No Citations Allowed: Memorial Day 2012

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Panookah's post in t_p_nonsense already summed up my general feelings toward the day but I want to get the community's take on a deeper question...

"Why are young men(and now women) willing to kill and die for flags?"

Discuss!


I have my own answer but it suffers from the fallicious assumption that my own values are typical of everyone.

Now if you were to ask someone to give thier life for something with tangible value chances are they'd say no on the grounds that a new car is not worth a sucking chest wound. So what is worth a sucking chest wound?

My answer would be "an Ideal". The specific Ideal doesn't matter what matters is that is that it's value is intagible and thus potentially infinite. Asking someone if they would be willing to die for a new car will get you laughed at, asking someone if they would die for Love, Honor, or Justice won't.

This is where the flag comes in. We project our ideals upon it, and in doing so the attack or defense of that flag becomes the attack or defense of those ideals.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

A cynical part of me wants to view it as an economist would. Military service has high value in a lot of ways - job training, prestige, skills development, the GI Bill, etc. The risks are extremely high, but well-understood and surprisingly low, overall - certainly you're a lot more likely to be killed in service than you are in my job, but you're a fair bit less likely to be killed as an American serviceman in Iraq than you were, say, on the Western Front in 1917. It's a high-risk, high-reward proposition, and a lot of people are willing to take that up. The "fighting for the flag" thing, fighting for the ideals... that's subsumed in the "prestige" part of the value of the job, at least in part.

That said, I've known people who had no use for that sort of value - who had good careers, good families, wealthy parents and never the need to want for anything, who joined up and went to war, and consider it the best thing they've ever done. So I'm not sure the cynical part of me is right even a majority of the time.

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

Women have always been willing to fight and die for their countries. You say "and now" but that is inaccurate.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

True but the recruitment of them into regular fighting forces is a bit more recent developement.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

People die for all kinds of shit. Material things, ironically. The pursue self-destructive ends thus ensuring everything they work for can't be enjoyed by them when they do get it.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> "Why are young men(and now women) willing to kill and die for flags?"

Because they are trained to do so. (where "trained" can mean anything on the spectrum from 'socialized' to 'brain washed' depending on what axe you have to grind.)

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

but when does the training begin? before one enlists? or after?

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

hmmmm...I suppose we are taught that it is honorable to take the risk. It is only potentially that one might have to kill. It is only potentially that one might his/himself be killed. Therefore it is just a risk rather than something guaranteed.

To 'serve' is to take that risk. This particular risk also happens to be socially viewed as an honourable one!

[ameliorate.livejournal.com]

I never thought of it as a flag thing, or even as ideals that we project onto the flag, although that probably has some/a lot to do with it.

I mean (trying not to break the no citing rule lol) in the American pledge we state that the flag represents the republic... I tend to assume the republic refers to all the people within the state. So not necessarily killing or dying for the material that is the flag, but for the people it represents. I think traditionally the ideal was that we were all bonded in some unique way be identifying as a certain nationality, I think though as time moves on more people are becoming aware that people represented by flag X aren't necessarily different from people represented by flag Y. These people become less likely to be nationalistic and willing to kill/die for the people they're supposed to be bonded. I also think that this is where the subject of ideals comes in. When people are like, "Yo, they aren't that different" and the government/whatever entity wishes for us to pursue killing/death for whatever reason it falls back on the ideals argument, "They don't like freedom! They hate your religion!" ETC. After all if it helps convince naysayers, it will only double the resolution in the people who were willing to die for the original cause. I think this is the primary stage we're in now, but it probably won't be much longer before they need new arguments to encourage war as I see more people putting forth that despite a few extremists more people are about the same as us. I wonder what will come next? I mean, of course this has been used before and these arguments are very overlapping, but it will probably begin to lean heavily on, "If we don't do something we're going to run out of resource X,Y, and Z!!! Everyone you love will die with out X,Y, and Z!!!!!!"

