Yesterday, I published a diary “Should we honour service in an unjust war?”
This diary is in response to many of the comments made in that diary; comments that cause a great deal of unease about the state of the American Left today.
So today I am asking: Are active military personnel sacred?
To be precise, are military personnel “entitled to veneration or respect by association with the military or military actions”. Are active military personnel “properly immune from criticism, or censure?”
I began wondering if this was now the accepted thought in the United States after reading the comments to my prior diary. Most of the comments fell along the “just following orders” defense used by the Germans and Japanese at the conclusion of World War II. Many commentators were notably upset and responded emotionally to my statement that, while I respect the service of soldiers who fought unjust wars, I will not honour that service. But the common thread was; military service, regardless of the why’s and wherefore’s of the conflict, deserved – more like HAD TO – be honoured.
True, many did not seem to understand the difference between respect and honour, and focused only on the last portion of my statement, but that does not fully resolve the disquiet and unease these comments created.
To avoid such a misunderstanding here, I will explain the difference:
Respect: All service personnel deserve a thank you, a handshake and the right to return to their civilian lives unmolested. The war itself is to be regarded as a shameful chapter in the Nation’s history.
Honour: Service personnel deserve salutes, parades, memorials and status in recognition of their service. They should be regarded at some level as heroes. The war itself is regarded as proud moment in the Nation’s history to be remembered and celebrated.
I am old enough to remember a time when the Left in America did not accept with a knee-jerk reaction the demand that active military be honoured. There was a time, when the Left criticized not only the wars that were being fought unjustly, but demanded more from those who did the fighting. During the Vietnam War, hundreds of returning veterans threw away the medals they had been awarded during their tour. In May 2012, 50 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan War threw away their medals. In each case, these veterans declared that service in an illegal and immoral war should not be honoured. They felt they had been lied to by their government and showed their disapproval of the war they fought by returning the medals they had won. But the difference in numbers, considering Iraq was far more an unjust war compared to Vietnam is significant.
Somewhere along the way, the Left has been co-opted by the Right and seems to have bought into their carefully crafted propaganda that military personnel are to be above reproach. The demand that military service be treated differently from other forms of national service is an old one. The Right has been exploiting the natural instinct to admire and venerate the warrior as a means of shaping policy and stifling dissent for decades. Have we really forgotten that protestors to the Iraq war were very quickly labelled “traitors” who “didn’t support the troops”? Considering the exact same strategy is being used to counter protests against police brutality; that does come as a surprise.
The change this propaganda made can actually be traced in the popular culture. In 1979, Apocalypse Now showed a nightmarish war that had clearly spun out of control with no one in charge truly understanding what was happening in the jungles they were trying to control. The death and destruction was pointless and ineffective. By 1985, John Rambo was mumbling “do we get to win this time” as he headed back to Vietnam to kill commies. In 1987 the movie Hamburger Hill repeats all of the Right Wing memes about liberal media, Robert Kennedy and the soldiers on the front being stabbed in the back by the civilians at home. In 1988, Dan Quayle’s wife was able to declare at the GOP Convention that “not all of us [from the 1960’s] burned the flag or protested the war”. The “stab in the back” myth for loss of the Vietnam war has now become a mantra that many on the Left appear to accept.
It has to be asked that if the military is sacred, if they are above reproach, then how do you effectively protest an unjust war that they are called upon to fight? How can you condemn an unjust conflict while honouring the service of those who fight it? Simply put, you can’t. If I honour the service in Iraq, not just respecting the service of the person who did the fighting, then I am in fact saying the cause was just and the fight was necessary. If I can do that, then there is no such thing as an illegal or immoral war.
The fact is, military personnel are not sacred, special, unique or superheroes. They are regular people who enlisted for various reasons (some noble some not), who do not get to check their humanity at the door when they put on a uniform. Military service does not automatically have to be “honoured” regardless of the conflict. The German Wehrmacht trooper, the Imperial Japanese grunt, and Southern enlistee of the Civil War, may be respected for serving their nation, but that service must not be honoured, memorialized or idealized. They were fighting for the wrong side in an immoral war. Their wars were shameful chapters in their nation’s history which still have yet to be forgiven.
This is not a new or personal idea. When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was being built in Washington, the design that won was one that deliberately showed no signs of honouring service in Vietnam. It simply noted the dead and in its way provided the most fitting commentary on the futility and waste of that war. Even then, the memorial was controversial; with many feeling no memorial should ever be built recognizing service in Vietnam.
Someday a memorial will be built for Iraq. If the Right is in power on that day, it will be full of jingoism, military imagery and extolling the rightness of the cause. Any criticism of this memorial will be met by cries of “not supporting the troops” and “dishonouring their service”. I hope what remains of the Left on that day is not cowed into silence but speaks out against it loudly and forcefully.
Iraq was an unjust and immoral war and a shameful chapter in America’s history. I respect the unfortunates who were forced to fight it, but I cannot honour their service in that conflict.
I won’t have an opportunity to respond to comments so please do not mistake this for a hit and run diary. I will read the comments when I get the chance.