MFP? My son signed up for the Army in early 2017 (even before he graduated high school) on the assumption that Trump could not possibly win the election. Now I am dealing with the fact that my son’s Commander in Chief is possibly/probably/almost certainly:
- In the early stages of dementia
- Being blackmailed by Putin
- Pathologically narcissistic
- An obvious racist
- Criminal many times over, whether sexual assault, money laundering, fraud, libel/slander,
- A serial liar who would not hesitate for an instant to send my son on a suicidal mission if it would buy him a split-second of distraction from any other issue he was trying to cover up, or
- ALL OF THE ABOVE.
This directly affects my son’s well-being. I won’t say safety — because anyone who joins the military is basically saying “my desire to serve my country is greater than my desire for personal safety.” But he wants to serve his country in a meaningful way — and being sent off to fight in an unnecessary war on the whim of an egomaniac is not what he signed up for.
The core of MFP is the discussion I had shortly with my son shortly after the election where I asked him point-blank: “What are you going to do if you are ordered by the chain of command that currently starts with that maniac to do something clearly illegal, unethical, or immoral??” His response: “SOMEBODY has to be there who is willing to refuse to obey that illegal order.” So my fear is not so much that my son will be killed or wounded (although that fear is ALWAYS there), but that he will be broken by refusing to participate in some kind of nastiness, whether a cover-up, or an illegal mission, or just general military fuckedupedness. The soldiers at Abu Ghraib were not monsters — at least not initially. But they lacked the moral compass and the courage to say “
ThisCompared to all of the above, the fact that my furnace just died and that the replacement is costing me thousands is a piece of cake. All I had to do is write a check. The reason I mention that is because my son is NOT one of the many that serve because they can’t afford college, or because they are hoping for a path to citizenship, or (sadly) because they think that they will get the power and respect that they have never had in life. My son serves because he believes that it is his duty to serve his country. Not because he is some kind of right-wing military yahoo — but because he believes that EVERY citizen has a duty to serve in some fashion, and he chooses to do so in the military.
PLEASE NOTE: My son was never taught that a citizen had to serve in the military. He was instead taught that a citizen had the duty to PARTICIPATE in our democracy in order to keep it vital and alive. He was taught that, in a democracy, each citizen has a duty has a duty to be informed on issues of the day and to vote, to make one’s voice heard at the ballot box. Anything beyond that is optional.
But to every citizen in this country, I say this. A democracy requires citizen involvement in order to survive. Withholding your vote should only be the LAST resort in protest against tyranny. Otherwise, there is the risk of totalitarianism taking over simply because not enough people showed up to vote against it.
To those who did not vote in our last election, or who voted in protest for a candidate who had no possibility of winning, I can only say, are you happy now? Because your FP with the available candidates in our last election has morphed into a MASSIVE FP for our country, for the entire planet, and the very survival of our species.
Now that I have ranted about MY FP, welcome! Please feel free to vent as I have just done — it is healthy and healing to share if only to relieve the stress of having YOUR FP all bottled up inside you.