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

the first part of your comment brings to mind an interesting topic {tangent alert} . . . I wonder if the Pledge is even recited in the schools any longer??? I could've sworn it's not (?).

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

To aggregate the motivation of individuals who are "willing to kill and die for flags" does a major disservice to the many multitudes who join for a variety of reasons. Let me start with my family, who have fought in every war that Virginians have endeavored to join since the Indian Massacre of 1622.

My Great-Great-Great Grandfather joined the 29th Virginia because fighting Yankees was more interesting to a 16 year old with a penchant for deceit than tending a large plantation, and it was unlikely that he would get to go to West Point like his father and cousins.

My Great-Grandmother's sister joined the Navy because her father had insisted that she go to Virginia Teacher's School (now James Madison) rather than to UVA's School of Nursing. Hating kids, she joined the Navy to get training as a nurse, and to see France in the romantic winter of 1917-1918.

My Father's Father, hated Nazis and lied about his age in 1940, so he could join the Navy for the upcoming war. Of course, because of the delicious irony of the military, he spent almost the whole war on carriers in the Pacific.

My Mother's Father, was a German citizen and was offered a choice of the US Army or the Crystal City Internment Camp, he enlisted after spending time in Crystal City.

My Uncle's Father joined because the Virginia National Guard provided free beach vacations every summer to its members. The beach vacations were very popular in the town he grew up in, so popular that 21 of the towns 3000 people died from wounds suffered on a French beach on June 6th, 1944.

My Uncle joined because his father refused provide any money for college without ROTC.

I joined the Navy because I was 17 and just finished my sophomore year of college and had no idea what I was doing. Also, I was a Virginian, it is something that we do.

My sister joined because she did not want to go to college and the Air Force had air conditioning in boot camp.

My sister's husband joined because he had gotten into some legal troubles in his teens and his family encouraged him to join the Air Force to straighten him out.

My other sister's husband joined because he never had seen the ocean, and his parents made minimum wage, so when Annapolis allowed him in, it was a no brainer.

When I go my PhD, and my sister showed up in uniform, My father (who did not serve in the military, but was a firefighter and policeman for 25 years and has a PhD in emergency management) said something to the effect of, "for people who spend so much time trying to talk our children out of making our mistakes - we sure do beam when we see them in uniform or getting their PhD."

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

i love your response best because i really like to see these cases where it's like a Family Tradition and for y'all it seems so second-nature by now :} and look at what productive citizens all of you are .... it's model families like this that maintain the pride that should go into to serving for our country. --that's from the heart and no sarcasm intended.

[curseangel.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's an ideal. I think it's economics.

That is, to explain... a lot -- a lot -- of low-income men and women are convinced (by recruiters, by society, etc.) that joining the military is their only real option after high school. They join up because they see it as their only ticket out of abject poverty. They can't afford college and few people can survive, let alone thrive, on part-time minimum wage jobs. Caught up by that, they join the military either for the salary or the post-enlistment college benefits, or just the idea of having a job that pays more than minimum wage. I've actually seen a great deal of discussion about whether or not the military essentially manipulates poor young people into joining up (answer: absolutely, yes, they do).

Do some people join up because they have an ideal or believe in the cause or have a thing for the flag? Sure. But I don't think it's all or even most. I think the military depends on desperate poor kids to keep going.

I'm sure some people will think this is disrespectful or something, but imo it's a basic truth. Our bloated military can't survive without making enlistment attractive to poor kids with few or no options, and as recruitment standards lower (as I've heard they have been recently) to include those with juvie or misdemeanor convictions, and so on, that will only become more true.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Actually, the military no longer really *accepts* "desperate poor people".

look at table 1
s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2006/pdf/cda06-09.pdf

The poorest quintile (20% of the population) represents only 14% of military recruits. the other 4 quintiles are over-represented prety much uniformly.

Those with no high school diploma represented less than 2% of military recruits, compared to 20% of the population.

