I'd rather they live

                 

                In several recent e-mails I've received from family members, if they have anything to do with the military, the emails will almost always end with some ridiculous line like this: And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ, and the American Soldier. Putting aside the a priori assumption of the first ‘defining force’, I’d like to address the bald assertion made at the end of that sentence about American soldiers offering to die.

                                        U.S. dead after rocket attack in Afghanistan, but did they offer to die?

               I don’t know about you but I don’t want any of our military people dying for me. I want them to live and kill the enemy combatants who aim to do me harm. It’s a very different thing to attack, defend, and fight, than to just up and die. Is the writer of this assertion claiming that men and women poured into recruiting offices with the goal of dying? Is he insinuating that when they were fully trained they appeared on battlefields and deliberately stood up in an exposed position to commit a planned suicide?  Did ANY of those soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen join up in order to die? Of course not. They may have joined because they felt it was their duty, or it was an adventure, or a chance to fight for their country. Death was possible, but I would wager not one of them said ‘yes, I’m signing up so I can die for the American people.’ It's like claiming that a driver who is killed in a traffic accident actually offered to die behind the wheel of his car for the American people.

             Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest is quoted as saying “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” Notice he doesn’t say dying. Fighting men and women are trained to fight and kill the enemy; they are not trained to die. It may happen in the course of fighting but that is not their purpose, and I am sad to think ANY of them did die. In the hit movie “Patton”  the great General, portrayed by actor George C. Scott, makes a statement that the men are not to ‘lay down your life for your country; you are to make the other poor, dumb bastard lay down his life for his country.' That’s the way it is in every war. Even the famed 300 Spartans who held off the Persian army under Xerxes did not meet them in the mountain passes of northern Sparta in order to die. They knew it was a distinct possibility, but they fought as though they’d survive to see their families and homes again, not assume that they’d be slaughtered to a man. So the statement that U.S. soldiers have offered to ‘die for you’ is not just wrong; it is absurd, it makes a mockery of the life of the soldier, sailor, marine, or airman or woman, and it is patently false. How many wars are won by the soldiers all dying?

                     So many U.S. war dead returned from Iraq, one assumes their mass suicides were successful

               One email even ends with this line: “Of all the gifts you could give a U.S. Soldier, prayer is the very best one.” A quick test shows this is nonsense. Just as he goes into battle against a heavily armed enemy, if an unarmed American soldier is given the choice of a loaded automatic weapon you are holding out to him, or you offer to just pray for him, which will he choose? We can make this even easier on a more personal level. We’re alone dining and you start choking. You have two choices. One, I can perform the Heimlich maneuver on you…or Two, I can pray for you. Think carefully about your choice before you pass out.

Our military men and women are in my thoughts but I am not wasting time praying for them. I send letters of encouragement, books to read (but not bibles, korans, or other 'holy' publications) and contribute to funds that supply them with body armor and other necessary items to help protect them. I hope you will too.

              As for the Jesus Christ line, if Jesus is alive and now in heaven sitting at the right hand of himself (since christians claim he IS god), how is that death? What did he sacrifice? Regardless of what christians claim, no one died for me or you. It is simply an element of faith on the part of christians that Jesus did what the bible claims; and faith is simply believing in something without evidence. You just want it to be true. That’s not a pathway to truth.