WHEN I WAS A KID, from six years old to teen years, I went to summer camps.
As a six year old, I learned to ride (and care for) horses and shoot a single-shot .22 rifle.
Later, as a teen member of Civil Air Patrol’s (CAP’s) Miami Composite Squadron 2, I went to camp at Eglin AFB in Florida’s panhandle.
AT THE “DUDE RANCH”, our weapons of choice were cap pistols and the “enemy” varied — sometimes “bad guys” (e.g., the Daltons), sometimes guys in the next tent. While “Cowboys and Indians” were popular on radio and tv, I don’t recall — 70-plus years later — that indians ever were the enemy. It would have been more likely that the “enemy” would be Germans or Japanese; this was c 1948 and World War Two was not far removed.
Gatling guns and M-1s
At Elgin AFB, we heard 10-second bursts of “Gatling” guns (currently the GAU-19/B .50 caliber Gatling – see video at https://tinyurl.com/3kaubs43) being test fired on Air Force F-104 fighters.
I vaguely recall firing an M-1 Garand rifle, but any fire arms training was limited and only in passing. We were not trained to be combat soldiers.
As a CAP cadet we wore military style uniforms, but we studied flying-related subjects: weather, navigation, search-and-rescue functions, and two-way radio operation among others. CAP in many ways is similar to Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, or JROTC. No bayonet drills, no bomb making, but lots of close order marching.
- Later, as a 17-year-old enlistee in the Air Force, I fired an M-1 Carbine that had more cosmoline than bullets — the Air Force is not famous for maintaining training rifles.
Bottom line: We were not trained to be soldiers and certainly not shahids (martyrs). We were more likely to hear Gen. Geo. Patton’s famous admonition:
- No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” (https://tinyurl.com/55vaadxc)
than to be encouraged to go gung ho into an unknown situation.
We were not trained as children and teens to volunteer to die for flag or apple pie.
We were trained in schools, from first grade to graduation, to protect ourselves from the “Russians” who were coming. Hiding in a school basement or under a desk (a totally useless exercise in a nuclear attack) were regular drills.
- Later I got to know some contemporaries from the Ukraine. We shared stories that turned out to be basically the same; the only thing that changed was the name of the attacking nation: in the U.S., “the Russians are coming”; in the Ukraine, “the Americans are coming.” It seems most “Russians” wanted to avoid war as much as most Americans.
I probably got more actual survival training in the Cub and Boy Scouts (back when the Boy Scouts were for boys).
Not being trained to die for the flag is not the same as being trained as pacifists. There never was a suggestion that we should dodge the draft (although may of my generation did, some due to conscientious beliefs, and some for other reasons).
In Israel
I have three grandchildren, ages 10 and 6 (twin boys).
None are playing soldier, alhough all know they may have to do their time with the military. Their father did his time, as do most Israelis, male and female.
Despite being forced to repeatedly run to a safe room as mortars were fired from Gaza, the children are not playing “Israelis and Gazans.” Armed with water guns, the victims are brother and sister.
When they go to summer camp, they learn thngs children need to know — how to swim being a primary lesson. Singing and dancing are a big part of camp life, be it day camp or overnight camp.
Learning to die for country is not part of the curriculum.
Golda Meyer (nee Goldie Mabovitch, later Myerson) is famously quoted saying: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Given what the world knows — albeit hates to admit — Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies apparently are not ready to love their own children, instead teaching them to hate Israel and Jews and preparing them to be shadids — martyrs for a senseless cause.
- The PLO/PFLP has numerous times been offered — and refused — opportunities to have another “Palestinian” state. (Jordan is, according to the 1947 partition plan, the “real” Palestinian state and the majority of its population are people who claim to be Palestinians.)
The United Nations, in the form of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East a/k/a UNRWA , allows its facilities to be used to promote hate against Israel and Jews in general.
UNRWA buildings have been used as missile launch sites and UNRWA schools are used as storage areas for war materiel.
UNRWA summer camps are run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to train children to murder Israelis. (https://tinyurl.com/fnvxsy66)
This training is on-going and blatant.
It is not like summer camp in any democracy.
It IS a summer camp that trains children to sacrifice their lives (while their masters hide safely far from the conflict).
It IS a summer camp that trains children to murder others.
It assures that another generation will be raised to hate, will be prepared to die for a senseless cause, a cause that could have been resolved peacefully in 1948.
And the UN looks the other way.
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