"We Support the Troops, but..."

This past weekend, I was privileged to pay a visit to the military base at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. A good friend serves in the Army and is currently training for the elite Army unite more commonly known as the Green Berets. This particular branch specializes in raiding operations, antiterrorist actions, and reconnaissance. My friend is in the middle of a rigorous training process that is physically and mentally taxing, to put it lightly. In addition to picking up foreign languages and advanced medical training, he occasionally disappears for weeks on end into the fort’s dense forest complex. To say that Fort Bragg is expansive would be an understatement. Quite simply, it’s massive, virtually a self-sufficient city within itself. The military ambiance permeates every square meter of the complex; granite and marble monuments bear the seemingly endless list of names of those who paid the ultimate price in the service of their country. Larger-than-life bronze statues of Herculean soldiers are scattered about and seem to be holding vigilance over this vast nexus of military barracks, offices and training centers. There are few places in the country that are more secure and guarded. So the opportunity to get an insiders view was an extraordinary experience.

As my friend and I strolled the grounds, and drove around in his pick-up truck, we had the chance to talk about the ins and outs of life in the military. He spent over a year in Iraq, so I give a good deal of credence to his perspective and insights. As the war on terror progresses amid both great losses and notable victories it is not surprising that, within the nation, debate over the particulars of the mission have emerged as a popular topic to toss back and forth. The phrase “We support the troops, but not the mission” has become common parlance among those on the left as they seek to whip-up support for an end to US participation in Iraq. As they see it, this comfortable middle ground allows them to offer lip service to the troops, who are widely lauded by the general public, and still maintain their traditional pacifist ideology. I wanted to understand what kind of impression this rallying cry made on the American soldier and, given my friend's full-immersion into the harsh realities of war, I considered him preeminently qualified to speak for his peers. He told me in no uncertain terms that the “we support the troops but…” catchphrase is empty and means nothing. “Someone who says that they support us but not our mission really does not support us because, deep down, they have no reason for seeing us succeed.” It made a good deal of sense to me. Supporting someone implies that one approves of what another is doing, especially if that person is putting his life on the line. For example, in the political world if I support candidate X, wouldn't that mean that I believe in what he’s doing and I hope he succeeds in his campaign? It would be patently ludicrous to say that I support him yet not his objective.

The truth of the matter is that, even in certain circles of well-intentioned Christians, there exists a deep-seated hostility toward the military. This hostility and suspicion is generally rooted in a clouded understanding of the Church’s 1,500 year-old just-war teaching and, even more troubling, a general naïveté about the human condition itself. A limited war conducted within the strict parameter of the just-war doctrine is too often muddled together with cold-blooded murder. At the very heart of the Church’s just war teaching is that, occasionally, force must be wielded to reestablish peace and justice when they have been violated by evil men. There’s a particular arrogance about modern man’s tendency to believe, such is the state of our enlightenment in this new age that we no longer have the need to resort to brutish arms. Physical combat is somehow impugned as something antiquated, uncivilized, etc. "Dialogue" has become the magic wand to resolve all our problems. Understandably traumatized by the horrors of the numerous wars waged in their backyard, most Europeans, (Romano Prodi comes to mind), are now virtually default pacifists and subsequently question the very relevance of even the possibility of waging a limited war. The irony is that it is precisely because arms were taken up in the past in Europe that Europeans are free to pontificate against them today. It is precisely because the United States intervened in the blood baths of European wars that Europeans today can sit on their soap boxes, chastising American intervention elsewhere. Fortunately, Americans see things differently. I’ve always been impressed with the stark realism that distinguishes the United States, together with the UK and Poland, from many of the nations of the world.

George Orwell once wrote, “We sleep safely because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those would seek to do us harm.” That “rough men” may scare an effete, culture bewitched by political correctness shouldn’t blur the plain-as-day truth that it is just these men who stand as well-anchored shields fending off tyranny’s relentless onslaught on Western civilization.