In reading this, I stumbled upon a video of him explaining his controversial actions and how war changes your mind: “I want to say you’re not killing human beings and I still don’t look at them as human beings. I never will. You don’t feel any empathy or remorse for them…At the time it meant nothing. It was just funny.”
He also says, “It was the only thing I was really good at in life was being a Marine sniper. I’ll miss it every day. I still miss it to this day.”
My God have mercy on his soul.
This is a great series about dehumanization of the enemy in war.
Another SWAT videowith some lovely music and featuring the fictional character The Punisher. This one from Doraville, Georgia. The wars, and the people we’ve trained to fight them, are coming home. The trained killers are really excited about their new toys provided to local police departments by the Pentagon, from the surpluses of the military-industrial complex, as shown in this video. Just a matter of time before they get to “protect” us all right here at home.
Here I have curated some images. It is interesting to think about what we find “cute” and what we find “offensive.” North Korean children dressed up in military garb, riding around in a toy tank, will strike most as offensive and wrong; yet, a white American kid dressed up as a soldier standing by a toy tank for his military-themed birthday party, put on by his parents, will strike many as not only normal, but cute.
What would civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, who have seen their loved ones blown to bits by American tanks, bullets, bombs, drones, and guns, think of the fact that we dress our children up in military attire and decorate their walls with guns and their birthday cakes with grenades? They would think we are cruel, mad, barbaric people.
Looking at some of the photographs in the collection makes me wonder what is happening in this country, how we can be so oblivious to the truth of war, indifferent to the violence it entails, and desensitized to the human suffering it causes.
The above video is from the 2012 Saint Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston. It shows the famous float of Saint Patrick, followed by the Immaculate Heart of Mary School Band followed by a tank.
This year, as usual, the parade was surrounded by controversy. The issue: should gays march in the parade as an organized unit and openly acknowledge their sexual orientation with banners, signs, t-shirts, etc.? It was a little more heated than usual, because we have a new mayor in Boston and he tried to broker a deal between Mass Equality (a gay rights group) and the South Boston Allied War Veterans, the group which organizes the parade.
It is a complicated story, but basically, for a short time, there was an apparent agreement to allow gay veterans to march. The principal from the Catholic school featured in the above video declined to let his school participate with their band and float if the gays marched. The parade organizers said they had been misled by Mass Equality and cancelled the deal. The gays did not march. As usual, almost all politicians, including the mayor, boycotted the parade, and this year, the Boston Beer Company (maker of Sam Adams), declined to participate in the parade and took the side of the mayor.
“We are tough proud South Bostonians, with deep scars from controversy that dates back decades. Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of our Irish. We love our parade. This parade is a chance for all to join together and celebrate the love of friends, family, and the faith of our community.”
In 1995 the vets won a Supreme Court decision that they have the right to exclude groups from their parade. They may have won a battle but they are losing the war. In Massachusetts gay marriage has been legal for years and the Boston Archdiocese had to end its charitable adoption services as a result. The US military, with the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” has now been fully conformed to the American elite’s vision of gay rights. How can the Southie vets argue that gays should be excluded when a Brigadier General in the U.S. army is a married lesbian and an Okinawan Air Base hosts a drag show fundraiser for a group that advocates the military LGBT cause?
But more importantly, gay rights aside, the American military as an institution is increasingly incompatible with Catholic values. You know the story: unjust wars of aggression (as in Iraq), torture, remote controlled assassination drones, perpetual undeclared war on terror around the globe, an epidemic of suicide. Most recently there is the push for “women in combat.” What could be more anti-Catholic than women in combat?
Those proud South Boston men may have won in the Supreme Court, but they will lose in the court of public opinion if they continue to hold a semi-secular parade that celebrates militarism. The best strategy would be to make the parade more exclusive of secular values and more inclusive of Catholic groups and the values of the Catholic Church, which is after all the most diverse and inclusive institution on the planet. Make it officially a Catholic parade to celebrate a Catholic saint and the heritage of Irish American Catholics. Lose the militarism, the tanks, and the guns. Have more Catholic Schools, marchers from prolife groups, and recruit faithful Catholic politicians (if you can find any) and public figures. Seek sponsorship from Catholic businessmen. Maybe there can be participation by Courage, the Catholic apostolate that ministers to folks with same sex attraction. Include workers from Catholic hospitals and charities.
It’s not my job to plan the parade but you get the idea. Peace, family values and solidarity with the poor as opposed to celebration of war and incessant bickering and vitriol over culture war issues that detract from the mission of the Church. The debate will end once it is a real Catholic parade. Promotion of gay marriage is no more acceptable in a Catholic parade than promotion of artificial birth control or Playboy magazine. Even Mayor Walsh will understand that.
The parade must change in order to survive. Massachusetts is the most Catholic state in the country. We can do better.
Note: I mention the company that makes Sam Adams beer, because, in 2002, they were involved in a notorious and depraved incident of what can only be termed “live radio pornography.” Ironically and tragically, there was a connection to St. Patrick back then too. I am not sure how this company ever became involved with the parade. Let’s pray those responsible for the 2002 scandal have repented, but if Boston Beer won’t support the new parade, here’s their replacement:
Paul Grenier writes a creative dialogue on torture between an anonymous (and imaginary) Ambassador, a Scientist, a Journalist, and a Professor (emeritus) at Ethika Politika.
