April 4, 2007
To the Editor:
Re “My Life In The Army,” (Op-Ed, April 3): Robert Wright states, “I wish some people on the left had a deeper respect for the military, but lately the left isn’t where the most consequential disrespect has come from.”
When I entered basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia in the fall of 1969, drill sergeants routinely referred to the Vietnamese as “gooks.” During one field training exercise one sergeant, who led the training exercise, cynically referred to serious shrapnel wounds displaying what appeared to be “joke shop” body parts he said could be surgically reattached to a wounded soldier. These issues of life and death could hardly afford laughable and cynical treatment from this NCO.
Wright also observes that, “People think of the Army as hierarchical, but compared with the private sector it’s a bastion of egalitarianism.” Compare the latter with an attack by some enlisted men and draftees against National Guardsmen and Reservists in the training cycle I was part of. Combat boots and uniforms were left slashed as a result of that foray.
It was Kent State in May 1970, however, that forever soured my view of the military. Consider also the massacres at My Lai and those carried out by a unit known as Tiger Force in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam during a seven-month period in 1967.
Abu Ghraib and Haditha are now places that can be counted as tales of carnage and dehuminization of both prisoners and civilians. How does any of this do honor to those who serve faithfully, who have been wounded and who have died? And where is the anemic peace movement supporting vigouously those who oppose militarism from within the service?
Sincerely,
Howard Lisnoff
1 comment:
Interesting article. Looks like you've figured out pics in your blog as well.
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