Wednesday, August 22, 2007
REMFs and Cannon Fodder
I've been really, really, really bad about posting. Sorry about that.
I have been busy, however. My job takes me all over Iraq, which generally means spending six or so hours getting ready to travel followed by one to four hours flying to a random base somewhere in Iraq in a Blackhawk or a Chinook helicopter to spend about three hours trainign soldiers how to run a computer system (sorry, I can't be more specific), and then a repeat of the seven to ten hours of travel on the way back. My hours in general are long: even in the office at beautiful Camp Slayer I'm expected to be in my seat for twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
Also, there's a real bias against blogging, the media, and the rest of the non-U.S. military world here. I could well imagine losing my job over D&F, especially considering how much angrier I've become at this stupid war, our stupid President, his stupid party, our stupid military, its stupid defense contractors, and our stupid country. Some of the things I've wanted to write here have bordered on treason. This is why I am writing this at 4 o'clock in the morning.
But such is the heat of the moment. On more careful reflection, I do still think that America is essentially good, in its ideals if not its actions. Most republicans don't want to destroy everything that's good about America, they are merely mistaken in the way they approach problems, and some of those ways can only lead to, well, destroying everything that is good about America. And the military is, still, largely peopled by those who would rather be anywhere but here, and don't actually think that the solution to the world's problems isn't nuclear.
If that last one sounded a bit far-out to you, as in, "I'm sure there aren't any soldiers who would advocate that," I assure you it's an opinion that is within the acceptable range over here. I've had the "why nuking the entire Middle East is a bad idea" conversation many times since I've been over here. More mainstream is the idea that we really ought to "take the gloves off" and bomb them Dresden-style.
I am here to tell you that no amount of arguing this point gets through to these people. Tell them that carpet bombing backfired big-time in Vietnam, and they'll respond with, "America didn't lose Vietnam, the news media was responsible for us pulling out when we were on the verge of victory." Tell them it's morally repugnant to kill innocent women and children and they will tell you that war is hell and besides, they're all enabling the insurgency anyway, which is to say, there's no such thing as an innocent Iraqi. Tell them that if America does that, it ceases to be American in the truest sense of the term, and they respond that we are fighting the terrorists over here so that we won't have to fight them in America (i.e., there won't be any America at all). At this point they start to suspect that I'm a liberal, and then I know the conversation is going nowhere. Reasoning with these people is useless.
What's interesting to me about this mindset, besides the obvious appeal of getting inside the brains of people who genuinely believe that genocide can make the world a better place, is that these would-be mass murderers tend to all be the sorts of soldiers and contractors who have never actually seen a shot fired in anger. I speak here of the people who sit in their cubicles all day analyzing this war, the people who spend their entire deployments pumping gas or driving around the FOB, the people who will go back to the States after their deployment and wow their friends with stories of the mortar that just barely missed them, the people who were once referred to as REMFs (Rear-Echelon MotherF*****s).
It is these people, the out-of-touch, the wannabe politicians, who are so willing to contemplate sending others to slaughter the "enemies of freedom." Those they would send, the infantrymen and other cannon fodder, generally express something more human when talking about this war. They hate firing their weapons, they hate clearing dead bodies, they hate what they have to do here. It's as if, and I know this sounds unbelievable but bear with me, the people who have actually killed Iraqis find the prospect of killing even more of them unappealing. They see the gravity of their actions.
One more thing: the REMFs tend to be the only ones who still believe Iraq isn't already a completely lost cause, and they generally still think invading Iraq was a wise decision. One even told me that Bush 43 is one of the greatest Presidents ever. You don't hear that very often from the foot soldiers.
I paint here with a broad brush, but this has been the general trend in the discussions I have had here. The computer dweebs are all about carnage, the soldiers just want to go home.
