers.” It’s a cost that we should all have our noses rubbed in. Ergo, the link to the awful photos from the medical journal. Just because some guy signed a contract, the Oath of Allegiance, doesn’t mean the President ought to have the right to sacrifice him/her or their various body parts. In fact, in the Oath the President is limited by unspecified “regulations” and the UCMJ. To say that they signed on so “tough luck” if their hands get blown off is too cavalier for me and, in my opinion only, is just the kind of attitude that gets us into and keeps us in these nasty situations.