We’ve been at war for most of your lives, yet here at home it’s scarcely noticeable. So here’s a MuseBlog poll: Anybody know any soldiers?
We’ve been at war for most of your lives, yet here at home it’s scarcely noticeable. So here’s a MuseBlog poll: Anybody know any soldiers?
My grandfather was in the Army, but it was during peacetime, so he didn’t actually do any fighting.
Six uncles and an aunt, all from my mom’s side. Also four teachers.
There was an awkward moment today when the role call question was “Are you related to anyone who has served on the military?” and he last girl’s answer is “My baby-daddy’s in the navy”.
TMI, much?
Both my grandfathers were in the Army during World War II. One fought overseas. The other was never deployed as a soldier, but worked as an optometrist for the Army.
My dad and my grandfather were both soldiers at one point.
And it seems like MuseBloggers who do not know any soldiers tend not to say much.
^me
Both my grandfathers and also my great-grandfather, plus my gym teacher and two other teachers at my school.
Both of my grandfathers were in the military.
My school does a really awesome Veterans’ Day assembly every year. We invite all of the veterans from the school community to come. In one part, the band plays a medley of all of the branches’ songs, and the veterans stand up when they hear the song of their branch. It’s neat. Students and teachers also bring in pictures of the friends and family who are veterans or who are serving, and they put it all together into a really poignant slideshow.
Now that I’m a junior, there are people who I’ve known pretty well in high school who are either enlisted in the military or participating in ROTC at college. I’m so proud of them for serving, but I’m already hoping hard that they’ll make it out okay in body and mind.
That medley sounds very moving.
I’m thinking about current or recent service members.
The reason I ask is that I’ve heard America described as “an army at war and a population at the mall.” The cover story on the U.S. edition of Time magazine is titled “An Army Apart: 45,000 troops are coming home to a country that doesn’t know them.”
It seems to me that the the gap between military and civilian parts of the population is widening. If you’re in the military, you know other military people; if you’re not, you probably don’t. How does it affect a society when 0.02% of the population does a job that the other 99.98% doesn’t even want to think about?
North Carolina is a bit of an exception. I am acquainted with quite a few people who have sons, daughters, spouses, or siblings who have been or still are in Iraq or Afghanistan. I also meet a fair number who come to the museum.
I’d expect the South to be an exception, along with much of the Midwest and Southwest. If you watch the casualty lists on the news on TV, that’s where most of them come from.
When I was in college (in Pennsylvania), there was no question that my father’s job (career naval officer) was considered uncool. One girl from New York told me, “I was raised to think of people in uniform as the bad guys.” It was partly understandable in her case: she was Jewish, and most of her older relatives in Europe had been annihilated by people in uniform. On the other hand, other people in uniform (including the older generation of my relatives) won that war and stopped the killing. Anyway, it was a revelation to realize that the biases she had grown up with were very different from the ones I had grown up with.
According to the statistics I’ve seen, more than half the home-based military personnel are stationed in 6 states — North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and California.
I’m in one of those states, and I have a teacher who used to be in the military, and the majority of people at my school have family members overseas right now. I think my second cousin was in the marines at one point. So yes, it must be different here.
I have a friend currently in the marines. He’s a year older than I am. He’s been out in the field numerous times in zones where fighting and threats are an everyday concern rather than something happening far away and out of site. Last year I would check his facebook page every couple days, and worry when there’s been a gap since he last posted something. And I’m going to have to start that again soon.
He was one of the smartest (in non-traditional ways) people I knew, was very funny, and a bit more than the average amount of crazy. I don’t think he remembers me very well, we didn’t get to talk ever after he graduated, and I worry more about him than I’d ever tell him.
He’s heading back into the field sometime this week.
I also know another person in the marines, 3 people in ROTC, and one of my best friend’s younger brothers plans on joining.
I don’t like the idea of my friends being hurt. I do not like war.
Back in the days when I thought the Vietnam War would never end, I was terrified my brothers would have to serve. I think that bothered me more in some respects than if I would have been at risk of the draft myself.
My school is very… patriotic, so it did quite a lot for Veterans’ Day. It opened a garden in honor of them, which is nice, and a patriotic song played every hour. (This included the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which I disagree with), which I didn’t mind but it seemed unfair to people who might genuinely dislike those songs. Anyway, some of my teachers mentioned it as well. It was a big thing. I just wish the Service Learning group did other sorts of things sometimes, though, or I would join.
I think that this is a really hard question, because you do want to recognize that people went through horrible things in wars, but at the same time, you don’t want to glorify the war itself. I think that political beliefs that I don’t agree with often get to entwined in patriotic songs, which is my problem with them.
My grandfather was in the navy, my BF is in ROTC, and my friend’s dad is a chaplain.