So, Assoluta Tranquillita tells us the top words of the year are Pragmatic and Ambivalence. I immediately wondered how many of the Top Ten I could work into a single article. I expect, with more dedication, I could have used them all, but I immediately decided to avoid some of them.
Even the least interested politicians have noted the great disconnect between Our Troops and Our Citizens. Unfortunately, the most interested of the vitriolic politicians want to re-connect Troops and Citizens by force, in order to undermine popular support for the Mission of Our Troops, i.e. they wanted to re-institute the draft, to force the unwilling to fight for Freedom. The former Representative Charles Rangel-NY, was the primary force behind the move, before he left Congress amidst allegations of misconduct. Mr. Rangel was a Veteran himself, but his belief was that if "the rich" sent their sons to War, alongside the minorities, both would push for an end to the Wars.
The slogan of ethnic and impoverished genocide was used early in the anti-War propaganda, but had no legs. The Military is drawn from across the whole of America, but the fatalities had demonstrated that Caucasian Men bore a disproportionately higher brunt of the fighting. The diversity of the Infantry was stunted, not due to some arbitrary system, but instead by the choices made by Individuals voluntarily enlisting in the Marines and Army Infantry. Proportionately, Hispanic Men are also more likely to join the Infantry and bear the brunt of combat.
An old program that has never really grown legs is the Troops to Teachers program. The goal is to entice newly departed Troops to enter the profession of teaching as a second career. This is a didactic approach. Who better to teach History than the ones that have lived it. But the fact remains that the program means years of education followed by dealing with unruly kids, and a great deal of patience. The program has a good goal, but poor marketing, and probably poor implementation. I say probably because aside from knowing the program exists, nothing has enticed me to look at the details of it. At the very least, that's a marketing problem.
But there is another way to get Veterans and Troops into the schools, one that doesn't involve 4 years of school. Teachers, Professors, Universities, and Schools could invite them in to speak on a regular basis. When the Teacher is teaching about the history of WWII or Viet Nam or Desert Storm, it would be a good day to bring in the Veteran that lived it. You want the attention of the kids? Put the guy up there that was in the War. Suddenly, those dates aren't just numbers.
So why doesn't that happen? Well, Teachers are often afraid of what the kids will ask and how the Veterans will answer. In particular, they are afraid of the question: "Did you ever kill anyone?" Veterans that have been home for more than a week have dealt with the question, probably more than once, and probably from a kid they care about. It doesn't take many of these questions before the Veteran figures out how to field it. For me, the answer is: "I made the right decisions."
But even if a Teacher wants to do that, there are challenges. She has a 1:100 chance of knowing a Veteran. She still has to get it approved by her administrators. And even if she knows a Veteran, he likely doesn't live close to the school and likely has a job that wants him at work that day. At present, the Teacher still has resources, the VFW, the American Legion, and the local Veterans Affairs office.
I would propose that Veterans be asked upon leaving the Military if they would be willing to conduct such efforts. Those names would then go into a database maintained at the County and VA level. A willing reserve ready to be asked when a Teacher wants the Witness to History. It should include the periods of service and events witnessed, so a Teacher could request someone who witnessed the Fall of the Wall, protected the Nation during the Cold War, or drove through the minefields in Desert Storm.
Who better to teach of the great struggles between Capitalism and Socialism, than the Veterans of World War II who fought the National Socialists of Germany, or the Cold War Warriors who stood the Wall in Berlin or Gitmo, and the Airmen who dropped bundles of food into Berlin? At this point, even the Men and Women who stood watch on ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis can tell their part of that History.
Instead, Schools have a tendency to bring Veterans in as props on Veterans' Day. There is often little opportunity for the kids to ask questions or interact with the Veterans, and most often it is the Uncle of one of the kids. The Kid is proud, but how much better would it be that these kids got to know the Veteran. Such a program would be best implemented if the Teachers became familiar with the Veterans. It would diminish their fears that the Veteran would go off on some tangent and increase the connection between Veterans and their Communities.
Why do I concentrate most of this on Veterans rather than Troops? Because Active Duty Troops are still busy with the job and Veterans must be their Ambassadors to Our Citizens. Even when Our Troops aren't fighting wars, they are concentrated around ever shrinking numbers of bases. It might be a simple thing to find a Soldier to speak in Killeen, TX or Clarksville, TN, but a lot more difficult in Chicago or New York City, unless there was a great deal of planning between the schools and individual Troops on leave and back home. Still, the Military could implement such a plan on the model of "Hometown Recruiting" where a Soldier volunteers to visit 10 schools in 10 days during "Permissive TDY." Instead of focusing on Privates just out of Basic, the Hometown Teaching program could be a reward after a few months back from a deployment.
And I guarantee the Troops that just got back from 2 years in Germany or a year in Korea are going to know more about the place than a Teacher that read about it in a book. You can add Geography to the list of subjects to bring them in on. And yes, they should be paid for their time.
The Military too is often afraid of what the Privates might say. They may be even more afraid of what an E5 might say. (By that time, he has a good command of cuss words.) That's why you most often see Officers doing the public speaking. They need to get over this. Our Troops are more educated and wise than they have been at any point prior to 9/11. Even a combat hardened buck Sergeant can turn off the cussing switch in front of kids. Why might they be less educated now than in 2001? Well, there's less time for higher education when you're deploying all the time. Still, the educational entry requirements have gone up in the last few years, so they're starting out at a higher level.
And getting Our Troops and Veterans into Schools and Universities is but one part of connecting Our Citizens to their protectors. Local Officials would greatly benefit from inviting Veterans into all aspects of the community events. If you want a key event to be well planned, bring in an old Sergeant Major or First Sergeant and a few NCO's and the thing will run like clockwork, though you might need to remind him that it's okay for the time-line to be smudged by a few minutes one way or the other.
Often I see Veterans wearing ball caps proclaiming their service. I never have liked those caps. It's generally a big patch sewn on, and then the Veteran adds pins. Many Veterans like them but anyone can buy one. But if you passed me on the street, you'd never know I was a Veteran. Well, my brethren might. There is a recognizable walk, a recognizable situational awareness, that doesn't wear off quickly. There's no secret handshake, but Veterans often recognize their brotherhood in short order.
Our Veterans should be recognizable in their community by their faces. They shouldn't need a hat to tell the world who they are. But for my Brethren that like their hats, to each his own. Maybe, one of these days, I'll like those hats too, just not yet.
I would say this is a pragmatic way of not only overcoming the ambivalence of Our Citizens towards Our Troops, but also in assisting with the employment of Our Veterans in times of fiscal austerity, since Our Veterans are worthy of their hire. Moreover, when Our Citizens meet Our real Veterans, they'll want to hire them to help their companies and communities excel. And that is not just some didactic principle in the argument of Capitalism vs. Socialism, but a reality that helps smart capitalist companies excel.
The Top Ten researched words of the year are:
1. pragmatic (adjective)
: practical as opposed to idealistic
Click on each of the other words in the Top Ten List for their definitions in Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
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