Phil Carter struggles to remain relevant
Phil Carter, one of the co-founders of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, that completely useless organization headed by valor thief, Paul Reickhoff, and Obama’s veteran adviser for his 2008 campaign, wrote in Foreign Policy a little piece about how you folks aren’t mature enough to make choices in your life because the popular culture has a firm grasp on your mind.
He’s complaining about the Budweiser commercial that ran during the Superbowl. Here it is if you missed it;
Carter writes;
Despite all that data, the military has a long and complex relationship with alcohol. In past wars, active-duty servicemembers drank on the battlefield. Booze stains the occasional page of many World War I and II veterans’ memoirs. “Band of Brothers” veteran Dick Winters writes of his troops’ liberation of Hermann Goering’s wine cellar at the end of their fight across Europe. In Korea and Vietnam, our troops drank too, often to excess. Such was the nature of war, and the military embraced alcohol as part of the wartime experience.
That changed with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the military instituted policies explicitly banning all deployed troops from consuming alcohol. There was a good reason for those rules, which is the same reason Sunday night’s Super Bowl ad went too far. Alcohol can lead to depression, worsen PTSD and — in some cases — accelerate the downward spiral that leads to suicide. Decades of research should have persuaded the Army to avoid getting in bed with Budweiser. Better for at-risk soldiers to hear a simple truth: This Bud isn’t for you.
Good thing Phil Carter is looking out for us dumb grunts who are going to drink a wagon load of beer because we watched that ad. But, I guess Carter is less opposed to IAVA’s (the organization that Carter co-founded with Reickhoff when IAVA morphed from Reickhoff’s anti-Bush organization OpTruth) partnership with Miller Brewing;
By the way, Carter was fired from the Obama Administration’s reward for being the vet adviser of the 2008 campaign, as the deputy secretary of defense for detainee affairs when he couldn’t figure out how to close Guantanamo.
Category: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
With all “due respect” for the “esteemed” Mr. Carter – he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Alcohol was banned in SWA (both times) and Afghanistan for one reason only: politics. It was in the US strategic interest not to offend the local population, and allowing alcohol consumption was feared to do exactly that. Health concerns had nothing to do with it.
Whether that qualifies as being “for good reason” or not is debatable. But it damn sure wasn’t done for the reason Carter implies. Nor am I aware of any evidence that months of forced abstinence followed by a return to unimpeded consumption afterwards is better than allowing consumption in-theater from a long-term mental health perspective.
You know what, I think this is the straw that broke the camel’s back because I just don’t give a shit anymore. I’ve been out for over 4 years now. Anyone who is still in by choice is either close to retirement and riding out the bullshit or they jumped on the ship as it was sinking and, therefore, are partly responsible for the situation in which they find themselves. I’m tired of feeling pissed off at the universal screwing that everyone is trying to ram down the throat (or up the asses) of the U.S. military and the veterans. I’m done caring…I’m done spending my time being pissed off at the bullshit. I’m done
Dear Mr. Carter,
Pussies like you are why we have “zero tolerance” policies like breathalyzers on the brow, etc., rather than treating our people like adults and hammering the fuckups. Nah, let’s treat everyone like a child.
Meanwhile, on our college campuses, binge drinking is still de rigeur behavior on fraternity row every weekend night, and most weekday nights as well. Explain that one, if you can.
@1 thank you Hondo. I was coming to the comments section to say exactly that.
@1, Hondo, yeah, they SAID it was so not to “offend” the locals, but in A-stan, one short trip from our Camp down Route Violet in Kabul would take you past plenty of Hadji Stores full of beer and liquor, I’m convinced that General Order 1A is just a chickenshit attempt at forced temperance The Canadians were rationed 2 or 3 beers a night, the Brits, French, and Romanians in our Camp were allowed booze, it drove me up the wall!
OH, and Phil Carter? Damn, what an irrelevant attention whore!
Backing out of the NCO club late one night at Little Rock Air Force Base, oh around 1976 or 77. I heard what I thought was a scream. I stopped the car and couldn’t see anything. I started to backup again and something bumped the passenger side of the car so I get out and do a walk around. It was a shit faced E-7 on hands and knees and I had backed over his left hand. Thus, the scream. He couldn’t get his car unlocked and lost his way back inside so badly, he was then on all fours trying to find his car again. I asked if he wanted to go over the the base ER for his hand but he was adamant he wouldn’t go. I gave him a ride to base housing and we drove through hell and back trying for him to give me directions to his house. (That was about the time the new “Alcohol Abuse” programs were getting into full swing.) Must have worked at CBPO because when I was there a couple weeks later, I see him with a cast on his hand and arm. Those were different days!
