{"id":29488,"date":"2018-01-07T11:27:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T16:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29488"},"modified":"2018-01-07T11:27:33","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T16:27:33","slug":"lies-we-tell-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29488","title":{"rendered":"Lies We Tell Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lies We Tell Ourselves<\/a><\/h3>\n
Pixabay<\/a><\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
\nBut young men think it is, and we were young.<\/em>
\n\u2014 A. E. Housman, 1859-1936<\/p>\n

Seven of my soldiers are dead. Two committed suicide. Bombs got the others in Iraq and Afghanistan. One young man lost three limbs. Another is paralyzed. I entered West Point a couple of months before 9\/11. Eight of my classmates died \u201cover there.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Military service, war, sacrifice\u2014when I was 17, I felt sure this would bring me meaning, adulation, even glory. It went another way. Sixteen years later, my generation of soldiers is still ensnared in an indecisive, unfulfilling series of losing wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Niger\u2014who even keeps count anymore? Sometimes, I allow myself to wonder what it\u2019s all been for.<\/p>\n

I find it hard to believe I\u2019m the only one who sees it. Nonetheless, you hear few dissenting voices among the veterans of the \u201cglobal war on terror.\u201d See, soldiers are all \u201cprofessionals\u201d now, at least since Richard Nixon ditched the draft<\/a> in 1973. Mostly the troops\u2014especially the officers\u2014uphold an unwritten code, speak in esoteric vernacular and hide behind a veil of reticence. It\u2019s a camouflage wall as thick as the \u201cblue line\u201d of police silence. Maybe it\u2019s necessary to keep the machine running. I used to believe that. Sometimes, though, we tell you lies. Don\u2019t take it personally: We tell them to each other and ourselves as well.<\/p>\n

Consider just three:<\/p>\n

1. Soldiers don\u2019t fight (or die) for king, country or apple pie. They do it for each other, for teammates and friends. Think Henry V\u2019s \u201cband of brothers.\u201d In that sense, the troops can never be said to die for nothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lies We Tell Ourselves Pixabay Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young. \u2014 A. E. Housman, 1859-1936 Seven of my soldiers are dead. Two committed suicide. Bombs got the others in Iraq and Afghanistan. One young man lost three limbs. Another is paralyzed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[204,338,2864,525,655,8738,862],"class_list":["post-29488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-democracy","tag-freedom","tag-lies","tag-military","tag-propaganda","tag-truthdig","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29489,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488\/revisions\/29489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}