Small and Strange World this is.
I found out that one of the people that I went to Basic training at Fort Lenard Wood is/was part of the IVAW. I had found here back in 2007 when we had the exact same video about our Basic on MySpace. She was part of the 82d as a truck Driver. She went to Iraq in December 2006 at FOB Summerall with the Easy Company 1-505th, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. She stayed there until about May of 2007 when she was put on Rear Detachment for medical reasons. Later she gets outs and joins the IVAW’s 53 Chapter in Las Vegas. But this is were it starts to get interesting.
She made a post on June 18, 2008 in the IVAW members speak out that could be seen in two ways. See for yourself.
So this is the email I recieved today on Myspace from A guy that was in the Army back in the 90’s and has never deployed….
“I’m deleting you from my friends list. I don’t dislike you, but I don’t need rubbish like this video being brought to my attention. It’s unfortunate you are so naive, even after all you have seen. It seems, after all, that some are unteachable.”
So funny how he calls me “unteachable” yet he is the one who has never been to Iraq and doesn’t know anything other than what is in the news. He seems to think he knows so much about what is going on over there. Give me a break, he is just ignorant like a lot of Americans that think this War is for the better. I wish there was some kind of a program like a foreign exchange type deal where we can send these ignorant people to Iraq so they can see first hand what is exactly going on. My Own husband is on the fence on this subject he thinks that the war was started on lies which we all know it was. Yet he isn’t sure if we should leave yet or not….Now I love my husband but he was a 25 F and he spent a year in Iraq stuck on a Fob he wasn’t going out and doing missions in the city so he never saw the things most of us saw and I think that is why he thinks the way he does. I am trying to get it across to him that we need to end this occupation, maybe with some time he will be with me on this. If not oh well. I just pray that Iraq doesn’t end up like Kuwait that is now a duty station. If they ever turn Iraq into a duty station I am moving to Canada!
Kinda takes it’s own perspective when considering the people in IVAW who have never seen Iraq. But this is the part that is confusing to me. In her blog she is very vocal about her dislike of the Army and her excitement about getting out with her new Husband. Not to mention that she was against the Iraq War in a comment she left to Casey Porter in August 31st of 2008.
Thanks for the Add!! I Love your videos and the way you speak out against the occupation! IVAW all the way!
So it is surprising that when I looked her up on AKO that it showed her being in the Army Reserves for Nevada. Her Blog also confirmed that her and her husband had re-enlisted in November of 2008.
I am back in the Army reserves and that is going well, everyone in my unit is really nice. Nate joined to hahaha he couldn’t stay away. So I am changing my MOS from 88M truck driver to 42A Human resource spc….thank god because I don’t wanna drive anymore damn trucks lol.
I just thought it odd considering that with the IVAW is vocal about supporting troops that do not want to deploy, why would you join the Army reserves? I mean the IVAW’s Las Vegas is using your photo as a poster picture for it’s MySpace page. The second thing is how was she able to get back in the Military if she was Med-Boardedout for a heart condition? I just do not get it.
What a strange World.
Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Terror War
And to Scott- I have no problem with the criticizing of people such as Matthis and Bobby. I personally agree with you that their thinking is just all sorts of backwards. I think the majority of IVAW members feel the same, although I cannot say for sure. The day that Matthis and Bobby break off and go in their own direction will be a good day.
I am simply saying that it seems to me that any time people want to speak out against the wars, they are automatically compared to Matthis or Bobby and they are also highly criticized for speaking out. Do you not think there are some anti-war activists who actually speak truth? You can’t possibly operate under the assumption that every single one of them are lazy and/or liars.
#47
“Deontologists believe pretty much the opposite. They place emphasis more on the individual action, as opposed to the potential consequences of said action.”
Actually I think you may have interpreted this incorrectly.
It’s my understanding that the deontologist chain of validation for the ‘rightness’ of a given action is a combination of both the intent and the consequenses, and that ultimately it comes down to whether or not said action fulfilled a moral duty to act based on established rules.
What I’d like to know though, is what standard of ethics you apply in your own life? Perhaps then we can discuss other things.
