Marines Fight with Toledo City Government

Something seems seriously wrong with some Toledo citizens' perspective on the relationship between the local civilian government and the national military. And it truly does frighten me.

I don't usually comment on local politics, but here's what's been going on the last several days. The Mayor of Toledo, Carty Finkbeiner, issued an order a few days ago revoking permission for a company of US Marines to conduct training exercises downtown in the business district. I gather that the exercises had been scheduled to take place for a while, and that Mayor Finkbeiner was not aware of it until the morning of that day. Forcing the US Marines company to cancel their exercises on such short notice I'm sure was an inconvenience for them, and perhaps rather discourteous of the city. The Mayor's lack of information regarding the matter prior to the day of (he says he read about the exercises that morning in the local newspaper) seems inexcusable.

However, what frightens me is (1) when and where these exercises were scheduled to take place (which is why the Mayor cancelled them, understandably in my view), and (2) the public's reaction to the Mayor's decision.

The company of Marines had planned to conduct exercises downtown beginning at 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon. The exercises would have continued all weekend. "The exercises were to include mock firefights, ambushes, and the firing of blank ammunition." There is more than one school in that neighborhood. So the exercises would have begun just as students were getting out of school and as school buses were doing their thing. Judging from the fact that the Mayor didn't know about the exercises until he read the paper in the morning, and from my general sense of how few people read the newspaper, I would not have been surprised had the exercises been completely unexpected for the students and the schools. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be leaving school, or driving to the downtown library from our old apartment and into an apparent firefight. Some of the Mayor's defenders have suggested that someone might have had a heart attack when a gun went off. I can think of additional, perhaps worse things that might have happened. Personally I think it was irresponsible for the company of Marines to choose that location and that time to conduct their exercises, and irresponsible for whoever among the Mayor's subordinates gave them permission.

OK, so that's the first scary thing. Here's the second.

The way the local paper told the story at the beginning of the week (Monday, Tuesday, and today), the majority of Toledo citizens (who said anything at all about the matter) called for the Mayor to apologize. Some have even called for him to resign "before he embarrasses the city any further." The City Council has voted, according to today's paper, to issue a formal apology to the commander of the company. Defenders of the Mayor in his office have assured the public that he is loyal to the nation and loyal to the nation's military.

OK. First, why should the city officials have to apologize to the Marines for saying "no" to their request to conduct training exercises downtown? That isn't what downtown Toledo is for. (Nor, in my opinion, should it be!) The city has every right to forbid the Marines to train downtown. Now, I guess I can admit that some apology might be appropriate for the abominable lack of communication. But that really doesn't seem to be the issue for most "support our troops" happy Toledo citizens. They are questioning the Mayor's "loyalty to the military" and his "support of the troops". !!!

The thing is, as I see it, this country is run by civilian governments. What is important is that the military be loyal to those civiliain governments, not the other way around. If the civilian governments tell the military they are not allowed to fight a war, or not allowed to conduct training exercises in civilian space, the military has no right to complain.

The appearance that most vocal Toledo citizens do not see things this way, and expect all good citizens to be loyal supporters of the military frightens me. Our country seems to me to be far too attached to the military as a central feature of our life and identity.
Really this should not surprise me (and doesn't). We have to depend on our military because we have made ourselves dependent on it. Our military force is necessary to protect us from all the enemies we've made (in more than one sense, training and arming them, and giving them no cause to love us). And it is necessary to secure our quality of life by maintaining our international clout.

By trying to make the world afraid of us, we have made ourselves afraid of the world.

As I heard someone say several months ago, fear (terror) has become a part of our national identity. Being afraid is patriotic.

None of this is news. But if we now have to be afraid of our own military in our own cities, this is scarcely an improvement.

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"He Himself is our Peace." (Eph 2)

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