Getting Out

First and foremost, I am not getting out because the deployment and operations tempo was too much. I'm not getting out because I couldn't stand going to foreign countries with absolutely miserable weather and even more miserable people. I'm not getting out because the pay's too low or because the sergeants were mean to me or any of that pissy shit. I joined because I was a believer, and I'm leaving because I am not. Not anymore.

I'm getting out because I've realized something. Something important, something crucial, a fundamental flaw in what I was trying to do. I joined the Army to serve my country and defend liberty, but the only means the military force can serve that end is through coercive force (whether it be violence or merely the threat) - and it can only do so in the final extremity. The military cannot protect freedom, it can only - through coercion - create an environment wherein free men might institute a government that safeguards and fosters their natural rights. That oft-repeated and cherished myth that the military fights for your freedom is... just that. It's a myth. It's fallacious. The military can no more create freedom than can that thug on the corner with the pistol (commonly referred to as a 'police officer'). The threat of force does not and cannot make someone free. The only thing we can do is intimidate and kill those who threaten freedoms. Unfortunately, while we pursue those who threaten American liberty with all the eager grace of a hippopotamus, Americans have been steadily losing the struggle for liberty on the home front.

I'm getting out because of Americans. I'm getting out because they are unworthy. I'm getting out because America would rather be coddled, taken care of, looked after, and feel safe than live in the dangerous, risky, real world. I'm getting out of the Army because Americans no longer want to be free men, because the most fervent desire, the secret hope of the majority of this country is that they no longer need suffer the burdens of freedom. I understand - I really do. I understand their cowardice, their complacence, their short-sighted, narrow-minded, desperate and burning need to feel safe in this scary, scary world.

I do, after all, recall being a small child.

I am no longer a child. Neither is anyone in this country with the right to the vote, at least not physically or legally. However, I am neither the parent nor legal guardian of the American people. I will not accept the responsibility of their protection whilst also being beholden to their insane whims. I will not fight for them, will not put my life on the line for their liberties while they vote again and again to put into power those whose sole objective is the subversion of the Constitution, which James Madison wrote to limit the powers of the government, and in so voting they subvert my every endeavor. I will not fight for a country which has betrayed me time and again, and betrayed everything which I have fought for time and again.

I will not.