Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The average such comment (and I refer mostly to comments seen in the past years elsewhere) would get a "fascist" rating in Germany.
My knee-jerk reaction to this would be to dismiss any German perspective on what is or isn't "fascist" since their culture seems to have abhored anything remotely nationalist since a certain affair in the 1940s.
The official German position (and actually a very widespread one) is that soldiers are citizens in uniform. No more, no less. No special service, no special merit, no special ethical standing.

Now, the German way of doing things doesn't need to be a good idea for Americans - and it's probably not even a good idea for Germans.
Yet, the Americans seem to be on the end of the spectrum with their habit, and that should raise eyebrows.
Disagree with "the official German position" on the former point and disagree with where exactly America falls on the spectrum on the latter.

In some ways, service members should by definition be less than simply citizens while in uniform. I can't imagine a country being willing to risk the lives of up to millions of its own citizens to accomplish international political objectives. Yet the US and many other countries are willing to do just that with its service members. By joining the military, citizens are subjecting themselves completely to the will of the state. They are tools, means to an end.

If you have questions about whether soldiers should be simply "citizens in uniform," reference Germany's commitment to ISAF. The lives of German soldiers are apparently so valued that the German government refuses to allow them to engage in combat operations. Really helpful in a war.

I think the American reverence of service members is like an apology... like, "Remember when we were willing to sacrifice you for our own gain? Well, sorry about that... here's some college money."

While the coverage of Michael Jackson is by far over-the-top ridiculous, substituting a recently-killed service member would be a disaster. If we humanized our service members to that point, very few Americans could stomach using military forces in "foreign contingency operations" for any reason, regardless of how justified.