"Sorry I have not written much lately. We have had a hard couple days. We are running full tilt. And always we have lots of kids in the clinic. We are tired. But we are well."
Earlier in the day, I received this email from The Hubs a.k.a. my husband, a surgeon deployed to Afghanistan. As someone in the medical field for over twenty years, I could only imagine what had ripped through the trauma center. Hence, I was in no mood for a round of Trash Can Politics.
"How is your husband?"
The person asking caught me as I was taking the trash cans to the curb. I've assiduously avoided her, since every inquiry about The Hubs is followed by a cutting opinion about the war in Afghanistan. She is, like many in this suburb, tucked away from the untidiness of life. Here in the land of the car, there are few amputee veterans trying to catch buses, nor in plain view are mothers raising four children while their spouses are at war. This community is voluntarily cut off from the vagaries of the larger world, mired in static rhetoric and conventional wisdom. This town is rose bushes and palm trees.
Turns out she's watched Charlie Wilson's War, her launching point at the Trash Can Summit on a hot summer day. She continued, her range extending to Blackwater, as I walked across the street to move an ailing neighbor's cans to the curb as well. Nothing was going to deter her from expressing her disgust, not my own reading and research in
to culture, my correspondence with people on the ground, my daily review of milblogs, or my camping out in the library where such books are kept.
"And why are we doing this? For what? Are you going to change their culture?" she asked.
Such a broad question cannot be answered. Especially, while walking barefoot on the black asphalt and hauling cans to the street. But it didn't matter. She didn't really want an answer. People like her never do.
Like many, her stance is that it's hopeless. We should pull out.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
Forty three years ago this month, I came home from a tour in Vietnam. In the first few months, until I learned not to speak of my service, I was subjected to some pretty vile invective from seemingly nice, upright citizens.
Your article really resonates with me.
2 - roger nowosielski
Very well written and engaging.
3 - roger nowosielski
But Clavos, could you make your position clear? It was friends and acquantainces who you've dealt with, not perfect strangers.
4 - Kanani
Clavos --Thank you for your service.
This isn't the first nor is it the worst pile of crap I've had to deal with. But invariably, it comes when I'm just trying to carry out a task --taking the trash out or buying a Rx.
I'll write more about the dangers of moving this off our collective radar and what that will mean to the longterm benefits for veterans.
Roger --thank you!
5 - Clavos
But Clavos, could you make your position clear? It was friends and acquantainces who you've dealt with, not perfect strangers.
No, actually it was mostly strangers, and as in Kanani's case, neighbors and others with only a casual relationship.
6 - Kanani
Clavos
I always wish I had a better response. I might come up with a list of quick rebuttals that are ten words or less.
But yes, it always catches you off guard and usually isn't related to anything that you're doing at the time.
7 - roger nowosielski
Kanani's story is very telling, and depressing. I hate to sound banal, but to quote a famous line, but what we have here is a failure to communicate.
8 - roger nowosielski
Why don't you invite her for lunch or something, have a one-on-one?
9 - kanani
Ah, but Roger, It's her way, very disarming and she lacks that mechanism that says, "Just say hello."
10 - roger nowosielski
Well, it'd seem to me you've got to take the initiative. And if it fails, at least you know you've done your best. And then you can write her off - for good.
11 - zingzing
the thing is that HE is over there, whether she likes it or not, whether he likes it or not, or whether the neighbor likes it or not. that's not going to change based on the neighbor's (or the wife's, or, quite possibly, the husband's) opinion.
talking to a person at least twice-removed from any such decision is pointless, and telling that person that what her husband is doing is pointless is doubly stupid and could actually be hurtful (especially if the wife doesn't believe in the cause of this war). because there's nothing she can do. no policy decision is coming from her, so why burden her?
and if she DOES believe in what her husband is doing (and for fuck's sake, he's a surgeon working on local children...) then, whatever the woman says isn't going to change her mind. the ultimate pointlessness and potential for emotional distress is...
well, now i'm just repeating the blog in whole, it seems.
next time, tell the woman to write to her senator. or steal her identity and sign her up for active duty. sounds to me like this guy (the husband) has his heart in the right place, as does the writer, whatever politics are at stake. fuck politics.
12 - roger nowosielski
Exactly, zing. Individual circumstances have nothing to do with the operation. No foot soldier is responsible for US foreign policy. Especially if they're in the medical corps. So in cases like that, you had said it right: fuck politics.
13 - Kanani
Roger, We're Army nice to them, now. I think this is "good enough."
14 - Christine
Wow, what a story!
15 - Andy Marsh
I guess it's good to live in a military town...our trash can conversations are usually pretty pleasant.
I like that term Kanani, "Army Nice". I take that to mean a respectful hello or hi, but no invitations to the kids birthday parties...at least that's close to what "Navy Nice" would be...the only difference being that we'd pee in their flower beds late at night too!
Roger, I'm not sure if you ever served, but if you did, then you'd know that those on the left have no problem coming up to someone in uniform and letting them know how much they honestly believe that anyone in uniform only does it because he or she can't make it on the outside, or worse, spew the crap that Clavos and his mates had too when they got back...being called baby killers and worse.
