Heroes, Villains, and Victims

Heroes, Villains, and Victims - Foreign Policy Op-Ed by Rosa Brooks.

... the average American knows little about the military and even less about those who serve...

This doesn't stop most of us from forming strong opinions, of course. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of any concrete knowledge, many Americans -- and certainly many in the media -- fall back on comfortable but dangerously distorted myths about those who serve. Lacking examples of human complexity, we turn servicemembers into stock characters in well-worn narratives: the Hero, the Villain, the Victim.

Each stereotype draws on kernels of truth, but each is far more distorting than illuminating. Together, they make it remarkably difficult to have a nuanced or clear-headed national conversation about our military and its role in society...

Read on.