Lest We Forget: NEVER VOLUNTEER!

They died w/ their boots on. For Exxon.

Condemning the “troops”—a term coined during the Gulf War—is almost unthinkable. And it won’t win you any awards. “Troops” are a monolithic entity, a cohesive group of pride-inspiring order-takers. Whereas an individual soldier is accountable for his or her actions, the “troops” are too abstract to blame. For Americans, there are only bad apples, never bad orchards.

But what kind of world would we rather live in: one where fools are admired for being fooled and murderers are extolled for murdering, or one where we have the capacity to step back and say, “I don’t care who told you to do what and why: You’re still an asshole!” Personally, I’d rather live in a world where people who act like retards are treated like retards: executed in Texas

Americans fear the truth. It’s the slipperiest slope of all. Once we start extending responsibility beyond those who gave orders to those who took them, it won’t be long before we’re blaming ourselves. And we can’t have that.