I like drinking to excess. It helps me forget that people like Carter and the other cockless garbage of IAVA still exist in my world.
…………………i think they gave me the pts..
Crap, I gotta change my handle! I’m no longer a SSG!
I’d stack the maturity level and responsiblity of 18-22 year olds in the Military up against the college kids in this country any day. Difference is the college kids for the most part work full time jobs and have every move they make under a microscope. Unless you want to compare them against the students at BYU. No contest there. Those little shits don’t even beat off.
#9 should read “Difference is the college kids for the most DON’T part work full time jobs and have every move they make under a microscope.”
To remain relevant, doesn’t one need to have been relevant previously?
Oh, that’s right – he’s a lefty. They are relevant simply by breathing and spewing their nonsense. The rest of us sane people are the problem.
Nope. In spite of hearing it from them day in and day out, I’m still not buying it.
The “Beltway” folks are funny.
And generally accomplish nothing outside of self-promotion.
Losers.
I don’t get what Carter is driving at. Yes, it’s a beer commercial, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get plastered. Doesn’t mean anyone here is. Budweiser was just doing something nice for the troops. At no point did it cross any line, at all, whatsoever. It was respectful, courteous, and honest, which is rare in our country’s mass media nowadays, unfortunately.
It feels like it is some desperate grasping for attention to me. Soldiers have and will drink Beer. Of course Major Winters (what gall this guy has to quote that man, someone who fought and served with great honor and then retired to live the most peaceful life he could, unlike our aforementioned Mr. Carter!) would mention “liberating” Hermann Goering’s wine collection; wouldn’t you?
Yes, Alcohol can make things worse for someone, I have no doubt in my mind in the scientific merit in what he’s saying. But he’s not the person who should be saying it, and he certainly doesn’t have the reason to do it in response to the Super Bowl commercial. It’s just pathetic what people will do to stir up a fight.
@12: This.
Other than that I like my house and my life here in the desert, I have never had a desire to work at my agency’s headquarters. I’ve seen the types who gravitate to the local equivalent. The most hated four words in my workplace are “THIS CAME FROM WASHINGTON.”
I don’t drink beer (or anything else very often) but one Super Bowl Sunday in 2005, my team had just returned to Baghdad (from mess kit repair) we walked into the mess hall and they had Bud on ice.
The deal was you could only have two beers…and they put an ink stamp on your hand.
Well, they tasted really good and they were cold. So I drank my two authorized and issued beers.
Then we found all our friends who were in one of the “M” religions and got them to get their two issued beers…and bring them over to us. and they were good.
That was the first time in many years that I had more than two beers….and I haven’t had more than one or two at a time since then.
War is hell…and a cold beer once in a while is ok, but if you absolutely have to drink every day or get drunk all the time, then you got a problem.
@8 Did you get promoted?
@6: I saved a CWO his flight status and his rank after a unit party. I hadn’t been drinking at that one (I had CQ the next morning) and I saw one of the pilots walking to his car, with a little effort, so I walked up to him and told him to give me his keys and I would drive him home. He insisted he was fine, but I knew better and after a little discussion about he, he relented and I drove him home with a buddy following in his vehicle. The next day, he stopped in the orderly room and thanked me for “keeping his dumb ass out of the pokey” (his words). The Army frowned big time on DUI and were looking for any excuse to hammer someone for it, especially on Post (the DoD rent-a-cops were the biggest pricks you could ever meet and they loved to fuck with the troops), to set an example. He would have lost his flight status, which would have basically run him out of the Army. After that incident, he quit drinking for a while.
If a beer ad makes me drink or a cigatrette ad makes me smoke or drink to excess, Lord only knows what the Cialis or feminine hygiene ads are doin’ to ya!
Old Trapper…thank God no! But after 26 years, I did get my ass Honorably retired on 01 Feb. 🙂
Too old, slow, fat, and busted up for this anymore. Toss in 0bama’s rush to destroy the country by destroying the military….and I’m outta here!
I have drank “punch” out of a boot after a 20-miler.
I think everyone will be fine with or without ads… Plus while you are deployed you have to watch the super bowl on AFN where you cant see the commercials lol. Although you may get two beers, if your CSM will sign for them, which he wont.