On "you know that this could happen when you signed up for it ...”

So Donald Trump said something stupid, thoughtless, insensitive and vile to the family of dead American soldier. I wish I could say I was surprised. But I can’t.

But people, your outrage needs to go MUCH beyond Donald Trump.

See, Trump was saying exactly – and I mean EXACTLY – what most Americans think when they hear soldiers have died.

At least since the start of the Afghanistan War (almost exactly 16 !! years ago) –   whatever Americans say on hearing a soldier has died, e.g., “Sorry for your loss,” or “thanks for your service,” damn near every American really THINKS, “well, they signed up. They volunteered. They knew this could happen.”

It is a sad side effect of the all-volunteer military that it allows us, the American people, to dismiss the pain and suffering of thousands of dead (mostly) young Americans, tens of thousands of physically and psychologically damaged (mostly) young Americans, and their millions of family and friends because, "you know that this could happen when you signed up for it.”

Somehow we have collectively decided that the fact that soldiers sign contracts volunteering to serve that somehow or another those (mostly) 18-20 year olds have made a sober, informed judgment about the ways they might get deployed, the wars to which they might get assigned, and the leaders they might be forced to serve under (both military and political) and so whatever happens to them is, basically, okay since “you know that this could happen when you signed up for it.” Rather than critiquing the stupid wars to which those (mostly) young Americans are sent, then, the American people’s job is to “support the troops” because, apparently, they want to go to war – after all, they signed a contract, and "you know that this could happen when you signed up for it.”

Donald Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is our collective indifference … an indifference symbolized in the phrase, "you know that this could happen when you signed up for it.”

Source
http://politicalprof.tumblr.com/post/166571773868/on-you-know-that-this-could-happen-when-you