Photographs & Paragraphs
  • Home
  • About
  • Photographs
  • Videos
    • Baseball
    • Criminal Justice
    • Family
    • Journalism
    • Politics
    • Travel
    • War and Peace
  • Paragraphs
    • Articles
      • Faith
      • Holocaust
      • War and Peace
    • Books
    • Columns
      • Church
      • Criminal Justice
      • Environment
      • Farewells
      • Politics
      • Samizdat
      • War and Peace
  • Gung-ho Pacifist blog
  • Home
  • About
  • Photographs
  • Videos
    • Baseball
    • Criminal Justice
    • Family
    • Journalism
    • Politics
    • Travel
    • War and Peace
  • Paragraphs
    • Articles
      • Faith
      • Holocaust
      • War and Peace
    • Books
    • Columns
      • Church
      • Criminal Justice
      • Environment
      • Farewells
      • Politics
      • Samizdat
      • War and Peace
  • Gung-ho Pacifist blog

Gung-Ho Pacifist Blog

Merry Christmas, troops? Not so much!

11/3/2018

1 Comment

 
Remember when the billionaire candidate kept saying that, if he were elected president, we'd all be saying Merry Christmas again? He is now, God help us all, the president. But it's not likely to be a very merry Christmas for the troops he's sending to the United States-Mexico border.

It's beyond debate that shameless midterm fearmongering is the reason Cadet Bone Spurs—who never entered the military and never got deployed anywhere—is deploying something like 15,000 troops. A leaked Pentagon document makes clear that the military thinks there's virtually no threat from the caravan that has  Bone Spurs  quaking in his boots. The slow pace of this fearsome caravan almost guarantees that those troops will be at the border, doing nothing much, through the holidays.

It's possible to argue that they are better off languishing safely in the warmth of America's Southwest, facing no real threat, than being in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the forever war drags on endlessly, producing no real result but death and injury. But many of those young men and women were not getting ready for immediate deployment to a combat zone. They have been stationed on posts in the United States, living with their families. Now they must leave those families behind—no Thanksgiving, no Hanukkah, no Kwanzaa, no Christmas, no New Year's Eve—for a mission that is entirely bogus.

"Support the troops" is one of the facile, ubiquitous, but meaningless mantras of our times. But sending them off to protect the nation from this threat, which their own  generals feel is negligible, is hardly supporting the troops. Let's hope they remember this heartless  behavior by the commander-in-chief if he's still in office and seeking re-election in 2020. They should keep in mind this holiday season, separated from their families, when they vote in 2020.
1 Comment
June Johnson
11/28/2018 12:13:00 pm

Hi Bob- Peter Maniscalco died on 11-26-18 @ East End Hospice, Westhampton Beach. Pete had been an anti-nuke activist and a man of peace. Would you be able to write an obit about him for Newsday ? I also contacted Anne Michaud and Mike Harrington who had written articles about Pete over the years. I can be contacted : paxvobiscum@optonline.net and Pete's wife, Stephanie Joyce can be reached at her cell #: 631-220-4104.

Thanks, Bob. June Johnson

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    First in my class in Officer Candidate School. Late to the conclusion that our attitude toward the military is idolatrous.

    Archives

    February 2022
    February 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018

    Categories

    All
    Trump

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • About
  • Photographs
  • Videos
    • Baseball
    • Criminal Justice
    • Family
    • Journalism
    • Politics
    • Travel
    • War and Peace
  • Paragraphs
    • Articles
      • Faith
      • Holocaust
      • War and Peace
    • Books
    • Columns
      • Church
      • Criminal Justice
      • Environment
      • Farewells
      • Politics
      • Samizdat
      • War and Peace
  • Gung-ho Pacifist blog