Gays in the Military

Same Old Arguments

I don't usually see a letter in the Washington Post that addresses in effective detail most of what I was trying to say in a letter that I'd sent. But this one in today's Post is a more than adequate answer to the question: Why didn't they publish my letter?

In fact, the letter written by Andre Sauvageot covers most of the ground my letter covered and is actually more succinct. Sauvageot's letter wasn't self-referential, either. Mine was.

But it's fine with me if the Post doesn't run my letters. Writing about good and bad generals and good and bad military personnel policy is a bizarre thing for me to be doing, anyway. First of all, I'm not a fan of militaries or military service. Obviously, there is a rationale for a defensive army and their is such a thing as heroic service. But I got over wanting to die for my country at the age of eighteen, or so, and have refined my anti-war and anti-militarist perspective ever since.

In a world in which there is so much real need and in which possessing weapons almost inevitably leads to using weapons in acts of war, aggression and injustice, I'm inclined to believe that moving in a measured way toward a policy of national vulnerability is both patriotic and a way to find a good portion of the funds necessary to build a just world in the 21st Century.