Wert’s Werds: Some people need to shut the hell up

Those who have followed my columns in other publications know I’m pretty lenient when it comes to someone’s political views. I’ve often said as long as you can build a factual, coherent reason for your position, then I don’t care what you believe. However, ignorance being treated as legitimate contributions to our social debate and even celebrated by pockets of people because it’s “their side” is just starting to get beyond the absurd.

We have a group of people, more than just a handful, who have reached the point they need to be put into their place. They need to be told a four-word phrase which I had to change for this column because the Globe is a family newspaper and I cannot use the original four-letter word I wanted to use for this column. So, here’s what I want some of you to read:

SHUT THE HELL UP.

Who needs to hear this phrase?

The ones who are telling our sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln and other soldiers on the front lines around the world they need to “toughen up” and use very derogatory and sexist terms to insult troops complaining about poor quality food and conditions who haven’t spent one day in uniform. The ones making their social media posts and videos saying in very colorful terms the soldiers need to “man up” and not complain about a meal which has nothing more than a hamburger patty and a cup of rice. 

One of the worst I’ve seen was a video sent to me by a friend who served two tours in Desert Storm. It was a video of a guy sitting in his car wearing his American flag gear saying our troops need to “stop being [slang term for a woman’s body part] and do their [profanity] jobs.” 

My pal looked up the person who posted it.

This video opinionator never served a day in the military. They had zero knowledge of what it would be like to be on a ship off the Iranian coast or what it meant to serve in any kind of forward position in service to our nation. The guy’s military experience, according to my friend, seemed to be a few videos he posted of playing Call of Duty.

So, dude, and those like you, seriously, shut the hell up.

The men and women serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Space Force deserve a hell of a lot more respect than some keyboard jockey getting off his X-Box to say they need to “suck it up.” The members of our National Guard as well deserve to be treated with respect and deference to their experience from those of us who haven’t served a day in uniform. 

That’s how I can write this and tell those running down our troops to shut the hell up. I’ve never been in the armed forces, so there’s no way I can know what it’s like to spend 250 days in a row at sea in a combat area. I can’t say what it was like for our troops in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else in the world. Those of us who haven’t served, when we hear of a large number of troops or their families bringing up what seems to be a real problem, should defer to those who are living the situation or who have lived it and support them in finding a solution.

Am I saying you can’t have an opinion about military issues in general? No. For example, as a layman, I will say I think our troops deserve meals that don’t look smaller and less edible than what kids get in an elementary school cafeteria. I can also believe combat conditions can deteriorate supply lines and shortages can happen. But I don’t know for sure, because I’ve never worn a uniform in a foreign front, so I have zero grounds to tell someone serving in the middle east to “suck it up” if they’re going hungry. 

If someone is a veteran, a combat soldier, someone who served in a forward position and they want to tell current troops to suck it up, then I have no issue. Those veterans have more than earned the right to speak through their own sweat, blood and sacrifice. They certainly would know what they were talking about regarding this issue and I would want to hear their view. But a Call of Duty hero who’s been sucking down a chili dogs outside the Tastee Freeze with his buddies while these men and women are putting their lives on the line needs to just keep their mouth shut on this issue.

Or, perhaps if you know so much, go enlist and show us all how it’s done.