What We Mean By Support

It’s time for a new meaning of the phrase, “Support the Troops.”

People on TV say that if you don’t support war, it means that you don’t support the soldiers fighting in the war, but the people on TV are lying. They lie because they know that, while an individual war might be unpopular, most people admire soldiers for taking on a low-paying, dangerous job. So the people on TV are trying to create some peer pressure, making it sound like anti-war people also dislike soldiers who fight in wars, so that other people, who haven’t made up their minds about the war in question, will think, “Oh, I don’t want to be like those people who hate our troops. So I guess I better support the war.”

But whether or not you support a war has nothing to do with whether you support or don’t support the troops. Why? Well, let’s look at the definition of the word “support.” It means to bear the burden for, to hold up, to keep from weakening or straining, to argue in favor of. Its synonyms include uphold, back, advocate, and champion.

Now, some people seem to think that they are “supporting” the troops by agreeing with the actions the troops take on the battlefield, but this cannot actually be considered support. The troops didn’t decide to go to war; they might think the war is justified, but it’s not their call. It’s up to the generals and the leaders of the country. If you express your agreement with the actions the troops take, you’re just supporting, in the sense of “arguing in favor of,” the leaders and generals. If you want to support the troops, you have to do other things.

Like what? Well, lots of troops become homeless when they return home from war. About one U.S. citizen in 8 is a veteran, but one homeless U.S. citizen in four is a veteran. No one really knows why so many veterans are homeless. Some of them have combat-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but not a majority; it turns out that two thirds of homeless veterans didn’t serve in a war zone. So, it’s probably one of those intractable societal problems with many and various causes, and it will probably take a lot of hard work to fix. The Department of Veterans Affairs does what it can, but still serves only about 20% of homeless veterans.

No one ever put a bumper sticker on their car telling people to “Support the Homeless.” But, if we take the “Support the Troops” expression literally, that’s what the bumper stickers ought to mean. So, one way of supporting the troops is helping out the old homeless guy who accosts you for change on the street corner. (Only 20% of the general homeless population is men aged 45 or older, but nearly half of all homeless men aged 45 or older are veterans. 2% of homeless veterans are women.)

Another way of supporting the troops would be to alter the tax code so that people of modest means, who are represented disproportionately in the armed forces, paid a lower percentage of their incomes to the government in taxes, and people of greater means paid a higher percentage. But we at the Blasphemy Blog realize that one can only offer so much support at a time.