Snug as a Gun: a response to William Arkin

(In response to William Arkin's blog on washingtonpost.com)

Mr. Arkin,

I will proffer no ad hominem tirade against either you or your blogs, as I see such forms of criticism as wholly unproductive and distracting; however, as an Iraq veteran facing a second tour of duty, I must caution you -- from the perspective of one who has disagreed with the war from 1444 and been vocal in both my disapproval and my call for a creative resolution -- against wielding your pen irresponsibly. The temptation to slay our ideological and idiotical enemies is all too easy to succumb to, especially when impassioned, humane, and foreward-thinking ideas are continually met with sloganeering and empty pseudo-nationalism, but such slaying wins no converts.

I might remind you of a quote from Belfast born Seamus Heaney, poet laureate of Ireland, from his poem "Digging":

"Between my finger and my thumb/
the squat pen rests, snug as a gun."

What is it exactly you aimed to do with your pen/gun in your recent blog in which you deftly defeated the decontextualized utterances of several distraught and alienated soldiers?

And, to whom exactly are YOU shipping "obscene amenities"? Someone has been misinforming you as to the quality of the accomodations in the average FOB, but this is not the point. The point is this: even if we were sleeping in clean linens with mints on pillows, we would still be putting our lives on the line day in and day out, we would still be missing our families so badly that our bodies never quite feel whole, we would still be listening to the sounds of exploding mortar shells as we try to reason ourselves to sleep, wondering at the randomness of aimed attacks and their unintended/intended consequences, wondering why we have to drive through the streets of a perplexing foreign country and point weapons at people whom we have never seen nor spoken to, including children. Are you surprised that many troops are not able to put two-and-two together and realize that oftimes it's protest that supports the troops? And if you are not surprised, then why not write a blog explaining to those jaded troops that your protest is born out of your impassioned support for their unfortunate predicament? You are surely not naive; however I find it unfortunate that your powerful gift of writing had to manifest itself in a cynical misunderstanding of several alienated soldiers.

That said: I, for one, accept what I find to be an apologetic response. I am not an immovable sloganeer; I believe that the "flip flop" is an inevitable part of human experience; when in the dialectical nature of interpersonal communication it comes to our attention that we have erred in our thinking or in our attempts to express our thinking, we must take a new tack. I see in this blog that you have done exactly that, and I look forward to reading your future contributions, no matter what subject you choose to treat.