Nor is it "racist", with the AA %recruits to % population at very near parity, and the caucasian %recruits to % population at very near parity.

So essentially, this meme is totally untrue.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

cuz they poor and the army gives good benefits

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Actually, the military no longer really *accepts* "desperate poor people".

look at table 1
s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2006/pdf/cda06-09.pdf

The poorest quintile (20% of the population) represents only 14% of military recruits. the other 4 quintiles are over-represented prety much uniformly.

Those with no high school diploma represented less than 2% of military recruits, compared to 20% of the population.

Nor is it "racist", with the AA %recruits to % population at very near parity, and the caucasian %recruits to % population at very near parity.

So essentially, this meme is totally untrue.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The reasons are emotional but not entirely irrational. It's manipulation but not always ignorance.

Unless you and your way of life are immediately under thread then there isn;t a sound reason to sign up with military.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

"Usually, because they get paid."

Ummm... I can't speak to the realities in the Canadian Forces, but unless you have a really weird and emotionally masochistic personality, most militaries don't pay enough for the pain in the ass of military service. Especially given that it's fairly easy to get out if you really want to.

While the paycheck may be a factor for staying in--you can't stay in if you're not eating--there's almost always employment opportunities somewhere that will pay as well and mean you're not putting 40-miles of running a week on your knees or putting up with having little real choice in your day-to-day or year-to-year life.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the multiple reasons young men join, they don't die for flags. They just die.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

++++++++++++++++++++

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Just once, I wish a flag would be willing to die for a person.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

It's because we oh-so-civilized humans have a strong innate will towards death. The desire to die in order to save one's species is often fed by a narcissistic ideation of the self, as a representation of the values most highly prized: loyalty, aggression, overcoming, heroism. To these values are opposed the values of the absolute Other, who is by necessity evil, weak, wrong and subhuman. Religion and nationalism are the tools by which the individual assumes this suicidal responsibility towards the species. This drive to preserve the species is seen in some natural biologies in the reproductive cycle, the evolutionary development being merely that the drive to die gets elevated to an ideal of the platonic triad of love+truth+justice.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

Sociology much?

Humans don't have a strong innate will towards death. As a proportion, suicide is low, homicide--in most cultures/subcultures/populations--is low. Infanticide (after birth) is low. Where humans killing humans is more common, it's not from a desire for death, it's more in terms of desire to live in spite of conflict with another human.

Look at abortion, for example. Most women who get one don't do it because they want to kill a potential baby. They do so because of the conflicts it resolves as far as their own quality of life, the potential baby's quality of life, the quality of life of other existing siblings or parents etc. They typically don't go seeking death, it's just part of a solution where the dilemma involves otherwise almost impossible conflicts regarding lives.

Military enlistees are not typically nihilists nor are they typically homicidal. Even the ones that do or did enlist to "kill gooks", "kill krauts", "kill Southerners", etc. do so with a cultural or "way of life" stereotype in mind rather than a mental picture of a particular human being. Violence in warfare is more about economic or cultural conflicts than inter-human relationships. Evil, in this case, is a gauge of how antagonistic the other side is to their society's way of life. Not some weird idea of the "other".

When you remove the cultural and economic conflict, you cure the "innate will towards death" more quickly than killing someone.

I mean, honestly, do Americans still hate Germans? How about the Japanese? The British?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Close, but. . . .

We project our ideals upon it, and in doing so the attack or defense of that flag becomes the attack or defense of those ideals.

Actually, research shows that the flag represents a symbolic escape from fear of death, and thus becomes a symbolic representation of immortality through national/group participation. Far from "projecting our ideals upon it," we look to the flag to rescue us from the inevitability of death. (The same holds true for many with religious iconography, like crucifixes.)

Seriously, see the movie Escape from Death. Researchers had two groups complete simple creative tasks after filling out a basic questionaire. One task was to separate as much sand from a bowl of sand-filled ink as they could. The only things they could use were two bowls—one filled with the ink and sand mix and the other empty—and an American flag. For the most part, the control group figured it out quickly, using the flag as a cloth filter.

