Wednesday, May 18, 2005
"let's remember what it means to send people to war"Another excellent post from A Soldier's Thoughts.
Sgt. Zach discusses the outrageous testimony MP Galloway gave to the
Senate (which if you haven't seen yet, you ought to. You can see it on BBC), and this: 6:43:23 PM | Every day over here in Iraq I get up and put my uniform and body armor
on. I wear the U.S. Flag on my right shoulder next to my combat patch.
I earned the right to wear this uniform and I "earned" that combat
patch during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Each day that goes by it
gets harder to hold my head high while wearing that uniform over here
in Iraq. It gets harder and harder as we learn more of the truth behind
this war. How many died because of these "lies" as Mr. Galloway calls
them. How many have I killed because of them?
It is just plain wrong to go to war unprovoked and without good cause. We don't just ask soldiers (volunteers, no less) to risk their lives for us, we ask them to kill for us too. WE are responsible for what happens to them and what they are forced to do. It is our fault. Here's a quote from one of my favorite Tobias Wolff essays, an op-ed piece from the NY Times in April 2001 where Wolff discusses how two Vietnam vets, former Senator Bob Kerrey and another soldier from Kerrey's unit, Gerhard Klann, could have two disparate versions of the "truth" of an event at Thanh Phong. The men remembered the same incident in dramatically different ways: one saw himself as a hero, the other saw himself as a villain. Wolff discussed the nature of memory, how it is a storyteller and not a tape recorder, and how memory "finds connections between events, suggests cause and effect, makes each of us the central figure in an epic journey toward darkness or light." He goes on: "Nations
have memories, too. And those memories are almost unfailingly
self-serving. If there is to be a correction in memory here, let it be
our own. First, let's remember what it means to send people to war. War
isn't a contest between champions. It isn't even a contest between
armies. War is mostly violence -- economic, emotional, physical --
against civilians.
[...] It puzzles us that a good part of the rest of the world have come to see us as selfish bullies. It contradicts the idea we have of ourselves, and it makes us cross. Not as an exercise in self-loathing, but as a matter of the honesty we demand from others, we need to see our own past with some bravery. It won't be a complete disappointment -- a lot of it is as good as we believe it is. But it will certainly chasten us, and perhaps make us less liable to adventures like the one that left those innocents dead in Thanh Phong, and turned what should have been the beautiful memories of fine young men into a tangle of competing nightmares." And that's the point, isn't it? We do need to remember what it means to send people to war. Right now most people think of "volunteer" soldiers as men and women who "knew what they were getting into," and therefore have no right to complain, question, or ask for proper support. They are paid to do this, the chickenhawks tell us. In this fantasy, soldiers are somehow immune to any feelings about killing too; they are seen as uber-men (always men) who can kill without mercy or question. Or guilt. The lack of armor and supplies (and proper support at home) is egregious enough. But there's nothing less supportive than sending people off to kill for us on a pack of lies. It all makes me so sad. 
|
Last update: 8/24/05; 8:16:44 PM .
