Join the Military. Become a Citizen! Or... Not!

The thing about Starship Troopers is that it reflects many of the underlying currents of modern America but it was written in 1959. It is always amazing how authors warn us of the future and we laugh it off as fiction. The civilians of the Starship Troopers world are allowed free speech, assembly, etc. However only public servants who have served can vote and hold office. Obviously there are some flaws there that do not mesh with our current society, but the sentiment of being responsible for your rights gives many of us warm fuzzies inside.  The meritocracy of Starship Troopers is very appealing to those of us who have been exposed to military culture, because that is what the military is all about when it comes to advancement.  You advance to leadership qualities based on your merit and your total ability to be a good leader. At least that is the line the new meat is fed down at the recruiting office.

Propaganda Commercial from Starship Troopers 

The reality we are faced with, unfortunately, is that our warfighters are often times treated as less than a civilian let alone a citizen. They go into a military with an archaic set of rules called the United States Code of Military Justice that rarely gets updated and is often abused by the leadership to break our veterans under the heavy hand of  power hungry megalomaniacs. Modern day military leadership has been using the once honorable UCMJ to hurt our troops and take away the very rights for which they fight to protect. Just as with any set of laws the UCMJ in the hands of a good and righteous leader is a tool to keep proper order and discipline. The UCMJ in the hands of a self conscious and vengeful person with no self worth is a tool to suppress others and accumulate power.


If you take a look at what is happening in our military today you can tell what types of men are in the leadership positions. Men who do not themselves obey the core values of their military branches let alone the  law of the United States that regulates military behavior. They seem to be in charge while the good ones are run out of office. For Example:  General McCrystal was a good man and from my observations a decent leader. He was forced to resign for criticizing our President. The President cited the UCMJ as the reason for him to be booted. He was replaced with General Petreaus who had an extramarital affair, which is also against the UCMJ. His affair was quite open to the intelligence agency who 'discovered' it conveniently when he was going to testify about the disastrous actions surrounding Benghazi. Petreaus did in the end betray us by being as corrupt as the people he most likely punished time and time again using the UCMJ. He was also an example of how the UCMJ can be used as a tool by corrupt leadership to hide misdeeds.

Why do we not allow the protectors of our freedom to have the same freedoms as our civilians? Why do we allow them to be abused by a set of laws and rules that have now become the tool of the corrupt? Why do we as citizens think it is acceptable for Gary Stein to be persecuted for speaking his mind when he has been so willing to die so that we can speak ours? I will tell you why, because our warfighters are not seen as citizens, they are seen as property of the state. They are not hailed as heroes out of respect but out of a need for the citizens of the United States to keep them apart in their own class. We do not fight for them because we have a false sense of patriotism that says they should suffer for us and that we are degrading them if we think they should be treated well. We are told never to question military leadership because we could be helping the enemy and that our warfighters are happy to suffer.

Warfighters are happy to suffer, but never for the simple sake of suffering. If they have to go without food or sleep, they are happy to do so to protect our freedoms. Many have even come to believe it is a badge of honor to have less freedoms while they take up this responsibility.  As a citizen I feel that anything less than full access to our freedoms is a disrespect to our veterans.

 Join the military, become a citizen?  That is what I hope is in the future for our veterans.