The test group, though, got a brief but clear mention of the fact that all of us will die one day in their questionaires, something absent from the control. A statistically significant number of them made a mess of the sifting, some choosing to sieve ink and sand through their fingers rather than stain the flag.

We culturally attach those other ideals ("Love, Honor, or Justice") to the flag and the idealized republic for which it stands, completing the mental baggage that becomes patriotism.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

"Why are young men (and now women) willing to kill and die for flags?"

That's an easy one.

The flags represent both a society and a set of ideals for the society.

Young men (and women) see enlisting for military service as an investment in that society that should generate a return in the form of trust and acceptance by that society. On an economic level (for the individual) it may be advantageous in the form of college aid and wages, but when considered as a day-to-day life, the hardships of military life (even peacetime military life) would probably reduce the appeal on a purely economic level. Additionally, the level of commitment required to gain many of those benefits would probably translate to different, higher payoff economic choices staying in the civilian world.

For those saying it's about a family tradition, you're proving my point on a smaller social scale. Basically, for you, it's about making an investment in society in general and getting additional returns and support from your family members.

Now, as to killing and dying, dying isn't intentional although it's an understood risk of military service. Killing--while not a guaranteed part--is however, an assumed risk of military service. Essentially, killing while in the military is usually seen as a means to reduce and/or stop risk to other military personnel and/or the people the military has accepted a duty to protect. While these situations could theoretically be avoided by "staying home", the need to support one's society is a prevailing motivation and--in military terms--the society in the form of the elected government is making the decisions of necessity or not.

Which comes back to the legitimacy of government decisions in war represented by those flags...

While I understand the pacifistic appeal of simply judging value in conflict in terms of human lives and blaming everything else on greed or "blood for oil", etc. One thing that many people don't seem to realize is how much the ability of a society to survive--including the lives of people here--depends on a functioning economic system. While the idea "there's more than enough money to go around" has appeal and that we can simply tax it out of the rich if something happens--like oil embargoes in the Middle East, the reality is money is also a measure of investment and trust in a society. Without the investment and when trust fails, money is worthless and you come back to an economy based on barter and the movement of actual resources between people.

Often, resources that our lives depend on.

For example, oil and its by-products in many cases. Without it or with very little of it, urban areas may quickly become untenable because most of the food coming into cities does so in or on oil-fueled vehicles. The solution to that, of course, is to simply move to where the food is grown. Which creates more problems with infrastructure and the transportation of other resources, etc. You can't move resources, societies fail, and often not in an orderly way, which ends up costing more lives.

Anyway, so young men and women are willing to enlist in military service where they may be asked to kill or unintentionally die because they feel some strong connection to and investment in the society the flag represents.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

Of course, it doesn't hurt that it's a lot easier to get feminine interest while wearing a uniform or by being a veteran on a college campus. I mean, maybe it's the idea that a guy is willing to both make commitment, stick to it, and survive that piques a woman's interest?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Delusions are inexhaustible. Enough said.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Soldiers serve for any number of reasons, some noble, some amounting to sociopathic freedom to shoot people and not go to jail for it, others for money, others try to sign up to be REMFs so they don't have to fight but still get the prestige of serving in an army......

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

...

at least we have BBQs

I've known people in the military that genuinely believe in fighting for their home and the people at home and all that. I guess the reality of that depends on what war and what is going on in what war, as for the current war in Afghanistan... I really think we need to get out of there. And then there are some who join so that others would not have to join, a reason I hear from Vietnam vets sometimes.

[blondebaroness.livejournal.com]

The flag stands for the ideal. The emotion behind fighting is patriotism. What troubles me more is why young men and women are willing to die for street gangs and drugs. That's the bit that's got me puzzled. Fighting for a gang that most certainly does not "have your back." They'll sell you south for another hit of crack.