“Do you not think there are some anti-war activists who actually speak truth?” Whether or not they “speak truth” depends on how they address issues. I have many anti-war friends (including several who are OIF/OEF vets). One can hardly spend as much time on a college campus as I have and avoid it. My distaste for IVAW in particular stems from their deliberate misrepresentation of their membership in order to suggest that they are somehow better qualified to comment on the war. There can be no other possible reason for choosing the name they did, and there is absolutely no excuse for the lie inherent in it, in the way that it flatly contradicts their membership requirements. So no, they cannot possibly be “speaking truth” because they’ve been lying for the sole purpose of gaining public sympathy to their cause since the day they were created. Anyone who allies with this group is allowing this rather blatant propagandist move to go unchecked, and that calls into question their integrity as well. Of course, that was just one lie in the longer list of lies enumerated above, and more that didn’t make that list. Some of these people are ON THE BOARD of their organization, meaning everyone else in the group is, as Bobby Whittenberg recently noted, subject to this hierarchy and its inexplicable decisions, like passing resolutions about Gaza and immigration, things completely unrelated to veteran issues. “I am simply saying that it seems to me that any time people want to speak out against the wars, they are automatically compared to Matthis or Bobby and they are also highly criticized for speaking out. ” Only if they ally themselves with Bobby or Matthis, or IVAW or any of the myriad other groups who place a greater premium on “solidarity” than honesty. “You can’t possibly operate under the assumption that every single one of them are lazy and/or liars.” I don’t operate under that assumption. But they are all veterans (and if they aren’t, they’re liars) and so they all know exactly how they are exploiting the public. If they… Read more »
Well Kant, who was arguably the most prominent of deontologists argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the person who carries out the action. He said the action must be good in and of itself to be a moral action.
“You can’t possibly operate under the assumption that every single one of them are lazy and/or liars”
Sorry, got caught up in my rant before I realized you referring to a larger group. I don’t regard someone as lazy or a liar just because they are anti-war. But if they are passionate about it, I do want to know what they’ve done about it. We had a group of students that gathered every friday and waved signs on the corner several years after the start of OIF, in the small, very liberal college town where I live. When pressed, they could recite all the reasons they were against the war, but they couldn’t offer any reasonable solutions for getting out of it. Making obstinate unrealistic demands does not help anyone. But I’m sure it made them feel good for doing it, before they returned to standard college frolicking.
#55 Scott:
Your post struck me as the most succinct. Here seems to be the argument we go ’round and ’round with:
1. No one likes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2. No reasonable solution has been proposed to get us out of them.
3. If we get out of them prematurely, we will almost certainly have to go back, or get into the same conflict somewhere else.
4. We cannot fight these wars indefinitely without some form of resolution / solution.
And so it goes, ’round and ’round…
Being the most prominent does not make one the most correct, nor does it lend any extra validity to his argument. The fact is that Kant was also a moral absolutist, a condition which colored his perceptions; in any case he was only one voice among many attempting to define a ‘system’ of ethics that has been questioned as a true form of ethics for decades. The list of equal luminaries with differing views is long and boring.
With all respect to you, and to Pinto as well, ethics are only ‘situational and relativistic’ to the college philosophy crowd. The ‘kindergarten’ form of ethics, more commonly known as virtue ethics, or character ethics, is still taught in government, at major corporations, and by professional trade organizations around the world. Cheer up Old Tanker. 🙂
Again, in order to effectively debate the subject at hand, everyone here should be privy to your own personally held beliefs on ethics, or rather what constitutes ethical behavior in your world. Mine is what I mention above, virtue ethics.
#57 Jacobite:
I follow virtue ethics, also. I was exposed to the situational ethics in college, as you rightly pointed out. I did not enjoy the exposure.
I am also a fan of virtue ethics….as for it being taught in government, I wish they would teach it a little more stringently since it doesn’t seem like the lessons have taken.
#59 Anonymous:
Please don’t misunderstand me,I’m NOT trying to start any kind of fight here, but I have a question:
How do you square being a fan of virtue ethics, and yet using Nietzsche to make your point earlier? It would seem that the two contradict each other, or have I missed something?
As members of the military we are more likely to support freedom of speech and other rights because we serve to defend them. The misunderstanding is we do not have an issue with people protesting on a corner outside of FT Hood it is the misrepresentation and outright lies that are used during these events.
If you are going to profess that war is bad or we should end war that is fine, but the minute you say that military units are playing soccer with dead Iraqi heads and that this is standard practice in the military, then we have an issue and call them out.
This isn’t about being “cogs in the machine” or “slaves to the system” it’s about defending the misrepresentation of an organization that we proudly serve in.
At #60- Anon from #59 here…No worries. I actually thoroughly enjoy discussion with people who have different viewpoints. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother.
And as for your question, I see valid points in Nietzsche’s master versus slave morality. There are valid points in many different, and even contradicting, stances. I don’t pretend to know the right way, but I do like learning about them. In fact, before my deployment to Iraq I was planning to possibly focus my studies on Ethics…more specifically Medical Ethics. My deployment changed that & I went for Psychology.
As for someone’s earlier post referring to me as a him, I am a female….which might explain my often contradicting attitude 😉
#62 Anon:
Thanks for the answer!