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comes from the Eisenhower era ideal, where an "honest to gawd hero general" was president during a fairly peaceful boom time with a strong VA system that took care of those in and those retiring from the military and guard as well as the perceived disservice done to the military in regards to staying in Vietnam and the rise of the peace/anti-war movement during the Johnson administration.
The sudden change of attitude in society towards military members from the rather old fashioned, idealized life of the honored hometown hero who marches with the VFW in local parades to the poor grunt who didn't know what he was doing or what hell he'd be facing from one day to the next, under fire in an operation that he was beginning to realize as having little value other than the political was traumatic, to say the least. Most vets, myself included, who deal with combat have a certain emotional insecurity that comes from being a bringer of death and destruction, no matter how "remote", to another person and to other civilizations. Most of us understand on some level that it could be us, it could be our families, our cities, our country that is undergoing what we are doing to others when we go to war. We pray to whatever it is that holds us together that what we are doing is for a reason, that we are participating in the killing of our comrades and those "others" for something that will actually help our families, our communities, our country, something that will be an improvement to society in general.
To be told that we are becoming casualties, as well as killing and destroying lives by the thousands for a lie, for the political gain of a few, is devastating to most of us - and we all handle that devastation in our own ways.
The easiest is denial, the "other" is what is causing us emotional discomfort, and many soldiers find themselves looking back at the times where they felt the military was honored no matter what they were doing at the time - and that leaves most of us post WWII military with the lip service propaganda of the Reagan and Eisenhower eras. Where no matter what we did, we lived with the certain common social knowledge that John Wayne, Rambo, "Maverick" and all those other lone wolf military heroes did their duties and saved the country, no matter the question as to whether or not the ends justified the means. The enemy was always the bad guy, the evildoers who deserved to die - even if it's a 12 year old boy with a recently procured RPG, who's entire family was killed in the last bombing run and ends up on the other side of your sights that day. He's with the enemy, so he's been corrupted and has no more right to live than the hardened terrorist who taught him how to handle his weapon.
That the moral advantage is in the winning; the "sacrifice for the good of the country" is always right, and any society that supported such a view, no matter how false it really was, is seen by many as "supportive". There is always a validity for any action done, and never any responsibility - if one is following orders and doing one's duty, it's always right. War to a neo-conservative tends to be a big team game - rah, rah, rah...us against the world. Bring it on, baby!
The recent liberal democratic eras - Johnson, Carter, Clinton - allowed for society to question authority, for moral conundrums and flawed "heroes" who would have to live with the reality of their actions - and could actually lose and end up destroying their own lives and families through a misguided choice rather than destroying "the enemy". Many people can't handle that - especially if they had sweated, bled, and watched others die for misguided reasons. So in their minds, the liberals, who don't have such a narrow "good/bad" definition to justify us to do to "those others" what we would normally think of as being bad or even evil actions were they done to ourselves or our loved ones don't support the military when liberals require the military to take responsibility for it's activities and respect those on the other side of the sights. War to a liberal is the act of last resort, like executing rather than rehabilitating a first-time petty criminal should be a last resort. And that's a bit hard for some people to understand.
It's not easy to kill if you are forced to think of yourself and your enemy as human beings. So for many who face the possibility of having to kill, it's easier on the "brain" to go with those who reward you if you turn off your critical thinking and just go with the hive mind - no matter if it makes it easier to be killed in battle in the long run because of blindly following orders - than to follow with the mindset of those who would respect the enemy and take responsibility for choices - even if that respect may save the lives of you and the brothers and sisters in arms by considering strategy based in reality rather than in ideology.
So to many military people - Republican = "rah, rah - Just Do It 'cause we're proud to be an Amurican, where we're told we're the only ones free" while - Democrat = "Why are we doing this again? How can we make this better? Maybe we should think about what we're doing before we do it? What's the strategy, and how can we minimize damage?"
See - too many questions means you just don't support the troops in the field, don'tcha know?
Of course, once they've been under some sort of fire, the majority of the aware folks start asking those questions, just like the Democrats. The folks who've been under some sort of fire that will still try everything to forget or deny that they were ever afraid are the only ones that cling to the comfortable neo-Con Republican mantras like a religion.
Just my rather long-winded, late night after a long, hard work day two bits worth of scattered thoughts on the matter.
Just for the record, I'm seeing far more Kerry/Edwards and "Psycho Bush" type bumper stickers on the very large, very conservative military base I'm currently working at than I see any of the Bush/Cheney, "Vets for Bush" or "W-04" stickers - by about 3 to 2. And of the Shrub supporters, I see 4 to 1 of those tiny, subtle "W" stickers to actual Bush/Cheney, so I'm not even sure how strong the "W" support is that these people aren't putting up the big B/C ones.
And almost every pro-Kerry/anti-Shrub sticker is accompanied by some sort of "Support our Troops" sticker. Unlike most of the "W" stickers
Haele
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