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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Telling soldiers the truth

Soldiers generally convince themselves that they are heroes. Our society, and many others, in general think soldiers are heroes.

Soldiers are young men, and some women, who are trained to become killers. That is their job. To know how to kill, but more importantly, to become killing machines; i.e. to kill on command without hesitation, morals, thought, or reflection.

Soldiers generally think they are 'serving' our country. Many others in our country believe soldiers are 'serving' we the people.

Soldiers are serving, but not 'we the people'. Soldiers are not even acting in the best interest of 'we the people'. And they never have.

Soldiers are serving the corporations of this country. Soldiers are and have always served the best interest of those with power and wealth. Period.

It is unfathomable to me how simple, everyday, even kind people who want to live and love like every other person around the country can become so brainwashed as to join a force that is basically working against their own interests on many, many, many levels.

Long term studies by race, age, class, education have shown on every single level that men who join the military have less, are less successful, less satisfied with their lives than their peers who stayed in civilian life. Not to mention soldiers are at least 3 times as likely to batter, rape, kill their wives - and themselves - then their non-soldier peers.

Being part of the force that puts not only your body, your mind at risk but more importantly, your human spirit or soul at risk, does not make you a hero but makes you a tool for cannon fodder.

Perhaps being willing to sacrifice your wonderful, special, sacred life or body parts might be heroic if you were saving a child's life or jumping in to rescue someone, but engaging in war, especially war for oil companies, for war profiteering companies (two just got 7.5 BILLION dollar contract in Afghanistan), for subjugation and control of a people from a country we're being brainwashed to hate & fear, makes you an instrument of genocide: for without the soldier, how could death and destruction be wrought upon these people?

And perhaps the deepest level that soldiers sink to when joining a force that works against their best interest, is the force that twists their brains to think that human life they kill by accident becomes "collateral damage". To allow themselves to think of the babies, the children, the women, the men, the elderly who just 'happened' to be in the way of their bombs, their fire power, their superior weapons are not human beings, not their mother, their baby sister, their auntie but "collateral damage".

I apologize if Mr. Brown's name is really Mr. Brown. I use anonymous names for my interactions and I really heard recruiters refer to him as Bryant.

Just to be clear, I did not call Mr. Brown a "killer"; although that is what he is. He has killed human beings. The truth is he is a killer. It is what we call people who kill.

I overheard folks saying he was a special forces sniper and involved in ambushes. I have no idea if that is true.

It is the Mr. Browns of our country that have helped make this world the place of terror it is for too many women like me. I do not sleep better at night, knowing he is out there 'mentoring' vulnerable youth in his attempts to justify the anti-human things he did - things that do not allow HIM to sleep at night - when he could be 'mentoring' youth to love, to have compassion, to NEVER be willing to take human life.

For we cannot go on, destroying human life. Or our planet. Mr. Brown needs to resign and spend the later years of his life rebuilding what he's destroyed, and paying restitution to those he has harmed so greatly. And tell our youth the TRUTH about who they are really serving and why.

p.s. if you want to post to my blog, you need to identify who you are. or start your own blog.