Support the Troops?

HMTKSteve

I am putting this in flamewars because I expect it to get heated.

1. This is not a debate for the anti-war vs pro-war discussion
2. Please try to stay on topic.

One thing that has been bugging me for a while is the anti-war slogan, "support the troops by bringing them home." Let me start off by saying, as a former soldier, no one wants to be in a war zone. No one wants bullets whizzing over their head (better than through your head though) or artillery dropping left and right. However, a soldier's job is to kill people and break things.

When I hear people say, "support the troops by bringing them home," I can't help but think how misguided that statement is. Would you apply the same statement to police officers or fire fighters?

"Hey California fire fighter, those wild fires are real dangerous! I'll support you by telling you to go home and let that fire burn out."

"Hey New York City police officer, it's dangerous on those streets why don't you just hang out in the police station where you will be safe?"

Doesn't have quite the same feel to it does it? It sounds almost parental in the way it gives the impression you lack faith in the person and want to protect them rather than let them do their job.

I don't see how supporting the troops can be anything but arming and feeding them. This whole "support the troops by bringing them home" feels like a backhanded slap in the face to me. When I hear it I can't help but think that the speaker lacks any and all faith in the troops and considers them to be a bunch of kids that need protecting.

Well, am I right or wrong? Please add to the discussion and feel free to bring up other slogans used on both sides of the argument. Slogans only please.

Cremlian

Well generally people like the action that the fire fighter or police officer are accomplishing. However, when people say "bring the troops home" this is because they don't agree what the soldiers are being ordered to do. They know that the military has to do what it is told so they want to make sure more soldiers are not killed in something they don't agree with. While soldiers are meant to "kill and break stuff" they don't necessarily want to get killed in some far away place. (this is a quick explanation but I need to run off to work.)

Kilarney

I believe that every soldier that refuses to deploy should, at a minimum, be forced to repay back every dollar that they were paid by the military. I just love it when people are surprised that they might have to fight in a war after they join the army.

As for the "support the troops" argument, it's obviously a thinly veiled defense against a charge of being opposed to anti-terrorism forces. I think both sides are at fault. Fighting a war in Iraq has only increased the likelihood of terrorism in the future. However, it is not good for troop morale to have people saying that they should be home. Like it or not, we are in this war, and we ought to fight well. Morale is an important part of that.

I've spoken with several people who have served in Iraq. Each and every one has told me what an awful, amoral place it is. (And I mean how they treat each other - I expected that many would hate us.) We didn't cause that. It may not be politically correct to say it, but it's true. The culture breeds violence and hate. We may be adding fuel to the fire, but the fire was already there. Just look at how women are treated in some of these cultures. It makes apartheid look gentle. Why don't the liberals call for boycotts of these countries like they did with South Africa? I just don't get it.

bunnikun

I believe people only really say "support our troops, bring them home" because they don't agree with the war. It's more of an anti-war slogan than a bash on the troops. They don't want the soldiers fighting for a pointless cause. Why have soldiers die if we don't agree with what they're fighting for? So, in their mind, they're helping the soldiers get out of a pointless battle.

But as Kilarney said, we are in a war whether we like it or not. We should still be supporting our troops even if we don't agree on what they're fighting for.

Apreche

We want the fires out, firemen want to put the fires out. Supporting them means helping them to put the fires out, cheering them on.

Soldiers don't want to kill people and be killed. We don't want them to kill people or be killed. Supporting them means helping them out to not kill people.

Supporting someone means helping them achieve their goals. If supporting the troops meant helping them stay in the war implies that is what the soldiers want.

HungryJoe

We want the fires out, firemen want to put the fires out. Supporting them means helping them to put the fires out, cheering them on.

Soldiers don't want to kill people and be killed. We don't want them to kill people or be killed. Supporting them means helping them out to not kill people.

Supporting someone means helping them achieve their goals. If supporting the troops meant helping them stay in the war implies that is what the soldiers want.

Yes. It's a false comparison. Fire and crime are not the same as this war. Fighting fires and fighting crime are necessary. This war was completely unnecessary.

Also, even though fighting fires and fighting crime are dangerous, they're nowhere in the same league as war.

Hank

But as Kilarney said, we are in a war whether we like it or not. We should still be supporting our troops even if we don't agree on what they're fighting for.

"Support" can mean a lot of different things; I think that's the point. We shouldn't throw dog shit at them when they get back to the US, we should buy them drinks and listen to their war stories, we should thank them for offering to be the pointy end of our stick, we should make sure they have proper equipment and supplies for the mission we send them on. I am behind that, but that is not mutually exclusive with being against the war, or with being against the guys being over there.

"Support" for the troops does not extend to blindly supporting the mission the powers that be have sent them on. If a soldier's assigned mission is pointless, impossible, or evil---as some believe the war in Iraq to be---it is evil, not supportive at all, to argue for keeping that soldier in harm's way. They are not play things.

Whether or not the mission is pointless is up for debate. I didn't see "liberating" any number of Iraqis as worth the life of a single US soldier in 2003, and still don't. We have, however, broken the country and plunged it into chaos, so it could be argued we now have a responsibility to stay and to help fix it. On the other hand, we are now asking soldiers to act as policemen, which they are not trained to do. Combine that ill-defined mission with the lack of proper resources, and the "pointless, impossible, and/or evil" argument for taking the troops out starts to seem stronger.

