Shawn Dannen
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

As a veteran that enlisted because of 9/11, this article really hit home for me. It’s easy to judge soldiers from the outside, but many of us joined during that time with good intentions motivated by a sense of duty to country, however naive that might have been.

At the time, I still believed that our media and government were honest and their intentions were pure. In my youth, I uncritically accepted the “evidence” leading to Saddam and WMDs in Iraq. I even chose a CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) defense job because I thought that was where I could do the most good.

When WMDs turned out to be BS, it was at that moment that my trust in the government and media was eroded. I was bound to the Army for years by a contract that I entered under false pretenses. I started reading news more critically and from more varied sources and I was forced to face the fact that my entire worldview had been intentionally distorted for the geopolitical machinations of corporate empire.

Soldiers aren’t an abstract concept to me. They’re people with names and families with memories attached. I spent a year traveling across the country as part of an Army Funeral Honors detail, standing as a sentinel while I watched countless families and friends of fallen soldiers crumble as their lives were eviscerated when their loved ones were taken from them. My impeccable uniform stood as a stark reminder of exactly who took these people from them. As heart-wrenching as this was, it was early enough in my career that it hadn’t become personal yet. Then I finished that duty and I found myself trading places with those mourning people as I lost 5 close friends over 3 years. These were people that I’d been with since I started basic training, so they were as dear to me as my own blood family. It was the hardest time of my life.

What did all of those people die for? They died for empire. Their lives were consumed to line the pockets of the wealthy elite and corporations that have usurped our country. They died for elective wars born of ruthless ambition, insatiable greed, and the pursuit of geopolitical hegemony.

I would burn any bridge to prevent the tragic and unnecessary loss that I witnessed from happening again. You’re right when you say that we need to shift the public perception from viewing our dead and wounded soldiers as war victims to be mourned, not war heroes to be celebrated. I just wish that I had reached this conclusion sooner.

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    Shawn Dannen

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