In this article, Joachim Hogopian gives an excellent overview of the problem of sexual assault in the military and the developments (and disappointments) related to the pursuit of justice that have unfolded in the past couple of years, but my only problem with it is that he offers a pretty traditional “feminist” critique, framing it as a problem of sexism, chauvinism, and an “old boys network” that gives sexual predators in the military only a slap on the wrist for committing the most violent and egregious crimes against women. While that certainly is true, and the justice system in the military can hardly be called that when it comes to sexual crimes, my feeling is that the rates of sexual assault in the military are less a gender issue and more like a spiritual issue. If you train people in aggression, violence, subjugation, exploitation, hate, and the use of force on a mass scale, and you send them out to utilize those “skills” year after year, how can you be surprised when they begin to act that way on a smaller scale and on an interpersonal level? These statistics are indicative of something far more sinister than sexism.
Matthew 7, 15-16: “By their fruits you will know them.”
As a former Congressional staff member with top secret security clearance, Mike Lofgren crunched the numbers for 28 years as part of the House and Senate Budget Committees and found that the numbers didn’t add up. The numbers led him to connect the dots to America’s “deep state”: where elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. He left the Republican party and wrote The Party Is Over.
An interview with Bill Moyers is below. “He says: I’m not a conspiracy theorist…This is something that hides in plain sight. It’s something we know about but we can’t connect the dots, or most people can’t.”
He talks about a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state. He also talks about Group Think, “a kind of assimilation of the views of your superiors and peers,” a all out plague in Washington.
Moyers: “If the ideology of the deep state is not right or left, Democrat or Republican, what is it?”
Lofgren: “It’s an ideology. I just don’t think we’ve named it. It’s kind of corporatism. Now the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They pretend to be merely neutral servants of the State giving the best advice possible on national security or financial matters, but they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization and they believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is: boots on the ground everywhere, it’s our right to meddle everywhere in the world, and the result of that is perpetual war.”
“I was pretty afraid of my dad when he came back from Iraq. I didn’t know who this man…You can’t forget being terrified of your parent and terrified for your life.”
“I am married to a Marine who has been through five deployments…I think that I had just been lonely for so long that it felt like maybe I didn’t matter.”
“I lost my daughter two years later. She took her life over the death of her brother. She couldn’t handle the pain of her brother’s death.”
“I hadn’t even begun to comprehend Freddie’s death. He was killed in action. How could my brother take his life? I had lost my whole family, and all I could think about would it would be better if I was gone too.”
Laurence Vance has many excellent articles and blog posts at lewrockwell.com on why Christians should not join the military. Here is a quote he posted from a Navy officer who wrote to a young man who asked for advice:
“I would strongly discourage any good man from joining the military. In the Navy, particularly, it is extremely difficult to remain faithful to Christ’s teachings. You live day in and day out in the company to immoral people. Drunkenness is extremely common, as is theft, pornography, fornication, and adultery. Brothels in foreign ports make their wages for the year when American ships arrive. The Navy is also extremely damaging to family life. 6-month deployments as well as numerous other underway periods steal a man’s time from his loved ones. Even while in port, 12 hour work days are the norm. I missed about 9 months of my first born daughter’s first year because I was out to sea. The stress and strain that puts on a spouse is, in my opinion, irresponsible of a husband. Please realize that joining the military is not serving a ‘greater good.’ … It will jeopardize your principles, your marriage, your children, your life, and likely your soul.”
In the year 2000, a nine million dollar federal grant funded the national suicide prevention crisis hotline. Good timing, as a year later a handful of people in the United States government would start a war in Afghanistan, and two years later those same people would decide to invade Iraq, a country which had not been in any way responsible for 9/11. The result would be disastrous in many ways, not the least of which was, or is, tens of thousands of men returning from war physically, emotionally, and spiritually crippled.
By 2007, the national suicide prevention line was combined with the veterans crisis line, providing “special suicide prevention service for U.S. military veterans through an agreement with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) and U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). When dialing 1-800-273-TALK (8255), veterans, active military, and their families are prompted, during the automated greeting, to press one to be connected to a veterans suicide prevention hotline specialist located in the VA call center in New York.”
This is a national travesty and there is no better indication that America is waging “Unjust Wars” than to have so many men and women returning and wanting to take their own lives.
Reporters and talking heads continued to express surprise and bewilderment over the fact that that the Culture of Death that we call “war” leads to suicides. They scratch their heads and act like it is some kind of grand anomaly. Of course the deaths of these men and women, deaths which are also casualties of war, will not be counted among the heroes, though they too paid the ultimate price, as Matthew Hoh explains;
As Matthew Hoh wrote in 2013: “If we were to build a memorial to the Afghan and Iraq Wars today, over 6,500 names of those killed would be enshrined. What is so very shameful not to face is the many thousands upon thousands who have killed themselves after coming home and not counting or including them in remembrances and memorials. Will we cling to old narratives and falsehoods about the honor and glory of war or will we finally admit the bitter, dirty and brutal truth: the Afghan and Iraq Wars did not kill 6,500 Americans, but rather 13,000 or 20,000….”
“Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you.” – St. Augustine of Hippo
I wish that one of the little flyers in the back of Catholic Churches was for veterans returning home from war. I wish next to the pamphlet that says “Are you thinking about having an abortion?” there was a pamphlet that said, “Are you thinking about joining the military?” I wish Super Bowl commercials would call for a moment of silence to grieve for those who have lost their lives in war, both soldiers and civilians. Instead we have idolatrous garbage like thisin the churches and Super Bowl commercialsthat paint a Norman Rockwell picture of what it’s like to come home from war. Maybe after another decade we will tire of all this.
