This is a sad week in our country's history. Obama has just cursed our security.
This whole "torture" thing has far reaching implications that few have foreseen. Now that our definition of torture is "making somebody feel uncomfortable" we may as well shut down the military, because the way they operate is against our so called values. This really bothers me, this path we are taking is going to kill American soldiers, I have no doubt about it, for lack of proper training. If someone asked me if I have ever been tortured I would say no. But now under the new definition of torture apparently I and other military people were tortured during our training. This is absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah, when I was in boot camp I was made to be uncomfortable, real uncomfortable. I was cold, hungry and tired beyond anything I had felt before in my life to that point. But I'll tell you what, I was alot more uncomfortable in Iraq. And that was the point of it, they did those things to us to prepare us for war. They were training us for combat! And I'll tell you another thing, they should have done more! I remember thinking the training was intense and wondered what the point of a lot of it was. Then I got to my unit and the tough training sessions continued. The veterans and senior Marines complained that we hadn't learned enough in boot camp and were in no way combat ready. So they trained us, and we were uncomfortable.
Then I went to Iraq. Fallujah, at that. And I saw what the Marine Corps was trying to instill in us when we were in training. Then I came home and saw the squishy young new guys that we got out of the training schools, They could march well and they were disciplined but they were in no shape for combat and we were going back to Iraq in less than 6 months. So we had to prepare these kids. And we did. And you know what, perhaps we are guilty of torture now because we yelled at them, pushed them around, made them sweat and generally made them feel uncomfortable. But you know what else? They all came back alive. And that's all that matters. Then they saw the squishy young replacements we got when we came back and we set to work training them for war. My point is, the military has been in business for over 200 years. They know how to train their troops.
The training techniques were written with the blood of dead soldiers who had to learn the hard way how to train an army and conduct a war. And now that you can't even make an enemy combatant feel uncomfortable how do you train American soldiers for war? Because if you can't hurt the bad guy's feeling then you sure as hell can't make Americans feel bad. I'm sure the Department of Defense won't come out and say it, but this undoubtedly brings profound changes to the way we train our Soldiers and Marines.
This is disgusting. Sadly, more soldiers are going to be wounded and killed in order to make up the difference and learn the lessons they should have learned in training. These will be troops that wouldn't have to die or be maimed. This reminds me of the movie, A Few Good Men. The part where Jack Nicholson is on the stand and he laments that all they did was to weaken a country. And that's all they did this time without thinking about the far reaching consequences of their political action. The people that did this will have blood on their hands. American blood. They weakened a country. Our country.
Semper Fidelis,