Memorial Day 2007
Memorial Day 2007 I offer to Andrew Bacevich for the loss of his son in the war
Son of professor opposed to war is killed in Iraq - The Boston Globe. They were both soldiers; father and son. Andrew J. Bacevich Sr. university professor and conservative critic of the war. A graduate of West Point and veteran of the Vietnam and First Gulf Wars. First Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich Jr. A graduate of Boston University, participant in its ROTC program, and onetime aide to former Governor Romney
Romney recalls former aide killed by IED in Iraq - Local & Regional - BostonHerald.com. The honorable Mitt Romney who for years was governor of Massachusetts my native state and now spits on it at every occasion he can find. There were those who could not resist chiding Mr. Bacevich with words and positions he has said and taken over the past few years
What's an Iraqi Life Worth? - washingtonpost.com. Clinging to the line that to speak of anything less than total absolute victory is so much aid to the enemies. These attacks at such a time are nothing less than wicked and reveal much of those behind them. For these Andrew Bacevich has appropriate answer "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty." Andrew Jr. finally made it into the army in 2005. Entering as a private and later getting accepted into OCS two years after he graduated from Boston University, when the Army relented and began taking individuals with asthma. He was in Bilad Iraq when he was killed on 13 May 2007
Following war tragedy, son and father revered - The Boston Globe. On Memorial day we remember the soldiers. For those who have died. I only ask that these deaths not be hidden. So that all are aware of the sacrifice of those families who have lost someone, for we are all equal all one in our citizenship. For those who are still in this war, for those who will tell us what attitudes need to be held to be properly supporting the Troops. I will say again from my own experience we needed - they need - nothing. When you are in uniform You do your job. You trust that your effort, time, and lives are not being wasted. That you are not in the hands of fools. You believe the public to be behind you; if you are engaged in a just and purposeful struggle (thats a hard and not a soft and meaning and/or). You need nothing more from the people - the public than if they do not believe in the fight, you expect they will bring you home. You do not make your meals on home opinion. Whether it is wan disconcern, wide eyed support, inflated hubris and animosity toward those you fight (on your behalf), or anything in-between. Simply put: you do not wish to be a tool. This brings us to the other memorial day question, the implicit one: When Americans are dying. Why are we dying? This is the question Andrew Bacevich has spent a career trying to answer. To those who speak glibly about the world war we are fighting. Is this the Third, Fourth or Fifth currently we fight. Why do our current political leaders have the view of the military machine they do: A gleaming and omnipresent instrument? Not dissimilar to the Charles Rhodes conception of the British Army and Navy; not too close or ever that far away. Bacevich believes [and set forth in a Wilson Quarterly piece,
THE REAL WORLD WAR IV] that in our nations recent past we looked into the abyss. The darkness of this abyss was change, that America might not always grow ever richer and ever hold higher standards of living than everyone else. The darkness we thought we saw was the darkness of being unsure of access to the energy from hydrocarbon extraction in the reserve fields of the middle east which we needed for our accostomed way of living. Our leaders responding to this made the middle east a new and paramount national security priority. And they set up a new national security system to deal with it. Explicitly to deal with it as a military problem. To save us from change they engendered change. Andrew Bacevich expanded this theme in a recent book The new American militarism : how Americans are seduced by war. With the course they chose they committed this county to timocracy and an endless run of wars. It is a minor and sad irony that the army eventually formed was so hampered by grotesque over-management by an array of arrogant and incompetent leaders. That a certain inaptitude for imperialism is suggested, A brief moment for a potential reexamination of the vision of the future to which we are committed.
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