Choices: 2016
“No Boots on the Ground,” “No Fly Zones,” “Safe Zones on the Ground” “Carpet Bombing.” “Make the Sand Glow!” “Special Ops,” ”Strategic Air Campaign,” “Strategically Grounded Diplomatic Initiatives.” These are among the various choices offered to voters by current political candidates regarding combating terrorism. Which option do you prefer? What if you really had to choose to fight terrorism or worse yet were forced to do so! What options would you chose?
Would you choose one of these offered by our politicians? Would you actually do the fighting or would you choose not to fight? Would you personally send some-one to do the fighting for you? Whether we realize it or not, we have sent someone else in our places and continue to do so. On this issue, our democratic society has spoken and will get an opportunity to do so again in 2016.
Given what has happened in Paris and California recently, it is understandable that some of us are fearful. These popular political solutions trivialize the enormity of the problem of fighting terrorism or protecting refugees of terrorism. These are the choices our politicians offer. Does anyone really know which answer is correct? Here is what soldiers themselves have said about fighting terrorism.
I have the privilege of asking soldiers on a regular basis about these choices. Speaking to them and being sensitive to what may be behind their point of view, it is hard to know how much questioning is too much. Almost universally they say, “You do not really want to know.”
I often respond: “What is it that you think we do not want to know?” They usually don’t want to tell. “No Boots on the Ground” in fact involves “Special Ops” -people who put themselves in very dangerous places, landing aircraft in dirt fields with no airstrip. Working long hours under intense and treacherous conditions until soldiers say, “Your body forgets how to fall asleep.”
Taking prisoners can be just the beginning of the problems. Holding them behind temporary fences can lead to a breakdown in civilized behavior within those fences. They may try to kill one another; escorting them for “bathroom breaks” often requires the soldier dress in a full suit of protective armor. Soldiers in these situations experience hyper-vigilance as “normal.” Afterward, many return unable or unwilling to share their experiences with their family. Some come to see a psychiatrist saying, “Doc, I am fine but I am losing my family!” They are unable to talk about these extreme situations - especially with those who have not experienced it.
Recently I saw a soldier who had participated in four deployments - all in locations we associate with “harm’s way.” This particular soldier was deployed on the original search for weapons of mass destruction. I asked if he suffered any physical injury in that or the subsequent three deployments. “No physical injuries,” he said. “But, I am losing my family. I fight with them over the silliest of things and do not even say hello when I come home from work.” Then he spends the rest of the night on his computer until it is time to go to sleep and have nightmares.
Puzzled, I have to ask again, “Were you physically injured or rendered unconscious.” “I was lucky” he said, “no physical injuries.” “No exposure to combat,” I asked?
“Well, my vehicle was bombed and rolled over ten times,” he admitted and went on. “I was in several direct fire gun battles. I was shelled by mortars. A number of my friends died. I took the life of many people. People died two feet in front of me.
I resigned myself to dying. If it comes, it comes. I did what I was told to do, what my country ordered me to do. It was not heroic. It was not the kind of man I wanted to be. What we did was a waste of time implementing a political agenda. There were no weapons of mass destruction. While I was deployed, one of my family members committed suicide.
I cannot describe what actually happened. If you really want to know, go deploy. People who want to volunteer to fight are crazy. I know if you do, you will never be the same. I will never be the same as I was. I try to drown myself in alcohol but that doesn’t work. And yet, I was not physically injured.”
Struggling to make a connection through all this, I asked if the movie American Sniper captured what he was talking about. “No,” he said, “the combat scenes seem contrived” and not real to him. “Maybe the D Day invasion in Saving Private Ryan comes closer,” he said.
What we are told by politicians and what our service men and women are experiencing are starkly different realities. What choices are we making? Are we even aware we are making these choices?
