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"Remember the Maine!"
by James Glaser August 8, 2011 
Sorry about that, "Remember the Maine" was our revenge battle cry from the Spanish American war back before the turn of the century. Ah, not this century, but the last one. We always seem to come up with slogans to keep our country's blood-lust going. "Remember Pearl Harbor" was a good one, and "Tell It To the Marines" worked, too. We really didn't get anything catchy slogan-wise going after 9/11 attack, but maybe just yelling "Seal Team Six" will do the trick from now on. You know Washington is going to make those guys heroes. I always thought of heroes as people who saved somebody's life, and these guys from Seal Team Six were our best trained killers, but maybe in the 21st century killing is heroic. Sure, it is sad when anybody dies, and I saw the picture of one of those Seal team members with his young daughter, and a picture like that makes anyone sad. However, we have to remember that sailor and those who died with him chose their own career path. All of our troops today are volunteers. There is no longer a military draft in this country. Somehow 30 dead Americans in one day makes headlines in every paper in the country, but we hardly even heard about the last 30 Americans who were killed in Afghanistan. For a few years now our Soldiers and Marines have been dying at a rate of about 1 to 2 a day.. With numbers like that, their deaths don't even make the news, but no matter if they die one at a time or in a group of 30, you still have the same number of grieving parents and loved ones. You know, it makes me wonder how any guy or woman can decide to raise a family, and have a career that puts them in an extremely dangerous job. Most of our troops are not trained killers. For sure they will kill if put in a position that requires that they repel the enemy. Military truck drivers and office personnel are issued weapons and taught how to use them, but that is not their primary job. Seal Team members are killers. That is what they train for, and that is what they do... full time. So, when people whose life work is killing other people, it really should not be that big of surprise that they have a good chance of being killed. For me, the surprise is that they would take a job like that and still try to have a "normal" life with a spouse and children. I got to tell you, that doesn't seem very fair to the ones these team members left behind. Here is how the United States Navy explains what Seal Teams do:
That sounds exciting and like a real adrenalin rush that could make any young man sign on the dotted line of the enlistment papers the recruiter puts before him. Of course not every young man who signs up makes it, and actually gets to call himself a Navy Seal. It takes a special person. Because you are special, and you are able to pass all the requirements to be a Navy Seal, are you therefore a hero? Maybe to some, in fact, maybe to most you are a hero, but for much of the world you have become a trained killer. Every government has people like our Seals. Nazi Germany did. Do we think of the German SS soldiers as heroes, or are trained killers only heroes in their own country? I think that is probably closer to the truth. So, for sure every Navy Seal will use "Remember Seal Team Six" and they will remember the men who died in Afghanistan this past weekend, but I doubt if that slogan will catch on. Trained killers, even those who kill for us, are really not the embodiment of the American hero, and there isn't that much that is really heroic to be killed when a rocket smashes into the chopper you were flying on. Yes, we will have our heroes from our current wars, some have already received the Medal of Honor for what they did. Others equally as deserving will not get the medal, but their comrades in arms will know what they did. I guess heroes and slogans are all part of the American military war machine, and they will always be with us as long as war remains the answer to any foreign entanglements we get in. |
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