NO ONE SPEAKS FOR EVERY SOLDIER:

From AOL News:
By LARRY MARGASAK, AP

“WASHINGTON (Jan. 27) - Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.

“About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including Army Cpl. Joshua Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq.

“He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, ‘need to remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive.’”

This truly rankles me to the core. Having spent five and a half years in the U.S. Army, I learned three things:

1/ The food’s rotten!
2/ Not everyone was born with a brain!
3/ There is nothing everyone, civilian or military, agrees on.

If it were possible to bring ten of our “fallen comrades” back to life, we would undoubtedly get six to ten different opinions on what should be done in Iraq—as well as six to ten opinions on everything else in the world. While some would unquestionably champion the war in Iraq, surely a few of them would question the lunacy of sending more young people to die in what some of them would have considered an unnecessary and futile war.

However, there is no trumpet more frequently blown than: “We owe this to those who fought and died for our country. This is what they would have wanted.” Or, as is more commonly heard: “This is, or is not, what our veterans fought and died for.”

While I wasn’t around to know for sure, perhaps, during WW II, there was some kind of consensus among the soldiers. The mission seemed rather clear cut. Since that time, however, those wars we fought were, and are, highly controversial, and seemingly more the whims of the powers that be than sincere efforts to defend our country. Each individual who enters the military enters with a different perspective, a different goal, and a different attitude. No single doctrine is held as a universal truth among them.

We will never be able to stop those self-anointed sages who thump their chests and insist on speaking for all military veterans past and present. We can, however, recognize it for the self-serving drivel it is.