I was in Japan on Memorial Day-and while I remembered the day in my mind-I also did little in the way of observing it. Certainly did not go to any ceremonies or the like. AFN had a bit about Memorial Services at the respective bases in Japan and ran the usual war movies.
A good number of bloggers ran poignant pieces about the cost in human lives that the nations 200+ year history has taken to maintain. Regardless of when they served, all the veterans interred in our cemeteries sacrificed the comforts of home and absented themselves from the warmth and affection of loved ones. Since 1776, more than 1.5 million Americans have lost their lives while in uniform. Their sacrifices need to be honored, if for no other reason than that it reminds us of our history and the great price that has been paid for all Americans.
However there is a nagging voice of doubt in the back of my head, that points out that much of the words written-while dutiful and laudatory-miss an important point. Namely that the world has failed to keep its part of the bargain these men ( and women) made when they went off to war in the first place. Namely that the world was supposed to improve itself so that their sons and daughters would never have to make the same sacrifice that they had to make.
I find it exceedingly troubling that in our current time-we have pretty much come to accept continuous warfare as a fact of life. For just about all of the 29 years I served on active duty in the Navy-American forces were in combat somewhere in the world. The last decade has seen the armed forces at war for the entire time. The odds are pretty good that they will be fighting for the next decade as well. And there seems to be a begrudging acceptance of this, as the way it was and will ever be.
This is progress?
That was never supposed to be the deal. In two world wars alone-75 million people died world wide. The world was supposed to find a saner way to run the planet. And yet, now after 6000 years of civilization’s history-we still try to solve problems through the clash of arms. This has to change. To paraphrase Herman Wouk:
[These events] stand as a monument to the subhuman stupidity of
warfare in our age of science and industry. War has always been a violent blind man’s bluff played with soldiers lives and nations resources. But the time for it is over. As the race has outgrown human sacrifice, human slavery, and dueling, it has to outgrow war…..The silliness of it all would be slapstick if it were not so
tragic.
The living have failed the dead. They broke the covenant-namely that their sacrifice was supposed to mean something and leave behind a better world for the generations that would follow. If anything, despite all our technology, the world is worse off today.
But what of the advances and the liberated peoples you ask? The liberation only has meaning if it brings material improvements in their lives. In so many places, that simply is not happening-if anything a lot of people are losing ground not gaining it.
If the sacrifices of our Soldiers and Sailors, Airman and Marines is to truly have meaning, we have to show improvements in this world. Not just in our own nation but in the other nations as a whole. That improvement was what they were really fighting for-we dishonor their memory by not taking that aim to heart.
Wouk’s admonition remains germane-Either war is finished, or we are.
Let me urge you again to read Sir john Keegans ‘History of Warfare” and in it he also discusses the varying opinions of why humans wage war etc etc.
When veterans go back to Korea(Vietnam is getting there) they cannot believe their eyes. In 50 years have achieved an economic miracle. As has Japan and in some areas at least China.
Was the cost worth the result?
The world is worse off?
From the 20-40 million dead in Russia in the 1940’s?
From the uncounted millions dead in China?
From the 10 plus million in Germany?
The horrific body count is nowhere near what it WAS.
Of COURSE, every life, with some exceptions,is to be valued and cherished and sacrifices duly noted and honoured, but the world, in general, is less dangerous then it was.
We just THINK its worse because of cognitive bias.
Too much info, too quickly.
you can google Stephen Pinker on this….interesting stats.
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_is_there_peace
By the way, thanks again for your service to our country.
May God bless you and your family.
But there was supposed to be no war and man was to be free to pursue better pursuits.
True the body count is less-but the Americans have had to put up with a steady loss for the last 60 years. We have given our share and then some.
And for every success story like Korea, there are 10 failures like: ( Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, most of africa).
Right, because the mechanism for solving conflict, the UN, is flawed. and countries, like the US, end up defining what is in “their national interest”
The US has done the heavy lifting while the rest of the world, in general, like the feckless Europeans, except the Brits, sit on their hands and do nothing (though Afghanistan has seen more European involvement)
I have thought for a number of years that the UN or NATO needs a robust reaction force, like a MEU. 15,000 troops, self contained, with its own organic air and artillery, to react to a Rwanda, Somalia, Darfur et al.
Its goal would to reduce the violence and allow stabilization and the formation of some sort of civil governance.
Indeed, with Chinas and India surfeit of males, they could easily field such a force.
And the world would be forever grateful (TIC)
‘There will be peace in the world when all men are brothers’
All men will be brothers when they believe in Islam”….
(paraphrase)
Now isn’t THAT a scary thought?
Skiippy, good points but every since Cain slew Abel we have been at war with each other, and I suspect we probably will. Whether it is relgious based or political, one group of humans will all ways be opposed to another. Granted today we just don’t go marching off to war to solve every problem, but I think it is in our human nature that at some point, the “relief valve” needs to lift and fighting needs to occur.
The sacrfices made by our men and women aer great. And like Richard said, if veternas see the changes in the places they were fighting in , it is incredible to see how most of the places have changed, but I think that some of them are probably more upset at how the US has changed. Some for the better and some for the worse.
No matter how people may have thought that US lives that have been lost may have been wasted in some cases, I think those nay sayers should put it in perspective by going to some of the war memorials in places like Perth, Vancouver and other parts of the British Dominion. You see memorials for men from far away places like Australia who gave their lives in places like South Africa and other parts of the Empire, and for what I may ask. At least when the US does go to war, it is for a specfic cause and a threat to our direct national security (at least it should be in practice). I don’t think any of the Boers had plans to launch an attack on Australia or Canada back in 1898.
And see, I think a lot of our recent sacrifices have been very similar to thos e made in the British Empire. Paraphrase your quote ” “from far away places like Des Moines who gave there lives for what, I may ask” Muslims?
That-is probably the worst legacy Bush bequeathed us.
Skippy good points. Those guys in Des Moines gave up their lives in places like Kosovo for Muslims too.
I went back to my ancestrial hometown and as I walked through the graveyard at the family church, I noticed something about the year 1969. I saw 3 tombstones from 3 cousins that my parents knew who were just 20 yrs old, and had been killed in Vietnam. What was so sad about it was the death dates were about a month apart. I remember going to one of them as a wee child and watching my mother cry and looking at the neat men in green uniforms shooting guns in the sky.
What is really sad about their sacrifice was that they were just poor black guys, that the draft board easily picked up to make their quota. There was another white guy who was also up at that time, and he was not a “rich white guy” but he did get a chance to get a great opportunity to go into an ROTC program before being selected for a Rhodes scholarship, and later became Governor of the state and then President of the USA. Yet, when the draft boards were running, poor people like my cousins didn’t get the chance to opt out.
Bush is just another in a long line. My cousins died for the Kennedy, Johnson legacy. I don’t think that blaming the deaths on any one administration will do any good. Decisions were made by people at the time that seemed good. What we can do is honor those who did go fight, whether by choice or by draft and try to keep America going.
We had a deal with the world? We fight and die for them and they improve their material lots in life in return? Missed the small print.