Some people think I'm being too hard on the English-Iraqi lady being held hostage.  I don't think I am, but I'll leave that for others to decide.  I've said my piece on that topic.

We are citizens of a republic.  Because our republic is so massively wealthy and so enormous in size, we can afford to have a professional military that has achieved a level of skill and deadliness that is unprecedented in history.  I don't say that lightly; I've studied military issues all my life, grew up in a military family, missed going into the service myself through various physical defects.  I grew up admiring the Roman legions, Alexander's hoplites, the Zulu Impi, and all the rest.  Military organizations are not the simple product of the weaponry and equipment and logistics that they can bring to bear.  Those things help in achieving deadliness, and they certainly make a huge contribution to the success of any military.  However, what really makes a military are the moral factors - comradeship, duty, loyalty, the feeling of being connected organically to the nation they are fighting for, etc.

Our military has achieved levels of those factors that are extremely high.  That, coupled with training resources that would make Caesar weep with envy, creates a human military that is of unparalleled effectiveness.  When you combine that with the fact that our technology, weaponry, and logistical capabilities are also unprecedentedly awesome, we wind up with, quite literally, the greatest military force in recorded human history.

That creates a problem.  The general citizenry begins to think of itself as being truly distinct from the military class.  We think of soldiers as "those brave men and women who protect us".  And of course they are - and may God bless every one of them, every day. 

But at the same time, we are losing track of something that has to be a core value of a republic, if that republic is to survive over the long term.  The citizens of the republic, ultimately, are the people responsible for its defense.  We ably discharge our obligation to maintain and support our professional military, and obviously that military is going to be the front line in any conflict.  Consider, though, what happened on 9/11.  I am not the first person to notice that the professional military was not able to defend our country.  (Not their fault, I hasten to add - just the nature of an open society.)  The only effective military action launched on that day was launched by the citizen soldiers of Flight 93 - Americans who realized that they were now in combat, and acted accordingly.

That Flight 93 mentality is the mentality that all of us should be engaged in, all of the time.  I don't mean that we should be wearing fatigues and constantly scanning the horizon for Charlie.  That would be counter-productive, as well as somewhat silly.  I mean, though, that we all need to realize in our bones that we are soldiers.  We are soldiers far behind the lines, and we are soldiers who have a great deal of material comfort and physical security, but we are soldiers nonetheless. 

Republics are defended, in the final analysis, not by their military forces, but by the fact that in time of need, every single able-bodied citizen is a fighting man or woman.  Al-Qaeda did not make 2,000,000 enemies on 9/11 - they made 300,000,000 enemies.  Every one of us is a citizen soldier, part of the defense in depth of our country, our culture, and our civilization.

That means that when we go on a business trip overseas and get caught by our enemies, we comport ourselves like soldiers.  We don't give our enemies the propaganda victory they're looking for; we spit in their faces and we die trying to kill them and get away.

That means that when we're on an airline and three men suddenly stand up, pull knives, and start heading for the cabin door, we don't wonder where the air marshal is or call 911 on our cell phones.  We form up and we take them out.

That means that we don't breed nuance in our hearts, we breed ferocity.  We don't look for excuses to hand over the job to someone else, we look for opportunities to defend our country. 

We are all of us soldiers, and our enemies should learn the lesson the hard way, every time they make war on America, every time they capture an American, every time they encounter an American.

Robert @ 18:32 | | | . | E-Mail This Post