Unfortunately I work with a bunch of REMFs. There comes a point where holding your tongue is necessary to being able to fuction in the workplace. I generally register an objection to this kind of talk and let it go, knowing that pursuing the conversation wouldn't get us anywhere except someplace less congenial. But I have to admit that I die a little every time I encounter this phenomenon.
http://www.forret.com/tools/trackback.asp?title=REMFs and Cannon Fodder&blog_name=Decline and Fall&url=http://www.declineandfall.net/2007/08/remfs-and-cannon-fodder.html
I have been busy, however. My job takes me all over Iraq, which generally means spending six or so hours getting ready to travel followed by one to four hours flying to a random base somewhere in Iraq in a Blackhawk or a Chinook helicopter to spend about three hours trainign soldiers how to run a computer system (sorry, I can't be more specific), and then a repeat of the seven to ten hours of travel on the way back. My hours in general are long: even in the office at beautiful Camp Slayer I'm expected to be in my seat for twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
Also, there's a real bias against blogging, the media, and the rest of the non-U.S. military world here. I could well imagine losing my job over D&F, especially considering how much angrier I've become at this stupid war, our stupid President, his stupid party, our stupid military, its stupid defense contractors, and our stupid country. Some of the things I've wanted to write here have bordered on treason. This is why I am writing this at 4 o'clock in the morning.
But such is the heat of the moment. On more careful reflection, I do still think that America is essentially good, in its ideals if not its actions. Most republicans don't want to destroy everything that's good about America, they are merely mistaken in the way they approach problems, and some of those ways can only lead to, well, destroying everything that is good about America. And the military is, still, largely peopled by those who would rather be anywhere but here, and don't actually think that the solution to the world's problems isn't nuclear.
If that last one sounded a bit far-out to you, as in, "I'm sure there aren't any soldiers who would advocate that," I assure you it's an opinion that is within the acceptable range over here. I've had the "why nuking the entire Middle East is a bad idea" conversation many times since I've been over here. More mainstream is the idea that we really ought to "take the gloves off" and bomb them Dresden-style.
I am here to tell you that no amount of arguing this point gets through to these people. Tell them that carpet bombing backfired big-time in Vietnam, and they'll respond with, "America didn't lose Vietnam, the news media was responsible for us pulling out when we were on the verge of victory." Tell them it's morally repugnant to kill innocent women and children and they will tell you that war is hell and besides, they're all enabling the insurgency anyway, which is to say, there's no such thing as an innocent Iraqi. Tell them that if America does that, it ceases to be American in the truest sense of the term, and they respond that we are fighting the terrorists over here so that we won't have to fight them in America (i.e., there won't be any America at all). At this point they start to suspect that I'm a liberal, and then I know the conversation is going nowhere. Reasoning with these people is useless.
What's interesting to me about this mindset, besides the obvious appeal of getting inside the brains of people who genuinely believe that genocide can make the world a better place, is that these would-be mass murderers tend to all be the sorts of soldiers and contractors who have never actually seen a shot fired in anger. I speak here of the people who sit in their cubicles all day analyzing this war, the people who spend their entire deployments pumping gas or driving around the FOB, the people who will go back to the States after their deployment and wow their friends with stories of the mortar that just barely missed them, the people who were once referred to as REMFs (Rear-Echelon MotherF*****s).
It is these people, the out-of-touch, the wannabe politicians, who are so willing to contemplate sending others to slaughter the "enemies of freedom." Those they would send, the infantrymen and other cannon fodder, generally express something more human when talking about this war. They hate firing their weapons, they hate clearing dead bodies, they hate what they have to do here. It's as if, and I know this sounds unbelievable but bear with me, the people who have actually killed Iraqis find the prospect of killing even more of them unappealing. They see the gravity of their actions.
One more thing: the REMFs tend to be the only ones who still believe Iraq isn't already a completely lost cause, and they generally still think invading Iraq was a wise decision. One even told me that Bush 43 is one of the greatest Presidents ever. You don't hear that very often from the foot soldiers.
I paint here with a broad brush, but this has been the general trend in the discussions I have had here. The computer dweebs are all about carnage, the soldiers just want to go home.
Unfortunately I work with a bunch of REMFs. There comes a point where holding your tongue is necessary to being able to fuction in the workplace. I generally register an objection to this kind of talk and let it go, knowing that pursuing the conversation wouldn't get us anywhere except someplace less congenial. But I have to admit that I die a little every time I encounter this phenomenon.
