If you’ve browsed around here before it’s pretty damn obvious that I’m very liberal in my beliefs. The last political quiz I took had me as a Demotarian-Libertocrat.
You would also know that I spent 10 years in the United States Air Force. You probably do not know that my father spent 20 years in the United States Navy. I spent the first 17 years of my life as a military child. 6 years later I joined the Air Force. So 27 of my 33 years on earth have been spent affiliated with the military.
So when I came across this artricle from one of my regular news sites I felt compelled to write a response to that post with one of my own.
On this day, Veteran’s Day, we would like to express to the American public why we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to refuse orders to reactivate into military service. We are direct witnesses to the horrors of this war, having experienced its atrocities at their source, and we have decided that we can no longer carry out these illegal and immoral policies.
I completely and totally agree with a decision to refuse an order on the basis of its legality. As a matter of fact, one of your duties as a member of the armed forces is to disregard any and all illegal orders. Maybe this will help explain it a bit:
A military order must have a military connection and must not contravene existing law, such as the Constitution, treaties, and statutes. An illegal order is just that - illegal, and does not require that it be obeyed. As the law either has no valid military purpose or contravenes existing law, obeying the order may expose the person to prosecution. (source)
What I take issue with is their refusal to reactivate into military service. When the authors mention reactivation what they are speaking of is the Individual Ready Reserves. The IRR is defines as such:
The Ready Reserve is comprised of military members of the Reserve and National Guard, organized in units or as individuals, both of which are liable for recall to active duty to augment the active components in time of war or national emergency as provided by law (10 USC 12301(a) and 12302). The Ready Reserve consists of the Selected Reserve, Individual Ready Reserve and Inactive National Guard. To learn more about these three subcategories, see the Topics Index on the right.
Section 10145 of 10 USC provides basic statutory eligibility requirements for placement in the Ready Reserve. Under the basic requirements outlined, the following individuals may be assigned to the Ready Reserve:
1. Military personnel released from active duty (other than active duty for training) who have incurred a total military obligation of up to eight years.
2. Reserve officers who have incurred a total military obligation of eight years.
3. Members of the Army and Air National Guard of the United States.
4. Direct enlistees in the Reserves who have incurred a total military obligation of up to eight years, including not less than 12 weeks of initial active duty for training.
5. Members whose total length of active and Reserve service is five years or more who have executed a voluntary agreement to remain in the Ready Reserve subject to requirements prescribed by appropriate regulations.
6. A member of the Retired Reserve entitled to retired pay or a retired enlisted member of the regular components of the Armed Forces, if the Secretary concerned makes a special finding that the member’s services in the Ready Reserve are indispensable. This responsibility may not be delegated to lower authority.
Now there will be those out there that say something along the lines of “but my recruiter never told me…”. In my humble opinion if you are too stupid to do any research before you decided to sign your life away to the government for XX number of years than you deserve all you get.
Oh, by the way, did you know that service in the united states military is voluntary? Yep. It is. So when I read shit like this:
The United States learned a lesson from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in the event of self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life-threatening orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of policy makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the need for a draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of America’s disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is particularly susceptible to military recruitment for lack of other options and finding themselves with deployment orders again and again.
all I fucking hear is whine whine whine whine whine.
Our military is not composed of the disadvantaged.
Overall, more than 92 percent of recruits enlisted in fy 2008 hold a high school diploma, contrasted with 75 percent of the general U.S. population in the same age range.
Nearly 70 percent of new active-duty recruits scored 50 or higher on the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), and about three-quarters of new recruits come from neighborhoods that are at or above the U.S. median annual household income of about $50,000. (source)
And the above falls in line with my experience in the military. I never ever felt as if I was serving with a bunch of downtrodden disadvantaged poor folks. Some people however have such a deep seeded feeling of insecurity and fear that it clouds their vision and taints everything around them.
To compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq, the military has resorted to recalling former service members. This policy is known as “involuntary activation” and utilizes deactivated service members who still have time on their contracts in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) to fill shortcomings in specific job specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy has escalated under the current administration to such a degree that it can now only be viewed as a “backdoor draft” that targets the same disadvantaged individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they are better at not questioning orders.
I have already shown the fallacy with regards to the authors claim of disadvantaged individuals being heavily targeted by military recruiters. As far as disadvantaged individuals being better at not questioning orders, I’ve already shown that it is not as simple as whether or not you are following an order, it is an ongoing struggle to determine if the order that you are being given is legal and valid. If you feel the order to return to Iraq is an illegal order since the Iraq war is an illegal war and there are countless war crimes being committed by our military personnel then face up the consequences of your decision and take the courts martial.
I spent 10 years working as a linguist. I worked in the intelligence field. I was privy to information that the average person in the military will never know exists. Based on my 10 years of experience in the intelligence community I was fully prepared to refuse any order and to prove my case that I was refusing an illegal order during my courts martial.
To the authors I say shame on your for disrepcting our fallen brothes in arms by using this Veterans Day rememberance as your own personal soapbox.
The city of New York has 