It's a mess all around.

HMTKSteve

Soldiers don't want to kill people and be killed. We don't want them to kill people or be killed.

Yet that is the job they signed up for.

Supporting them means helping them out to not kill people.

I would say that supporting them would mean helping them kill other people while not being killed in the process.

Apreche

Yet thatisthe job they signed up for.

If you successfully argue that this war is illegal, and that the Geneva convention and many other such things are being violated, then you can go from that to saying that this is not what they signed up for, and not what they want. Thus, helping them to do what they do not want to do, and did not sign up for, is not supporting them.

Cremlian

Defending our country is not always equal to killing people.

Apreche

Defending our country is not always equal to killing people.

Also, definitely not equal to being on offense.

HungryJoe

This soldier said in Saturday's Washington Post that "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

Omnutia

1. This is not a debate for the anti-war vs pro-war discussion

How can discussion of "Support the war, bring the troops home" not involve anti-war discussion? The returning of troops is not in the interests of the troops at all.
Soldiers do not sign up to be completely safe. The (IMO) logical way to best support troops is to give them whatever they think is needed to achieve their goal. Simply removing them from the situation doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it not their problem. Only when the soldiers presence is the only and/or main problem should the removal of soldiers be the solution.
I therefore submit the argument that you that you can't support troops in doing their job by bringing them home unless their removal would solve the problem they are there to solve.
Thus the campaign to support troops by bringing them home is only in protest against the war and not he conditions of troops.

Rochelle

Being a employed by the Veterans Administration and having a Vietnam Veteran for a father and a brother who has been in Iraq several times, I personally support the troops, especially when they come home from the war.

I don't know what angers me more, the fact the war is still going on and we are creating more and more war veterans then the VA can handle and honestly can not handle for many years, or the fact that the politicians/reporters rather point fingers and make the VA look bad, but take forever and a day to finally pass our budget and when they do, it's piss poor and not enough, imo. Now, I don't know specific numbers or have links to provide with sources of information, however after 09/11 the VA was under a "continuing resolution" with our budget, in which Congress took forever to decide on what sort of budget we were going to have so we basically used the previous fiscal year's budget and went by that. Employment was pretty much on a lockdown. You had to go through a dozen hoops to hire anyone. We needed the man power back then and we still need it now to keep up with our growing numbers of veterans seeking care at the VA.

We are constantly sending veterans to go to outside providers for care, which the VA still pays for. Whenever the VA does come down into the public eye, it's mostly if not always something negative. Mind you, there were some valid things pointed out that the VA messed up on, such as recent Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom veterans not receiving the proper care or information they needed for enrolling in for VA care and benefits. I can only state from working at VA Medical Facility, we try to strive at our hardest to help any OIF/OEF veterans in enrolling them with VA care and benefits with as much ease as we can. We still are enrolling some WWII and Vietnam veterans that never been to the VA as well. Yeah there is tons of paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with, but we try our hardest to help out the Veteran. Hell, most people who work for the VA are veterans or is someone related to a veteran.

I guess my whole rant is when this all started, we knew this war was going to create a ridiculous amount of new veterans with new types of ailments and injuries at exponential rates. Did Congress or even Bush really do anything to prepare for this upcoming problem back then? No. Not in my opinion. He sure did like the idea of creating the veterans, but not really helping them when they come back home.

My brother has been sent to Iraq twice and is going to Iran in the near future. He is a pro-Bush supporter and whole heartedly believes in what he's doing is right. The arguments we get into get to almost full out yelling arguments, and he ends up calling me anti-American because someone who doesn't support Bush or the war, doesn't support the troops. I've given up on the argument with him. All I know is, I support him doing his duty for his country and for following orders, however I don't support the reasons he's being sent there.

I don't know if I made any sense, I'm honestly just bitter at all this because I see it and hear it almost everyday at work, hearing about some new complaint about the VA, when in all honesty, some of us, are trying our hardest.

Erwin

Wow, I didn't know that a sodier job was specifically to kill, I always thought that it was to protect. That made me depressed :(
I suppose I have not much saying since this is not my country but all human life is precious and each have so much potential that I believe that no one has the right to take another person's life .

TheWhaleShark

Wow, I didn't know that a sodier job was specifically to kill, I always thought that it was to protect. That made me depressed

The job of a soldier is to follow orders. It is the job of the commanders to protect the United States by ordering soldiers to perform various tasks.

My 2 cents: I support the troops fully, because they're just doing what they're told. To quote a great rapper, "They don't call the shots/But they're in the line of fire." I lay the blame for all the wrongdoings of the military squarely on the feet of those giving the orders. It's their job to protect the United States, not start wars in sovereign nations that are unrelated to an actual threat.

If you get bitten by a mosquito, you swat the mosquito. You don't swat the mosquito AND go destroy a hornet's nest too.

Omnutia

If you get bitten by a mosquito, you swat the mosquito. You don't swat the mosquito AND go destroy a hornet's nest too.

but you would if you could.