statueman's Blog

You ever want to write something or do something that would change the world for the better?

I was sitting outside getting some fresh air and thinking of all the problems we have in this country with our legal justice system.  Then I thought of how incredibly effective the integration of the Uniformed Military Services are... I thought of some of the wonderful articles on Military History I read while I was working in a training and doctrines command and then I thought of the one thing that stuck in my head as being one of the main reasons why ours is the best military on the face of the earth.  That one reason is that military historians interviewed everyone within the scope of a mission to see what went wrong and what went right.  So the officers could not hide from the observations of mere privates.  No prestige is taken into account... just hard cold overall facts that show how, from top to bottom, to increase operational effectiveness.

Then I got to thinking about those Philly cops who beat those suspects... about that man who spent time in jail and wanted a lying prosecutor to go to jail because he claims the man lied... about the other lawyer who said that no one would want to work in our justice system if that prosecutor is sent to jail.  I got to thinking how wonderful it would be if we approached our justice system the way the military historians approach operational procedures.

It dawned on me that what is legal needs to line up with what is just and that in so many instances we have operational procedures in our legal system that don't allow that.  What if we approached our legal system with blanket amenesty inorder to take a more accurate historical record of what we are doing that is working and what we are doing that is not working?

So that's my psuedo educated theory...  Justice is no easy word to define and illegal may not necessarily mean unjust.   The domestic foot soldiers we have in our police forces need our suppot.  And lately I've been very saddened by the fact that I cannot support the unjust actions of police officers who beat three young men they believed shot and killed one their fellow officers.  But isn't this just the sort of behavior we've come to accept and even expect in this country?  We can make movies about the problem but can't seem to find any solution.  For my part I submit that there is a solution already there that we simply refuse to implement.  And that solution I say with pride can be found in how our own military historians go about the task of improving our war making abitlities.

Remember the movie "Glory"?  It fills me with pride to think of a unit of African American Federal giving their lives for this country... the movie I'm sure filled many people with pride.  We fight for a greater cause in this country.  One of the only sentences I remember from basic training when I was in the Army was when my black captain and company commander said, "Welcome to the United States Army... The most successfully integrated organization on the face of this earth."  And I believe that there is alot to be learned from our Military that would translate well into our legal system to create a more Just and integrated American society where  what is illegal is so because it is unjust.