Several days ago, I received an email from a former miltary man who supports our government’s intentions to go to war. I’m assuming that he sent out a blanket email to everyone he found on the internet who participated in yesterday’s Anti-War Virtual March. I don’t think he got many responses, but he did get one from me. And then the dialogue began.
His statements to me were polite, sincere, and well-articulated. The bottom line, though, is that we disagree, and we especially disagree about the necessity to question authority.
His most recent email, which linked to an article about teachers in Maine upsetting children of military personnel who might be soon shipped out to Iraq, also included this:
As my son prepares to go to war in the national guard as a helicopter pilot, I read your prose and remember the invective that spewed forth from the mouths of protesters during Viet Nam. Those protesters that ran to Canada, exercised their deferments in college or wrangled other ways to beat the draft. While the common soldier took the brunt of their abuse on their backs, truly innocent of all charges, most doing only what they were told as their responsibility as a citizen.
As I stood before the memorials near the reflection pools in Washington DC, I remembered my fallen comrades. I walked among the field of white headstones of the many who are memorialized in Arlington, I learned to appreciate the magnitude of their sacrifice. I laid in the bunker ducking the bullets and rockets overhead, I longed for the warmth and comfort of the bosom of my family. Today I send my son to war, I pray for his safe return, I remember all those who went before, I gladly walk by his side with pride, I do not relish, celebrate, or desire war, But I realize that there are times when it is necessary to right the wrongs and protect those that can not do it themselves.
This is how I responded:
We need to teach kids to hate war but not the warriors. I think that anyone who is not sensitive to the fear of a child about losing a parent to war needs immediate instruction on how to be a compassionate human being.
My belief is that the last few times, we have not gone to war to protect the innocents; we have gone to war to protect oil and other political and greed motivated interests. And this time we are going to war for the same kinds of reasons. The best way to convert other countries to democracy is to model the kind of free, open, peaceful, and democratic government that we want them to emulate. (And we are falling farther and farther away from that ideal under our current political leadership.) Physical force is never an effective way to convince anyone of anything. Children learn by watching what we do, not what we say. The world is watching us.
To defend one’s family, one’s city, one’s country is noble. But that’s not what we’re asking our soldiers to do. We are asking them to invade and destroy someone else’s country. We are asking them to massacre (collateral) innocents We are making our sons and daughters victims of the greed and manipulations of this country’s immoral leaders. Again.
It takes courage to fight and die for what you believe in. It also takes courage to live and speak out according to one’s pacifist beliefs.
It has been said that you can’t have Good without Evil.
Peace and War. Life and Death. Perhaps dualities are unavoidable in the eternal human struggle. But it seems to me that it is always better to come down on the side of Life/Peace, rather than Death/War.