The Asunción

Men prefer sorrow over joy
... suffering over peace!
--Ran (1985)
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Ranger is tired of the warrior ethos overlaid upon our soldiers. Why the need to apotheosize their human undertakings? As though their transubstantiation from soldier to warrior will ennoble the entire corrupt undertaking.

Everyone offers the doxology. Purple Heart Magazine awarded a Special Leadership award this year to senator Jim Webb, for among other things, his legislation to create a new G.I. Bill.

"Webb's legislation. . . will make it possible for today's young warriors and their families to live the American dream (Purple Heart Magazine, Mar/Apr)."

Sen. Webb is a great advocate for veterans issues, and it is through no fault of his that the New York Review of Books calls him a "warrior-intellectual" (imagine -- a thinkin' warrior?) though he has never referred to himself or our soldiers as "warriors" (aside from discussing the so-called "Wounded Warrior Project.)

Unfortunately, the P.H. Magazine and by extension, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is endorsing a warrior mentality which is the opposite of the beliefs of our Founding Fathers.

The American dream used to be peace and prosperity and adherence to a set of core values. Both the concept of being a warrior and arriving at the American dream through warfare are gross distortions of the concept of a democracy.

George Washington, the originator of the Purple Heart, never branded himself or his soldiers as warriors. Like the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington fought only in a defensive posture. This is not the stance of the warrior!

Washington left office warning of the dangers of entangling foreign alliances.

We have run afoul of his vision.