A reader writes … and another reader asks if he should stay in the military
I have been reading your blog for a number of months now. I cannot express how important it has become to me. You have opened my eyes to many things in your logical discussions of conservatism, and I have come to new realizations because of it.
To which I can only reply, Thank you.
- end of initial entry -
A reader writes:
I just wanted to second the comments your emailer from this evening (9:34 pm post) made. I have been reading your website for roughly nine months now and it is definitely a staple of my daily blog readings. I was initially drawn to it through a VDare link, and now consider it the “graduate” level of thought compared to the six years I was reading VDare.
I serve as an Air Force officer, having just passed the seven-year mark in my career. You may be interested to know that the discussions on your page, particularly those related to immigration and the National Question, are having a serious influence on my decision to continue in the Air Force (or not) when my current commitment is up next summer. I am no defeatist when it comes to defending Western Civ and its white, Christian roots, but the forecast certainly is gloomy. The current immigration/national suicide bill is merely the latest example. The material benefits of being a military officer are just, and the pension is/would be unbeatable, but I am having a very difficult time justifying to myself why I should (conceivably) risk my life for a government that is clearly intent on destroying my heritage. Without going into specifics, my career field is one that is not easily transferrable to the civilian world. Therefore I am faced with the decision of security for my family vs personal beliefs. The military itself is great—I am positive that, with maybe the exception of police, there is no other organization with the esprit de corps we have. The problem is with the political leaders that are, and always will be our bosses.
If you have any thoughts on the decision I’m faced with I’d be interested to hear them. In fact, if you feel its a worthy topic for the webpage I’d also be interested in what your other readers say. I’d only ask that you omit my name. Keep up the great work, especially on exposing “the Usual Suspects”—we’ve got to stop Muslim immigration NOW, and only mainstream exposure is going to do it.
LA replies:
Thank you very much. I don’t have advice myself to offer, that’s a pretty weighty decision you have to make and I wouldn’t know what to tell you, but maybe others will have useful ideas.
I have written a bit about the thing you talk about, how the military is good in itself, but serving ideological forces that are not good. See the brief entry, “The ambiguous thing that America now is” and the article it links to about wounded soldiers in Walter Reed hospital. The “ambiguous thing” I’m talking about is the disturbing combination of the finest American qualities with a left-wing ideology.
Laura W. writes:
Your Air Force reader seems a principled man. But I have a hard time following his reasoning for leaving the military. Doesn’t a soldier represent not just the leaders in charge at a particular moment, but a continuum of leaders, past, present and future? If he believes in the worthiness of his country over time and its continued existence, isn’t he acting responsibly regardless of what he is told to do, barring orders that involve him directly in grave humanitarian violations? To say he does not want to risk his life for present-day leaders is the same as saying he does not believe in his country’s future and does not think the sacrifices of those who died long ago mean anything now.
Maureen C. writes:
I have some advice for the military man. Being in the military in Iraq is dangerous right now, because the Army is being led by plodding, careerist bureaucrats and lawyers, who think wars should be fought according to Marquis of Queensbury, EEO, and What Benefits My Next Promotion rules. Right now these Maginot Line thinking leaders have concentrated thousands of young U.S. soldiers—our next generation—in the Green Zone in Baghdad—so that the enemy can destroy our whole fighting force with a couple suicide-nuclear bombs (provided by the Russian Mafia and paid for by Saudi billions). Right now these Lumpen Militaren are asking our young soldiers to go on patrol with their “friends” the Iraqis so that the latter can stab them in the back and advise their co-religionists where to plant the roadside bombs. The same Lumpen Militaren have built their monument to Delusional Thinking—a mosque at West Point.
To the young man: You can stay in the Army and try to rise to a leadership position in the Army—where you can stand ready to disobey orders when the time is right. Or, quit the clueless military run by the time-serving, pension-salivating generals—and join a local police force that may be called upon to help defend a military base in, say, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, or Virginia. Also, you can choose your area of service near mosques—which are not “churches” in our Christian sense of the word but “forward staging military platforms” for Islamic takeovers. In your local police department, you can become an expert on assessing the local level of Islamic infiltration and you can educate various “selected” leaders of your local community on how our political leaders are “Balkanizing” the U.S. You can start a police program that aids in deportation of illegals. Also, read Paul Sperry’s book “Infiltration” for a practical description of where the infiltration is occurring and why.
James W. writes:
I have not served. Two people close to me have, or are. The advice I have for this man to whom we owe everything and acknowledge nothing is this—take care of yourself first. If security exists at all, it exists in one’s own ability to perform. Perhaps, for you, that will mean you will stay, even if in the service of a degraded culture.
I often think how difficult it must have been to serve during the administration of Jimmy Carter. Count the ways. Yet, there must have been people there who held it together until a shift occurred, and Reagan would take us back in the direction that was our better destiny.
Bill Clinton was a hole of twice the length in time. We shall have more, clearly. What will emerge depends upon men who do the right thing when nobody is looking.
Sad but true.
Thucidides- “A nation that draws too great a distinction beween its soldiers and its scholars will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
America is adaptive, though, and might surprise Thucidides. We increasingly see our scholars as fools and our better intellects in the military. From grunts on up.
A reader writes:
By all means, stay in the Air Force. We need people who think the way we do in all institutions of American society, especially the military. The Air Force is a very honorable career, not to mention what a noble thing it is to provide for one’s family.
Van Wijk writes:
James W. said: “The advice I have for this man to whom we owe everything and acknowledge nothing is this—take care of yourself first.”
I have never been comfortable with this line of reasoning. The military is a branch of the federal government, and to think that we owe our freedom to that government is absurd (though the feds are happy to propagate the notion). American freedom is guaranteed by an armed American citizenry. Keep in mind that some day those same young men to whom “we owe everything” may be ordered to point their weapons at you. Certainly not all of them will refuse that order.
Maureen makes some excellent points regarding the service, but I think the officer will face much of the same dilemmas if he joins a police force. She also brings up the mosque at West Point. The officer must keep in mind that the military has surrendered itself to truly some disgraceful actions, such as harboring Muslims and forcing young women into the front lines.
The bottom line is that the federal government does not serve the American people, and as there is very little room for dissent in the military without being sent to Leaveworth, if he chooses to stay in while still loving his people then he’d better be ready to defect at a moment’s notice.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 23, 2007 09:34 PM | Send