RANGER AGAINST WAR: Missiles and Spears <

Friday, December 19, 2008

Missiles and Spears


--Let's hang 'im!
--No, burn 'im at the stake!
--But 'es innocent.
--Boiling oil!
--Life of Brian, Monty Python


The cognitive basis of anger:

surrender freedom of choice and abdicate rationality

to become prisoners of a primal thinking mechanism
--Prisoners of Hate, Aaron T. Beck, M.D.


[R]e-examine all you have been told at school or church,

or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul

--Walt Whitman


Ranger ≠ smart

_____________

Oorah, Dr. Beck.

The blog name says what it is: a Ranger against war. This fact has drawn much fire from supposed comrades in arms who
call Ranger a "non-patriot" because he speaks his mind clearly and with the force of conviction.

We have received some incredible threats at this blog, most ham-fisted and vulgar, a few from more able opponents. These proto-conservatives can not brook an alternate point of view from within their ranks. Because they can not or will not engage in dialog, they choose to fight
ad hominem, attacking Ranger' impeccable credentials.

Being a Ranger does not make one Superman. We surmise every occupation has its share of petty and embittered yahoos. To our SOCNET brothers:
Lighten up -- you have an old Ranger in town, and he does not happen to agree with your war hawk stance.

Because a man is a Ranger does not mean he must check his brains at the door. Civility may also be retained. Y'all are some crack investigators once you get going, and you are pretty rabid about
your project of discrediting thinkin' Rangers, but maybe you could channel that energy into something productive. At least muzzle your vituperative until you have some proof of something.

Ranger has been informed that many of these men have never left the jungle or the desert, and so these erstwhile patriots periodically launch vulgar and reactive attacks against Ranger, whom they have identified as "enemy."
It is sad that many of the "bravest and best" have chosen to turn their minds off in the name of patriotism. Blind allegiance is the dead opposite of patriotism.

Since this crowd seems to be keen on cartoons, the character they most resemble is the Tasmanian Devil, whipping himself into an uncontrollable dervish over the least irritant. They are like wild dogs laying on a piece of meat. It is ungentlemanly, to say the least.


If they are patriots, they should understand the Bill of Rights. Their efforts to squelch the First Amendment are so un-American. Those who call Ranger anti-military have not read the site. It hurts my soul to read the vile poison pens -- a corrosive way to think and to live.
Egocentrism bound to ideology = hate.

The tab is simply a symbol. It neither validates nor obviates thought.


"How can he disagree with our Commander in Chief? He's a freethinker -- he's
liberal --he can't be one of us!" And indeed, he is not. We fancy we are patriotic Americans with moderate views, but our positions are anathema to those who soldier on, sniffing out every instance of supposed stolen valor, of which every freethinking military man is suspect.

They have a template, beginning innocuously enough: "Hey there old Ranger Buddy/fellow snake-eater/etc.", which invariably ends in the ambush. "Your credentials aren't the right (color/font/paper/etc.); you are a phony/schoolhouse Ranger. . ." Yadda yadda.

Exactly two of these Ranger buddies were the real deal. You know who you are, and we are grateful you are on the flanks.


Since Ranger has his pick of mottoes, he says, "De Oppresso Liber, All The Way!"

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12 Comments:

Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

i have been disturbed about the same things ranger. maybe it's generational, maybe it's operational, hell, i don't know.

lately when i've seen stuff about the teams on military/history channel, all they talk about are the physical qualifications. nothing about the rigorous intellectual requirements that used to be in place (you needed to score at least 140 on the IQ measurements of the Navy to be considered for the teams, they figured that if they took the smartest guys they could find, they could beat the physical quals into us, by the way you needed to score only 125 to get into annapolis).

in our training, they wanted us to not only follow orders instantly, they wanted us to think, and think some more. our last training ops in buds were about being given objectives, and then figuring out the best ways to accomplish them. the trick question in a couple of them was that the correct answer was "we can't do that, it would be suicide."

now, it's all about lockstep. i doubt i would last very long with that crowd. of course, having several languages at my disposal would mean that i could curse and insult them with impunity.

Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 12:00:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hang in there. We appreciate you standing tall.

Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 7:03:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Marc said...

I'd go for a little bit of the generational thing - I'd bet most of the posters are still in the "I'm invulnerable/I'm smarter than my parents" phase/mindset from their teens. They've yet to really realize that world isn't a cookie cutter/black and white scheme.

A job or title does not define a person - it may describe what they do or have done, but that is all. Thus, the title of Ranger (or Doctor, Busboy, etc) only is that - a title that infers experience from that discipline that is shared by others who have had that title. What defines a person is what they 'are'. I can't quite find the right words for this, but the best I can say is being true to themselves and projecting it to others.

Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 10:35:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Thanks MB, Mike and Marc.

Marc, that's how I see it: the best we can do is to honor our hard-won knowledge and employ it in the service of bettering something and burnishing knowledge, even if that something and knowledge is our own.

To thine own self be true/Know yourself. . .

Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 11:08:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

MB,
In the late 60's the GT requirement for SF was 120. For OCS it was 110.In other words Lt. Calley would not have been accepted for training.
GT score was roughly equated to IQ.Also a GT score of 90 meant 9th grade reading level,100=10th grade etc... Army manuals are usually 9th grade reading level.BTW , do you remember the tech manuals printed as comic books with a lot of sexy cartoon sun bunnies?

Mike,
Thanks and I'm glad you're still onboard.

Marc,
The only difference is that the title Ranger can get your ass seriously killed if you don't pay attention.

Sunday, December 21, 2008 at 1:35:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger FDChief said...

I wish this was some sort of generational thing, or the product of youth versus experience. I don't; I think it's much wronger than that.

My take on this problem is that it's a deliberately indoctrinated attitude that American conservatives have been working their asses off to ram into U.S. soldiers.

Not it was that hard: the kind of person who wants to make a career out of "peacetime", long-service volunteer soldiering is unlikely to be a very liberal individual. But there used to be room in the service for the sort of cussed individualist who saw things as more than a left-right/us-them issue. I think that, starting with the officer corps, the sort of people who think that Rush Limbaugh is some sort of deep political thinker and Bill O'Reilly is a great miitary mind have been busy little buggers hammering on the armed services that patriotism equals conservatism, that thinking equals questioning equals betraying, that understanding your situation and mission in ways other than those handed to you fom your higher is a sign that you hate America. And a lot of the troops, being fairly conservative to begin with and many of them young and unformed or unINformed, swallow whole.

And some are just right-wing nuts.

There used to be a strain of conservative that used their actual brain. The Gingrich-Bush-Rove-Cheney gang pretty much shot that Rockefeller Republicanism in the head. What remains is a party that works like a pair of gorilla's balls connected to a reptile medulla that is as dangerous as an armed schizophrenic on crack and needs to be dealt with the same way.

Just one man's opinion, mind you...

Sunday, December 21, 2008 at 5:35:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Marc said...

Ranger,

I was trying to point out that a 'Ranger' is not a uniform description of the behavior, beliefs, and attitudes of the person who has gained the title. There is a unique person who has history and experience before and beyond the training that make that person more than just the title.

Monday, December 22, 2008 at 12:23:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Marc,
I roger your transmission. jim

Monday, December 22, 2008 at 11:58:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Critical thinking, and forming different opinions based on digging for facts upsets folks across all sorts of lines. And how long has it been since any sort of critical thinking was taught in the public school systems?

Monday, December 22, 2008 at 10:54:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Terrible said...

When I was stationed at Ft Benning there was a quote painted on the wall of the barracks I was in. It said

"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
Douglas MacArthur"

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 11:54:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Terrible said...

Another good quote for those who dare attack Ranger to remember is this:

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower"

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:20:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Terrible,
It's always nice to hear from a friend.
Thanks for the quotes and HNY. jim

Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:31:00 PM GMT-5  

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