DancesWithCamels

I once believed in the indefatigable superiority of American righteousness in matters of war. In fact there was a time when I think most Americans believed in this idea. We believed that we were better armed, tactically unimpeachable, and morally above reproach. We thought we were just.

However, I have begun to wonder if we were ever as pure in motive as we believed. We have always had great slogans and beautiful notions on what the nature of American valor is. We don’t torture, we don’t harm civilians, and we fight for virtuous causes. We freed the world of the stain of Nazism, we stood up to the Stalin’s Communist republic, and we defended ourselves against an unprovoked attack by the theologically inspired zealots of Osama Bin Laden’s rag-tag jihadi army.

Yet maybe the glaring faults of our enemies have merely been convenient moments for us to imagine the nobleness in ourselves. Are we great? Are we noble? I cannot speak to these questions. I do know that whatever the immorality of our enemies we have often found the opportunity to fight. Whether against Indians (Native Americans), the Spanish, or our ourselves, the history of America has been replete with opportunities for young men to die for causes uncertain to the individual, but ostensibly obvious to the masses.

I have never fought in a war, but I know that once any violence begins it becomes quite difficult to see why it all is occurring. The slogans men of arms tell to their family and friends have existed in all times and in all places. We fight for you, we fight for freedom, we fight for our country. Maybe sometimes they are even right, even if they don’t truly know it.

But in this war I cannot help but feel our confidence has gotten the better of us. In this war on terror, as the leaders tell us, we have slid down a slippery slope of arrogance from which we will never be the same. No these are not the battles of Vietnam that left napalm burnt into our consciousness. All wars are specific to there time and place. However we cannot ignore the details that sit before us. Our men in uniform are as scarred as they have ever been.

We are setting records for suicides among combat veterans, completed and attempted, in a war supposedly fought with the laser-guided precision of a smart-bomb. Our men, and women, come back to us whole human beings of mind, body, and spirit only if they have found their way into a position in the armed forces that frees them of the daily toll of combat violence. Some that do see violence aren’t stripped of their humanity, but I imagine those that clean up the charred bodies of civilians after an American missile strike, or have tortured and killed (perhaps to fill the void left by a dead or mutilated comrade) are. Those that stare war in its dirty face are not without scars, repressed or hidden as they may be.

Sometimes these scars are more easily forgettable in a time when society can view a war as just and noble. Certainly the greatest generation can attest to that. They can ignore their scars and bask in the beauty of having defeated fascism. Whatever horrors they saw, or atrocities they may have committed can remain hidden behind a society that loves to recall the decency of their war. Even the peoples of the lands they liberated or conquered genuinely embrace the role of the righteous Americans and forget whatever indiscretions may have happened in the Yankee invasions.

Will our veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan be so lucky? I certainly hope so. Lies can be beautiful, especially in war. Men and women need to feel that what they have sacrificed for matters. We at home need to say to ourselves that our soldiers have honor and their bravery in trying times has value. All people need that whether fighting for god or country.

George Orwell once wrote, in all seriousness, that war is beautiful. Maybe he was right. But I don’t think that he would have said that all war is beautiful. Certain battles are better than others, and certain men are better that others. We cannot simply wrap ourselves in the flag, hang yellow ribbons on our trees, and profess how much we support our soldiers. We cannot refuse to see what has happened in this war. American soldiers no longer feel like heroes.