When certain groups want to white-wash ugly character traits such as cowardice, deceitfulness, shiftlessness, immaturity etc., new words must be coined. Does the new word contain its own contradiction? This is irrelevant to the coiners. All that matters is that the coward is “redeemed” somehow or is recast as a figure of empathy/sympathy.
Just for clarity’s sake:
1. Fear does not equal cowardice. It’s what one does in the face of fear that determines whether or not one is a coward.
2. Someone who won’t volunteer for military service isn’t a coward.
3. Draftees who dodge the draft aren’t necessarily cowards. Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War. Did the rich, resourceful then-heavyweight champion run off to Canada? No, he stayed and suffered the consequences of his actions. That’s what adults with backbone do.
4. Military volunteers who later apply for Conscientious Objector Status aren’t necessarily cowards. Applicants, however, must wait for approval. This means that if you are given any orders in the intervening time period, you must follow them. To be blunt, the CO application doesn’t give a guy license to stay home hiding behind his wife's skirts when his unit is shipping out.
Look at it this way: if you volunteered for the military without thinking it through, why is the military supposed to believe that you’ve thought through the decision to apply for CO status?
5. Those volunteers who were willing to bear the consequences of the good aspects about the military, but balk at the bad aspects are most definitely cowards.
Time to grow up, children, and face reality.
(Thanks to James Joyner, whose also got a Beltway Traffic Jam)
