Gosh its been a tough month at the office. Work has become insane; it is always a “do more-with-less” situation. We have fussed about the problem so much and for so long that the phrase has become a strait-up burnt-out cliché.
The trouble is that things are beginning to get truly ridiculous. More folks are deploying for longer periods of time. Meanwhile my service is downsizing, in overall manning, to it’s lowest level ever. Meanwhile overall funding has been reduced. Meanwhile, average Joe and average Jane back state-side are condemning service men and women. The needle on the stress meter is just about maxed out.
The lack of support from Average Joe US citizen is tough to stomach for most service men. There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings out there.
Something to consider: Men and women in the armed forces do not make foreign policy decisions. Furthermore, if we publicly criticize a senior US policy maker, we can go to jail....even criticizing the decisions alone can be dangerous (see article 88 of the UCMJ). For instance: If Brigadier General Bugs Bunny says something like “Recent foreign policy decisions of the United States have been stupid” while he is on active duty, he will very likely be Court Martialed. Some language from Article 88:
“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct”
However, if Brigadier General Bugs Bunny retires, that is another matter altogether; then he is fee to say whatever he wants.
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4 ½ years ago, we were all heroes. And now we are something else...yet nothing has changed about the American serviceman. We are all trying meet the conditions of the oaths that we took upon entry to the armed forces. We are all trying very very hard to accomplish the tasks that the elected officials of the United States have ordered us to accomplish.
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Please also consider this hypothetical scenario (that is not necessarily tied to my opinion):
Dr Jones is the head physician at a well respected hospital. She has better resources at her disposal and her surgical staff is better trained than those of any other physician at the hospital. She sees a patient who is complaining of chest pains. After evaluation of the patient, Dr Jones decides that he needs to under go open-heart surgery to correct the problem. During the open-heart surgery it is reviled that the patient was suffering from an ailment that required no surgery.
Doc Jones made the wrong call. She should not have taken the patient into surgery. What should she do? Does she A: throw down her surgical tools and leave the operating table at once. Or B: does she stitch the patient back up. The answer seems obvious.
Does your answer change if you learn that stitching the patient back up will take a very very long time?
What if there is no guarantee of final success?
Do you think that the patient should try to stitch himself back up?
What if 90% of Doc Jones’ family, friends and professional coworkers demand that she walk away and let the patient stitch himself back up? Does a majority sentiment equate to ethical maxim? (Do ethics change with the sentiment of the day? ...day by day?)
What should Doc Jones do?