From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Thu May 19 2005 - 13:10:26 PDT
On May 19, 2005, at 3:39 PM, Ryan Gill wrote:
> First, not everyone has served. Not everyone that has served is
> perfect and has a clue, not everyone that has NOT served has a clue
> either. Just because you wore the uniform for real doesn't mean you've
> got the right idea today. I can point to one WWII vet that needed to
> be beaten for what he did to his granddaughter, my girlfriend. But
> he's dead. That doesn't mean that all vets are what he was. Perhaps
> you need to take off your blinders for those that didn't wear the
> uniform.
Always good to keep in mind. Inherently soldiers are just people in a
particular form of clothing tasked with performing a particular job,
nothing more... nothing less. They might do good things (even HEROIC
things) while in that uniform that others wouldn't, but then again they
might have instead run the battalion's black market in stolen local
artifacts or murdered dozens of people in a Federal building after
being discharged from service. And let us not forget that the military
profession is not the ONLY one worthy of praise and admiration. There
are many others, such as police, fireman, social worker, charity
provider, etc. that give their all to doing their part to make this
country great. Without the "heros" who take care of the sick, the
poor, the abused, the hungry, etc. there would be very little of value
for soldiers to defend in the first place. But I digress...
As for reenactors... I've noted that there aren't many 80+ year old
WWII vets running around with 70 pounds of gear on a hot June or July
afternoon showing the public what they looked like in their glory days.
And come to think of it, there are even less 260 year old British or
Colonial vets left to recreate the battles that gave us the freedom to
bitch about being included/excluded from military convoys in the first
place. So either this history gets left to dry textbooks and Hollywood
(which uses... reenactors...), or it gets reenacted by people who care
enough to spend the time and money to remind us (even in a superficial
way) what our history is. I'm not a reenactor, nor do I intend to
become one, but my hat's off to them for keeping history ALIVE.
And as for the debate about "I want to play basketball because I have a
basketball even though the rest of you want to play baseball"... form
your own convoy with others who wish to do it your way. It's a free
country 'ya know.
Steve
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