Chris,
Following the controversy over your remarks
about whether automatically calling all soldiers heroes doesn’t get in the way
of us having an open and honest conversation of how and when we should use our armies;
I was surprised at how upsetting I found many of the chauvinistic,
knee-jerk reactions to what you said.
I thought that your remarks where intelligent,
meaningful, respectful and necessary. I’m sorry that you felt the need to apologize
for them. Let me explain.
I served as a platoon commander in
the armored corps of the IDF during the second half of the 90’s. I was
repeatedly deployed in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel’s security zone in
southern Lebanon. My soldiers and I often talked about the disparity we felt
between serving in what was a war zone when at the same time civilians were
leading normal lives, often only miles away. We felt this most strongly when
coming home to Tel Aviv on weekend furloughs while stationed in southern
Lebanon. Many of us asked how could people just go about their daily lives as
if nothing is happening while we are getting injured and killed.
I always thought that that was the
point of having an army. With universal conscription, everyone (in theory at
least) spends three or four years of their lives in the army to protect
civilian society so that when they get out of the army, they can live a normal
civilian existence. By shouldering the burden of defense for a limited amount
of time we where allowing the existence of a vibrant, liberal democracy where
people could ask difficult questions about how we should treat our military. I
risked my life so that your Israeli counterparts could question why my soldiers
and I were being sent to Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. I most definitely did
not risk my life so that I could get false respect from macho militarists, most
of whom wouldn’t recognize the shooting end of a rifle if was staring them in
the face.
On November 23, 1998, during a
battle with Hezbollah, my tank was hit by multiple anti-tank rockets and I was
injured. For 7 days straight I was in both major daily newspapers, being called
every kind of hero. I was thoroughly embarrassed. I didn’t feel like a hero. I
just didn’t get out of the way of the rockets in time.
You’re right, when you say that not
everyone is made out to serve in the military and that goes double for combat
units. It’s physically demanding but then so is working in agriculture or
construction, so that doesn’t make us heroes. You need to be able to eat a lot
of shit, which certainly doesn’t make you a hero. You spend most of your time
bored out of your mind while waiting for something to happen, which doesn’t
make you much except for a little twitchy. And you have to love your comrades
enough so that you don’t think twice about endangering your life in order to
keep them safe. It is that camaraderie that makes serving in a combat unit a privilege
rather than a burden.
I’ve found that the people who
called us heroes and went out of their way to celebrate our service, were for
the most part the same people most enthusiastic to go to war and at the same
time the least likely to serve in combat units. The way to honor our troops is
by paying them a decent wage, taking care of their families, making sure they
have the equipment and the training they need to do their jobs, paying for
their college education, giving them citizenship, properly funding VA, healing
their injuries (both physical and mental), understanding that our responsibility
towards them does not end when they are discharged and continually asking
ourselves if the wars we send them to are absolutely necessary.
That is respect. The rest is just
so much hot air.
Thank you for your service, Chris.
You honor us with the tough questions you ask.
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