The whole premise of military service is an interesting one. We are supposed to be impressed by the civilian command thing, where people with absolutely no military training and no experience of combat are given supreme authority to order around the most dangerous human organization in the history of the world. The idea of that is it is supposed to be some kind of protection against military coups. The suits are more powerful than the spears. Uh-huh.
But there is another idea that comes with that. It is the idea of the civilian-military social contract. What’s that? It’s this: In return for the volunteers agreeing to obey all kinds of dubious orders from the untrained and unready civilian leadership, the civilian leadership promises not to be a bunch of fucking assholes. Let’s just say that part of the social contract has been broken beyond all hope of repair for a long time now.
And, you know, you’ve got a guy in charge now who thinks people who join the military and get killed in service to the nation are chumps, suckers, and losers. And he’s a criminal, so that is special huh?
Anyway, here’s a little Thursday canapé. I think it tastes like the bitter truth.