And no offense to those of you on the left, but you always seem to get louder when you have one of your own in the whitehouse.
16 - Ruvy
You know, Kanani, you are not REQUIRED to acknowledge this woman at all. She knows she is being hurtful, and she is enjoying that fact, no matter what her facial expression may be when she spouts her opinions.
I'd give here the cold shoulder and the silent treatment. She doesn't deserve better from you. Cut her off like the cur she is.
17 - Baronius
Explain to your neighbor that if she really wants to understand Afghanistan, she should watch "Ghost Rider". After watching that movie, she'll never talk to you again.
18 - Cindy
We are there. And no one knows that better than military families.
She didn't really want an answer. People like her never do.
Not being one of those 'people like her', you will probably be open-minded and willing to spend some time learning what women on this site have to say: RAWA. Because, clearly, you are very unlike your neighbor, who is part of a ...community [that] is voluntarily cut off from the vagaries of the larger world, mired in static rhetoric and conventional wisdom.
(Disclaimers: 1) I am uncritical of surgeons and medics. 2) In real life, I don't talk to people who are in the military as, nothing I say will help and I don't want to hear their misguided claims about how the US is spreading freedom and democracy. But, this is a political blog, not a curbside.)
19 - Cindy
OH and btw, John Kenneth Galbraith, the brilliant man who coined the phrase 'the conventional wisdom' would roll over in his grave on hearing your application of it.
20 - Kanani
Andy, She's a lovely lady with a lovely garden. Army nice is as good as it will ever get.
Ruvy, thank you.
Baronius, There's no telling people who have made up their mind what to watch. Army nice is good enough.
Cindy, I have been through the RAWA site before. In fact, there's a local chapter in nearby SB and Mavis has long been a supporter as well. For many years I worked in equity and education for women an girls through a large NPO.
So my question to you, why as an open minded individual, won't you talk to people in the military? Are you closed off to the chance of the complexity of what we think could be perhaps much deeper than you assume? Boards..boards can be quite inflammatory. And unless you actually go and sit with someone for the express purpose of speaking and listening ...then the boards can be no different than a curbside encounter.
Let's put it this way: Emma Skye, Sarah Chayse, Greg Mortenson ...all take a great amount of time to talk to the military. If they do, perhaps you can too.
It's called balance.
21 - Cindy
Neither the US nor Jehadies and Taliban,
Long Live the Struggle of Independent and Democratic Forces of Afghanistan!
The US and Her Fundamentalist Stooges are
the Main Human Rights Violators in Afghanistan
Let's rise against the war crimes of U.S. and its fundamentalist lackeys!
The US Government Wants War,
the People of US and the World Want Peace!
Those are a few selections of articles you can find on RAWA. Here is a direct link to their photo gallery. (As a courtesy, for those who manage to miss it for reasons other than being open-minded, which I am sure you all are.)
22 - Ruvy
Cindy, you say,
In real life, I don't talk to people who are in the military as, nothing I say will help and I don't want to hear their misguided claims about how the US is spreading freedom and democracy.
That is not open-mindedness. It is the worst and nastiest kind of snobbery I could think of. While soldiers may be engaged in organized killing, and may not at all be spreading freedom or democracy, they are defending the relative security you live in - a point you ought never forget.
There are times when I am truly regretful that foreign soldiers have not been able to occupy American cities, humiliate American men and rape American women. This is one of those times. You might not like the cause American soldiers are sent overseas to accomplish, or agree with it. But you would not hold your nose and refuse to talk to them as though they were a lower species of human.
23 - Ruvy
And Cindy, before you blow up in anger, remember that I was AGAINST the war in Vietnam, and were I in danger of being drafted, I would have fled - not to Sweden or Canada like a coward - but to Israel, where I could at least believe in what I was doing were I called on to fight.
And I NEVER CALLED ANY AMERICAN SOLDIER A BABY KILLER, OR GENOCIDAL MANIAC. They went overseas to defend my ass, even if I didn't agree with why, a fact I never forgot. And too many of them returned injured - or dead - another fact I never forgot.
24 - Kanani
Such anger, sarcasm, doubt, hatred and intolerance dwells in the world, and indeed at times in each of us.
And each of us travels through the fiery world. The challenge is to find balance that helps us become more informed, fulfilled, and open --even to dissent, in order carry forth and bring peace not only to the outside world but within.
It is the quandary we all face in a very imperfect, unjust world. To find the center of our own humanity so that we may proceed.
It is what I hope every soldier will be able to do when he or she comes home. I hope they can find those meditative moments even whilst in the midst of chaos. And I hope our leaders find the wisdom to do it too.
25 - Cindy
...and bring peace not only to the outside world but within.
Kanani/Ruvy,
It isn't a result of balance to accept just a little slavery, or slavery for 'the right reasons'. The same is true of war. Say yes to peace.
"There is no way to peace...peace is the way." - A.J. Muste
"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war." - Albert Einstein
"Support the troops who refuse to fight." (Courage to Resist)
"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." - Mahatma Gandhi
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" - Mahatma Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace and War
Martin Luther King, Jr. on War
"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful." - Leo Tolstoy