Playing the military card

Thak and I were talking today, because it occurred to me that one of the picture spammers in the photo contest we're in (which, thankfully, stopped taking entries yesterday, and will announce the winners tomorrow) is actually a friend of a friend from a previous duty station. She didn't have kids last time I saw her, but I guess she does now. Anyhow, some of this girl's ten billion photo entries just made me and Thak groan out loud. Of course, in one of them the kid was wearing his daddy's patrol cap (the baseball cap looking camouflage one). I mean, all kids like to wear their daddies' hats, but this was an obvious shameless attempt to play the military card. In others, as an equally obvious attempt at it, daddy was part of the backdrop... in uniform, of course.

That kind of thing may have flown five years ago, but today it really doesn't, and I'll tell you why:

1) Americans are so sick of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public opinion runs somewhere between, "That's still going on?" and "I could not give a crap if I tried." Sure, there are the rare few who are military-supportive, but the majority of the nation is basically done with it, and honestly, as far as I'm concerned, that's pretty understandable. I believe in having fair laws that help with the constant moves that military families make. I believe in the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act. I believe in the new custody laws that are on the books, which make it illegal to take permanent custody away from a deployed soldier who is normally a child's primary parent. I believe in these things. These are good laws, and they serve only to level the playing field. I do not believe in widespread military ass-kissing, which is what a lot of these people want to see happening.

2) 90% of the people who serve today chose this war. What I mean is that it's exceptionally rare to find a soldier these days who was a peacetime enlistee AND who didn't reenlist within the past five years, when it was pretty obvious that these wars were here to stay for a good long time. Nobody can really pull the pity and sacrifice card when they CHOSE the war. In late 2011, it will be 100% accurate to say that EVERY soldier who's still serving chose the war, because by that time, all of the people who reenlisted indefinitely (were over their 10 year mark and above the rank of Sergeant) at the outset of the Afghanistan campaign, will have ample time in service to file their retirement papers, should they so choose. By NOT dropping a retirement packet, they are choosing the war. In fact, they are the only people in the Army today who did not choose the war. Everyone else did. Yes, that includes Thak, even though he reenlisted only a year into the Iraq campaign, and we had no idea it would go on this long, we own our mistake, and we know what it looks like to people.

3) Socially, women are getting tired of the military wives' "poor me" campaign. Granted, most web communities (parenting sites, women's forums, hobby boards, etc) are overrun by military wives. This is because military wives are alone a lot, and tend not to sleep much, so hanging out online is a good way to pass the time. It's obvious WHY the boards are overrun by military wives, but at the same time, it gets kind of stupid because of it. While I get just as annoyed as the next person when some wife of a salesman asks how she's supposed to cope with the fact that her husband has gone away on business to Denver for a week, I don't ever weigh in on those conversations because I probably wouldn't be nice. I admit, the first thought that crosses my mind when I read that is, "Give me a damned break. Suck it up and realize how lucky you are that your life is so easy you can flip out over a week apart from your civilian husband." but I never say that stuff. Unfortunately, it is a minority of military wives who ruin it for everyone, because they DEFINITELY weigh in on these conversations, and say things 10x as ugly as my internal dialogue could ever dream of being (and that's saying something). For this reason, a lot of American women really don't like military wives at all.


For these reasons, the military card is becoming less and less playable by the day, and understandably so. I don't play the military card. I usually tell people I don't know that my husband is a mechanic. It's true. He's in the ASE database. :)