Puppy Torture Outrage

Wired.com posted a story about three Marines who supposedly threw an 8-week old puppy off of a cliff out in Iraq. You can see the article here: Puppy Torture. After the article, there were a bunch of comments left by people who bashed people in the military, and here is my comment that I left on the site. Please post your comments on what I said here.

My biggest problem with this, is not the fact that it could be real (even though I think it is fake), but the fact of what image things like this gives to people about the military.

My girlfriend is a prime example. She gets upset, when we are at the movies and they have one of those military ads before the movie starts. She feels that the makers of the ad (the military) should be required to show what "war" is really like to give people a "more realistic" idea of what the military is. Which in her eyes of course, is an extremely violent and horrible experience.

While fine, she is allowed to have this opinion, I really think this kind of attitude is detrimental to the needs of not only the military, but this nation. We need people to join the armed forces. Do I agree with the war in Iraq at this point, no; I do think we need to start coming up with an exit strategy, but right now, we are out there, and we need people to be ready to support our military personnel that are currently deployed in the event that something happens unexpectedly that requires more troops to be deployed. If something were to happen, and no one is joining the military, we won't have enough personnel to go out and support our troops that are already out there.

The other point I want to make right now is that we need to support our troops, because for the most part, they are only following orders from their superior commanders. Yes, obviously, there comes a point where moral responsibility overrides an order from a superior officer and they should have the moral fortitude to say no to an order that violates that moral responsibility.

The other reason of course, is that people who join the military are NOT dumb people. Overall, they are NOT evil by nature. It takes a great deal of courage, honor, and duty for an individual to sacrifice what our men and women sacrifice for their country. People who join the military need to be honored, respected, and remembered for their service to this great country of ours. Talking down about them and spitting on their memories and sacrifices is like talking down, and spitting on the flag of our country and on its citizens.

I am not one to say, "My country: always right". However, I think it is much more damaging, and wrong for people to say, "My country: always wrong." As far as I am concerned, if you hate this country so much, then why are you here? I cannot remember who said it, but one of my favorite things to say to people who hate this country: "Yes, you have the freedom speech. However, you also have the freedom to leave".