Sunday, 05 April 2009

• Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

  ”Most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
  
  Then there are the wolves, and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
  
  Then there are sheepdogs. They live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.
  
  If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you are a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog.
  
  We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are dozens of times more likely to be killed, and thousands of times more likely to be seriously injured, by school violence than by school fires, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard, so they choose the path of denial.
  
  The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
  
  Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
  
  Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.”

  
  
  The above was taken from the book On Combat, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. I may or may not start a firestorm here, but he makes some valid points. As citizens in times of peace we cannot see the need to spend what we do on financing our military. And many of us do not like us going to “war” and sending our men and women into situations we feel aren’t our business. After all our active military spending is 20% of the annual budget. That’s a lot of taxpayer money! We’ve all heard the horror stories of misappropriation of funds and how the heck could a toilet cost $400 and a hammer $200, etc. That has nothing to do with my point.
  
  As a taxpayer, I don’t mind that 20% of what I contribute goes to the defense of this country. Do I think that our military should be used as a panacea for all the troubles around the world? Absolutely not. But we do have treaties and agreements with other countries to come to their defense should they be attacked. We also have the need to protect our borders from those who would want to destroy us. I would rather we have spent billions on developing state of the art equipment and hundreds of millions more teaching and training our volunteers than be caught with our pants down.
  
  This also has nothing to do with my stance on the situation in Iraq. This is about supporting our military as a whole. Every time a budget comes up to discuss the first thing that comes up to cut is defense. Why? Why do we feel that the military is an unnecessary evil that must be tolerated and yet they are the first to be criticized if they aren’t prepared to do a job in times of crisis?
  
  I take offense to that. We want the police around when someone breaks into our home, yet we don’t want a police station in our neighborhood. We want our children safe from harm but we don’t want police in our schools. It’s the same with our military. We want them there ready at a moments notice, but we don’t want to spend the money needed to keep them that way. It becomes inconvenient for us to be reminded that the world is not the wonderful safe loving place we want it to be. The term military has become synonymous with aggressors, killers and interlopers. Again, why? Because a few act irrationally and it is plastered across every newspaper in the country? What about the tens of thousands that are honorable. We don’t hear about them.
  
  I may not like a lot of places my tax money goes. In fact I’ll probably be very vocal about that very subject in the future. But I’ll never begrudge my money taking care of those that serve and making sure they have what is needed to protect me and mine.
  
  ~D~
  
  
  

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