Sometimes I encounter something in my morning reading that moves me so profoundly that I just sit there in silence, perhaps struggling to breathe, perhaps, as was the case this morning, with my eyes moist.
J. Kaek Weston was a State Department official in Iraq whose post in the Sunday Review of today’s New York Times is something I strongly urge that you read.
Its beginning paragraph only hints at its power:
IN his Pentagon office, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has a picture of a war memorial in a working-class neighborhood of South Boston, his hometown. Dedicated in 1981, it commemorates local troops killed in Vietnam: 25 young men, several of them friends since childhood, died in combat there. Inscribed at the bottom of the polished black granite surface are the words “If you forget my death, then I died in vain.”
That is because Weston’s connection with Dunford goes back to Iraq, when he as a high-ranking civilian override Dunford, then a Brigadier General, and ordered Marines into Anbar Province to provide protection for a vote in the hopes it would increase participation. One helicopter, with 30 Marines and one Navy Corpsman, crashed, killing all on board.
Weston follows his opening paragraph with several reflections about Memorial Day, from the President placing the ceremonial wreath at Arlington, resting place of over 400,000 who have died in the service of this nation, including those whose remains were never identified, to current day gatherings to remember fallen comrades, postings on social media, and the small local gatherings. I remember in my childhood a parade in Larchmont New York, with various veterans groups, scouting groups and more, always ending near the train station where there were a list of names of those who served during a previous war — now 70, I can no longer remember which war, although I think WWII. Nor can I remember whether it was of all who served or only those who died. I do remember that it was a solemn occasion.
But then we went to our barbecues. Nowadays, many may not even take such a short moment, and will use the occasion to go shopping.
Weston writes
Created after the Civil War, Memorial Day is an odd holiday, at once a solemn commemoration of those killed in war and a day of beach outings and backyard barbecues celebrating the start of summer. Rarely does it serve as a time to reflect on the policies that led to all those deaths.
While in Iraq and Afghanistan, I witnessed military officers and enlisted soldiers, at all ranks, being held accountable for their decisions. I have yet to see that happen with Washington policy makers who, far removed from the battlefields, benefit from our collective amnesia about past military and foreign policy failures.
Before his next paragraph, one sees a photo — it is of the gravesite of one of the Marines on that helicopter, buried next to the grave of his father, outside a small town in Iowa. He then writes
The commander in chief and the senior military brass should leave the manicured grounds of Arlington and visit some of those places where most of America’s war dead are buried: farm towns, immigrant neighborhoods and working-class suburbs. At a time when fewer and fewer of us have any real ties to the military, how better to remind the nation that our troops are not just faceless volunteers, but people who live next door?
That is what Weston has done, having committed himself to visit the burial sites of all 31 who died on that helicopter as a result of his decision to override General Dunford. He has been unable to identify the specific locations of two. There is a map of the all 31, with their names and locations. There are 16 states, with Texas having 6, California 5, and Ohio 4. Two are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
He reflects upon the deaths of others - a great-uncle who “survived” the Battle of the Bulge only to have it haunt the rest of his days, perhaps resulting in a death by suicide; of the thousands upon thousands of Iraqis and Afghans “who have died in our recent wars, a majority of them innocent civilians.”
We are too unconnected with the impact of the policies that cause these deaths.
Yesterday I posted a piece titled But what about the survivors? where I explored the psychological and spiritual damage done to those who do not die in the combat zone, and how irresponsible it is of us not to prepare for that.
Living as I do in Arlington Virginia every year at this time I see the thousands upon thousands of motorcycles arriving for Rolling Thunder, established to maintain awareness of ongoing POW/MIA situations from Vietnam. Many of those are of my generation, the Boomers, people who themselves served in that conflict.
My own service, as I have noted in the past, was during that conflict but strictly stateside, and relatively early in the true cost it imposed, having been discharged before the Tet Offensive, before the weekly lists and pictures of those who had died.
We still had a draft. While some avoided service, far more people were connected to the war, and that perhaps led to the popular resistance to it.
Now in a day of an ‘all-volunteer’ military, there is not as much pushback at the ongoing cost. And perhaps as a result less of a sense of accountability among those whose decisions about policy lead to the deaths about which Weston writes, and the cost to those who participated and yet “survived” as was the subject of my post yesterday.
The penultimate paragraph of this remarkable op ed reads as follows:
That night in Iraq when I heard about the helicopter crash and the 31 servicemen who had died, I was devastated. It was late, but I went out on a run, hoping it would bring some calm. It did not. But a ritual of my own was born. Since returning home, I have learned that the best way to get to know America’s war dead is to put on my running shoes before sunrise and pace along the quiet streets where they lived and loved before fighting and dying in America’s longest wars.
Here I must as a student of history offer a small, but relatively insignificant quibble: as long as our participation in Iraq and Afghanistan are, the official length of the conflict is dwarfed by the 66 years of the Korean War, which officially has never ended. Reflect on that for a moment — we have an agreement to stop fighting, no final conclusion, and the border between the Koreas is the most heavily mined and armed place on the face of the earth.
I was born in 1946. During my lifetime Americans have been in conflict in so many countries that I have lost count — Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos (before we were in Vietnam, the CIA was involved in Laos), Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, Panama, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and dozens and dozens of other cases with special forces operators whose actions are not the subject of publicity or often even of public awareness, and when they die they do not always get the military honors or the recognition, even as their families and friends still mourn and grieve.
the best way to get to know America’s war dead
Is it possible that we as a nation reflect deeply before we add to the total of that population, of America’s war dead?
And perhaps if those making the decision that will add to that total would do as Weston suggests, and go visit, as he has, where they are buried, those leaders will reflect somberly. He writes
These are the places where America’s war dead are best known and still mourned. Not just on Memorial Day, but every day.
Many from my family served in the two World Wars. None were in a combat unit. Some were in combat zones in Europe. None was wounded nor died.
Nowadays we fight wars without front lines, and even those not in combat units can be captured, wounded, killed, suffer the psychological trauma too easily dismissed as PTSD.
Please, what I have excerpted from Weston’s piece will not give you the full impact it can have.
Stop. Be prepared to do nothing but read it straight through.
Here again is the link
As we pause for the appropriate remembrances for Memorial Day, may we as individuals and as a society commit to the notion that while we recognize that we will always add to the total of those whose memories we should honor on this occasion, we solemnly purpose to remember the cost, and NEVER require such commitment casually.
Peace.