Memorial Day. A day of remembrance. A day to give thanks to those who have laid down their lives to defend our nation. A day to mourn their passing. As we reflect upon how much we owe them…do we think adequately on how we are to repay them, and all others who may follow in their footsteps?
We acknowledge that we owe the fallen a debt of thanks. The question is, do we owe them a debt of
apology? Could their deaths have been
avoided? If so, did we do all we could
with our hard-won rights as citizens to keep them out of needless combat? Did we do all we could to demand that they be
adequately equipped once they were deployed?
Have we done all we could to help them heal and readjust once they were
out of military service? The answer to
all those questions, I believe is, sadly, no.
We live in a free country.
That in itself is a rare and precious birthright that far too many take
for granted. The soldier pays the price
for that. Speaking as the son of a
former Polish freedom fighter and prisoner of war, I feel very grateful, as my father
does, that the United States army was there to help liberate Poland from Nazi
occupation.
Of course, war is very different today that it was during
World War II. The death is the same of
course, but not the rationale. The days
of nation states going to war with legal declarations of hostility, clear lines
and objectives, and decisive surrender followed by armistice are long
gone. Since WWII, it’s been about
limited interference in the internal conflicts of other nations or
regions. (Limited in every sense except
the dying, of course.) Constitutional
requirements of Congressional declaration of war are long-gone, too. As are clear objectives and clear beginnings
or endings. It begins when the President
says it does and ends…who knows when? Today,
in terms of foreign policy, presidents are like kings or despots who can send
our nation’s soldiers to war by royal decree. And, for reasons of politics or personal
gain. That’s not to say our nation often
finds itself on the dark side of history.
The enemies our nation’s warriors have fought have been a pretty nasty
lot. From the despots of North Korea to the
often vicious Viet Cong to the tyrant Saddam Hussein. But, as in any war, the innocent dead far
outnumber the soldiers. And, to topple
one despot may be like kicking over a wasp’s nest that brings far more death
and misery in the chaos that follows.
That doesn’t diminish the noble sacrifice of the American soldier, but
it sure as blazes puts on civilian society the moral burden of justifying what
they died for.
So, as we enter the second decade of our most recent
undeclared, formless, seemingly endless war, the question stands: Have we as citizens of the United States
truly done our duty to honor our nation’s soldiers? More than that, to honor the covenant between
citizen and defender? We acknowledge
that our lives are in their hands, but do we acknowledge that their lives are
in ours? Their job is obviously the more
demanding, but ours is the more complex.
As citizens of a free nation, it is our civic duty to choose our leaders
wisely and yes, to question and debate what those leaders do once they’re in
office. It’s easier not to, of
course. It’s easier to just mind your
own business, wave the flag and blindly follow the guy in office, as long as it’s
someone else who ends up doing the fighting and the dying overseas. After 9/11, we wanted revenge, and didn’t
much care where it came from. We blindly
followed our president then. Didn’t
matter who he was, or even if he knew what he was doing. He was the only leader we had, and like all
politicians, he told us what we wanted, or needed, to hear. And, as always, the soldiers ended up paying
the price. Easy answers, gratifying
slogans and tall promises. And, the
soldier always pays the price. Over ten
years later, the soldier is still paying the price, with no end in sight.
Historians will judge our wars as they always do, with 20/20
hindsight. But, those of us in the here
and now owe it to those in the armed forces to question what our presidents do. As a people, we feel a strong bond of loyalty
to our soldiers, and that’s laudable.
But, the only way we seem able to express that loyalty is through blind
obedience to our presidents, many of whom have never served in armed combat a
day in their lives. Criticism of a
seated president, even an unpopular one, in time of military engagement, is blindly
equated with treason. To support the
troops, we have to support the Commander-in-Chief, right or wrong.
Easy. Simple. Not necessarily a good idea.
If you have some selfish jerk or lunatic in office (and, let’s
face it: We’ve had a few) who orders our
soldiers to march off a cliff, then what is our patriotic duty as
citizens? To get behind the troops and
help push them off that cliff? Or, to
throw obstacles in their path to try to keep them alive? It’s not the soldier’s responsibility to
question the war. It’s ours. Yes, many prefer to say we elect the leader,
the leader leads and the soldier dies.
Those are our assigned roles.
But, we’ve seen leaders leave office in disgrace. We’ve allowed…yes, ALLOWED…leaders to lead us
into wars based on false information. We’ve
swallowed lies packaged in ribbons that read “Mission Accomplished” only to
find ourselves looking on row after row of gravestones and flag-draped coffins
and no more answers to the question “Why?”
Are we even still asking?
At some point, the line between war and peace blurs. The deaths of our service men and women fade
into background static. The idea of war
being not only undeclared and lawless but actually perpetual, as in Orwell’s
1984, seems to have become our new way of life.
The young and the brave continue to march off to war because they feel
it’s right, and the rest of us just toil along at our jobs through one
president after another, barely noticing the death that goes on and on. No end
in sight. New enemies rise from the
ashes of the old, the situation growing worse, not better. A generation has come of age in this
war. Will the day come when no one can
remember not being at war? Some say the
nature of the enemy has changed, and we must change with it. But, are we just digging the hole
deeper? Is anyone bothering to ask?
The drones kill, and kill and kill. The engineers at M.I.T. devise increasingly
sophisticated robotic systems that may someday be used to kill with increasing
efficiency. Will the robot killing
machine someday replace the human soldier?
If so, will war become so easily managed from the relative comfort of a
distant control room that we as a society find absolutely no reason to even
question its existence or try to avoid it?
How does a society know exactly when war ceases to be an occasional instrument
of national survival or necessity, and becomes a way of life?
Today, we honor their memory. But, do we honor the reason they died? Do we even remember?
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