What it Means to be a Soldier

Blog5 What it means to be a soldier

To be a soldier today I believe teens should try to look at the whole picture.We are not at war with China.We are at war in Irag because of one name :Bush. If there wasn’t any oil there we probably wouldn’t be there just as we wouldn’t have been in Kuwait when H.W was president. Oil.Is it worth it?Kuwaitis are one of the richest countries in the world and it’s all because of oil.George H.W Bush was an oil man as was his son. Oil.

I think it must be hard for teenagers today deciding on the military. It is not my intention to bash the armed forces of this country. Great men fought in WW2 which was a united effort against defined enemies. A country had no choice. Vietnam veterans were treated like garbage when the returned home. Clinton and W. both dodged fighting and lives were and have been lost under their presidencies. I like Clinton, don’t get me wrong but it is fact that W. and Clinton avoided service when it came time to bite the bullet. Is this who teenager’s would like to fight under? Is a mealy tuition payment worth the risk of coming back as a basket case if they come back at all?

I was lucky to have no recruiters approach me in high school to serve in the military.If this was WW2 I’d go. However when we see the atrocities of Vietnam and Iraq is it really worth it? Look at Pat Tillman an X professional football player who gave up millions to serve only to be shot down by his own men. Do military recruiters give the recruit the whole story behind it, that which they covered up. With the war in Iraq every so unpopular, who wants to fight not for this country but for the Bushes?
Do recruiters tell recruits how many millions this country gave Osama Bin Laden
Or how many Bushes are fighting in the Iraq theater?

Dr. Feinman, my Ms.G, used to tell his students how proud he was to wear the uniform during the days of the great JFK.He was speaking of a different time.I think recruits should visit the military hospitals and see the care soldiers receive before making a decision.A decision that should be made consulting with level headed parents and resources.

I was recruited by the Marines and declined their offer.One of the recruiters looked trigger happy and like a real sheep. Jay Toye, God rest his soul, served in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart.He came home intact luckily and built two homes for his family.He never said I owed him anything for his service nor tried to get me to go into the service because he knew he experienced something that never should have happened and for which these veterans were never compensated.

There are many good military stories but I do not think the honor or the glory which was present in WW2 unless one is actually fighting the war on terror and not the war for oil.I believe that it takes parents, school administrators, clergy and coaches to provide the developmental assets when a teenagers is making this decision.