Certain types of birds are attracted to shiny objects and will brave great danger just to retrieve a coin or brass bauble. People can be the same way.
Some people live under the illusion that combat is a glorious adventure. I am not one of them. I do have one soldier in my unit who has a burning desire to earn his Combat Action Badge. He even preordered some in anticipation of that glorious firefight he knows is coming his way. The CAB is awarded to soldiers who are not in MOSes (military occupational specialities) or “jobs” to civilians which would put them into combat on a regular basis. Infantry troops get CIBs (Combat Infantryman Badge) and REMFs (scroll down to slang terms) get CABs. Both awards, in my opinion, are unnecessary baubles.
I come from the school of thought that says the less combat you get into, the wiser you are. So I’m dubious about people who are gung ho to kill other people, or get into fights, as a general philosophy of life, I tend to think that’s a fairly idiotic approach. I’d like to go through life getting into as little combat as possible.
I was an active duty enlisted marine from 1992-1996. In the Marines, you do some crazy things. But the Marines get some stuff right that the Army should think about. They are slow to hand out ribbons and badges. I don’t like the idea of giving out all kinds of special doodads for doing stuff that is mostly just part of your job. Combat Action Badge you say? Well that’s all fine and dandy, but we are all part of the Uniformed Armed Services of the United States of America. I’d say that the expectation of potential combat is just part of the job. If it happens, you do your best while you’re in the situation and then move on with your day, your week and your life.
For me, being here isn’t about seeing how many times I can engage the enemy. I don’t want glory, or stories I can tell in a bar to impress strangers. I just want to do my job as best I can and then go home and continue my life from the point where it was put on hold. I want to plant some flowers and watch them grow. Combat is sometimes necessary, but I think the Marines get it right by not passing out ribbons and badges like candy. If you go above and beyond, that’s one thing, but merely being exposed to enemy action is not going above and beyond. It’s an accepted risk when you sign up for the job.
It’s an alien way of thinking to me when I see someone preordering little baubles that they think are somehow going to be important in the grand scheme of their life, and maybe someone’s life will be changed for the positive because they have a combat action badge, but I just don’t get it. I admire and respect the guys who get up every day and hunt insurgents, and I don’t want to pretend to be one of them because I don’t face the same daunting daily risks that they do and it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise.
If the above diatribe has any meaningful point, I think it is this – you do not build character by collecting baubles. Saddam’s palaces were filled with glittering garbage that never made up for the fact that he lost his soul early in life. Avoid the shiny things in life, they tend to blind people.