Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

"It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." 

That is, apparently, a good translation for Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori. The line, itself, goes back to the Roman poet, Horace. But for many in the modern age, it comes from an anti-war poem by Wilfred Owen, who wrote the poem to recount a mustard gas attack during World War I but didn't release until after the war was over.

Owen, famously, calls this phrase, "The Old Lie." It is a lie, he says, that it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one's country. Perhaps it is more of a lie today than it ever has been before.

I struggle with this.

I am in awe of veterans and also those who lose their lives in war. I'm in awe that they would willingly offer (no draft today!) to shoot and be shot at for their country. While I can conceptually wrap my brain around it if it seems there is a threat to our own country, to our homeland, to our families, I struggle, mightily, when it appears that the threat is farther removed...when it is someone else who is threatened...when we fight for vengeance...when we fight to "keep the peace." How do we convince young men and women that "it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one's country" in these circumstances?

How do we make "the old lie" into a truth?

How, regardless of the fitting-ness of war, do we celebrate, recognize, and honor the sacrifices of our vetarns?

Can one even call out the lie while, at the same time, supporting our troops and those in harms way?

I leave you with the Owen poem:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

~ Wilfred Owen

It's not my quote.  It's Dwight Eisenhower's.

Image by joykennelly via FlickrPete Wilson asks:

I wonder if I would have been excited if the news had reported that Bin Laden had repented and accepted Christ as I was when I heard he had been killed?

 

Would we have jumped up and down over that?

Image via WikipediaCrowds are gathered in DC and New York tonight, chanting "USA! USA!" upon the death of Osama bin Laden.  It was 2003 when President Bush stood before a big "Mission Accomplished" banner and proclaimed a victory.  However, it seems that tonight the Special Forces really accomplished the mission that started on 9/11 --- get the guy who masterminded the whole thing.

We did it.  We satisfied the "dead" portion of "dead or alive."  And I don't doubt that this will bring some peace of mind to those who lost loved ones on that fateful day 10 years ago...or at least closure for them.

But I don't feel like taking to the streets tonight--chanting and celebrating and waving a flag. Yes we got our man.  But we've spent trillions of dollars on the wars that came after 9/11.  We have thousands of Americans dead from those wars and thousands more injured or disabled.  We have many more Iraqis and Afghans dead.  And we have two countries in shambles with very little opportunity to get out them at this point.  Is this form of "justice" worth it?  Was it worth it to have so many more lives lost?  Was it worth it with the toll this has placed on the men and women of the armed forces and their families?  Was the perceived or real safety Bin Laden's death will bring us worth the cost?  What closure will our country get from this night?

I guess I have trouble with the notion of punitive justice.  Believe me, I understand a desire to "get even" and "get back."  I'm just not sure it really makes anything right.  It doesn't bring back the dead that were lost in the attacks on US soil and I question what kind of wholeness or restoration "an eye for and eye" justice can give us.

That said, I don't feel real bad that Bin Laden's gone.  Perhaps I should.  This is a man that has served as a backdrop for much of my three older kids' lives.  He's been our bogeyman as a nation.  And now he's gone.

But what I do feel bad about is that the cost in human lives and US dollars to "get him" was so great. 

A thank you is due to the men and women in the Armed Forces.  Whether we view the wars as justified or not, these are folks who risk their lives for the ideal of protecting the rest of us.  I can't even begin to understand how they are able to do what they do for us.

Just forgive me for not going out and chanting "USA! USA!  USA!" tonight.

This audio recording shows why Dr. King upset folks.  Against war.  Against economic exploitation.  Against racism.  But for a greater, more equal, and, yes, even prosperous country.  Trying to sanitize him on the day of his remembrance, both political parties wrapping themselves in his words, can fail to realize just how difficult his words can be.

Have a listen.

Be challenged...for the first time or all over again.

Image by The U.S. Army via FlickrPrepare to be disturbed.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have changed how we, as Americans, hear about warfare. Our enemies are undefined.  It's hard knowing who, exactly, the bad guy is at any time.  And it has changed the way we hear about the wars.  It can be hard knowing who on TV is an expert and who is actually someone who has been paid to serve as an analyst to push forward a particular agenda, regardless of the realities.  It has also changed some of the terminology.

For instance, I had never heard of IEDs before. Most of the adult US population would now know this as an "Improvised Explosive Device."  "IED" sounds pretty harmless when we break it down to the initials.  They are not harmless.  This is what the New York Times said about them in October of last year:

Improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, are home-made bombs. Often used by insurgent groups or rebels who wage non-traditional warfare, they can be made from almost any material and are designed to kill or maim.

I.E.D.’s have been around since World War II. The Mujahiden used them in Afghanistan when they fought the Soviets. The Viet Cong used them in Vietnam. They have been the largest killer of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, I.E.D.’s are becoming more common and more sophisticated, say American military officers. Some bombs are made with fertilizer and diesel fuel, but others use mortar shells or old mines that litter the countryside. Some of them are set off when vehicles pass over pressure plates. Others require remote control, like a cellphone. Still others detonate with a button or a wire touched to a battery.